It’s funny how things work out.
We recently reviewed Transformers Prime, which is a decent game.
And we just reviewed Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron, which is a really good game.
So when this game showed up on my desk, I still had the taste of fun Transformers games
lingering in my mouth like garlic after pizza.
So I expected good things and tasty burps.
All I got was freaking heartburn.
Released in 2009 to coincide with the movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen doesn’t
do a whole lot you haven’t seen before.
It’s basically a standard third-person brawler, only because you play as Transformers, the
fighting is actually split up by a couple different segments...so flying, shooting,
what have you.
Now, you don’t actually get to choose which side to play as, which you could do in the
PS3 and 360 versions of this game.
Instead, each stage gives you a specific character and you go from there.
The weird thing is...it’s like, you’re playing as Bumblebee one minute, then you’re
shooting Bumblebee the next.
I mean...it’s like you’re some robot traitor.
And obviously, that could actually be interesting.
But holy crap, that’s not the case with Revenge of the Fallen.
For starters, the game was actually ported to the PlayStation 2.
That means it’s a game that doesn’t even remotely push the Wii’s hardware, because
it also had to run on a less powerful system.
And that means...blurry, low-poly, outdated graphics.
Sadly, that was the case with a lot of non-Nintendo Wii games.
That still makes me sad.
Games like this could’ve been awesome on Wii.
And the controls aren’t much better.
I mean, aiming does benefit from the pointer, so shooting feels great.
But everything else is a clunky mess.
The combat is dull, and you can’t even freely transform.
I mean...if you’re a serious Transformers fan who wants to blow up some Decepticons
on Wii, this at least lets you do that.
But really, a game like the newer Transformers Prime does it a lot better.
The
Wii had this unfortunate greenhouse effect where it was, like...third-party games were
usually bad, so people didn’t buy third-party games.
And third parties didn’t publish good Wii games because people didn’t buy third-party
Wii games.
So it was this vicious cycle that ultimately led to games like Transformers: Revenge of
the Fallen.
A mediocre game to which only Transformers collectors need apply.