Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Autobots Edition (DS) Review

Posted by Adam Larck on 07.20.2009

How does one of the DS versions of the summer blockbuster movie fare in review? 411’s Adam Larck gives you his opinion inside.



Title: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Autobots Edition
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Genre: Action
Players: 1 (1-4 over Nintendo Wi-Fi)
Rated: E 10+ (Everyone 10 and up)

Like the 2007 release of Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the Nintendo DS comes in two versions: Autobots and Decepticons. I’ll be writing this review over the Autobots versions of the game. The game sounds great in theory: robots transforming with lots of combat. Does it follow through on this premise, though?

Gameplay

The game actually starts you off controlling Optimus Prime through its tutorial level, where it teaches you how to shoot, melee, etc. It’s a nice start to the game by letting you control someone you know. Soon, however, you’ll make your own Autobot that comes to Earth to help. After naming him, you soon get introduced to the scan function by scanning three vehicles and choosing one to be (light, medium, heavy).

The scan feature is one of three features used by the touch screen, the other two being switching between your two guns and radar. You have to tap the scan button, which then turns your screen lightish red. I think it’s supposed to mimic a first-person view through the Autobot, yet you still sit in an over the shoulder third-person viewpoint. After touching the scan button, you have to then hold the L trigger to scan the object. You use the scan to scan object objectives, along with collectibles that give your Autobot different things to equip and enhance skills. I know the game was trying to get use out of the touch screen, but this scan feature could have easily have been done by just using the R trigger, which gets unused in the game.

Anyways, after you get through the training level, the game explains the overview screen, where you have to beat a few missions in order, before having to beat challenge missions, then beating a mission where you actually fight a Decepticon before moving on. This is one of the only games I’ve seen where you’re forced to beat the challenge missions before moving on. The challenge missions do get annoying, and are just the same areas you were in before, but are normally pretty easy to progress through.

The missions are generic and repetitive. You normally have to kill everything on screen, while trying to accomplish some other thing at the same time, such as saving hostages or disarming bombs. There were two main things about the missions that annoyed me: escort missions and timed missions.

The escort missions made me quit playing for a few days out of anger. You’re tasked with defending some under-armored vehicle that normally wants to drive in to the heart of enemy fire with no way to defend itself. Two things normally occurred with me. The thing would get blown up like a firework, or I would get obliterated trying to defend the damn thing. If the Transformers are supposed to be an advanced race and working with the military in this game, why could these little vehicles not have some kind of defense system on them?

The timed missions are normally just as annoying. There are a few missions that actually give you enough time to accomplish what you need to do before you move on, but I ran into a substantial amount of missions where you would barely have enough time to accomplish the first part of a mission, than use the last five or so seconds to get halfway across the map to start the second part. Apparently, a bit more time was too much to ask for.

Eventually, a few flying missions will be played. They offered a nice change, but were few and far between. You can transform while flying, but you immediately transform back. Enemies can lock on to you when you’re flying, but you can easily outrun the lock on. These missions were among my favorite in the game, just to get a change from the rest of the game.

Another problem I had with the game was the controls, both as a robot and vehicle. Obviously, you can transform in this game, but the only use I found for this was to get to point A to point B somewhat quicker. I say somewhat because trying to turn and drive in a straight line is apparently difficult for an Autobot. I’d notice when I was driving my car always wanted to stray to the right. I tried different systems, and had different people play it, but the result was always the same. It was much the same problem when transformed and walking. The Autobots just serve left and right, like someone put alcohol in their gas tank.

Also, to shoot you have to first lock on to an enemy and then use the melee button to shoot. Even if you’re right next to them, if you’re locked on, you’ll shoot. I actually didn’t have a problem with this, as the easiest way I found to get through this game was jumping and shooting to kill everything. The problem I had with this is that the lock on is the only way to keep the camera actually focused on you and the action. You can’t center the camera except by hitting the lock on button, and you will need to do this often due to the bad camera angles that often happen.

The last thing I want to touch on here are the enemies. They all drop Energon, which you can use to upgrade your skills between each level. I normally just dumped mine into marksmanship, health and durability. My problem with the enemies, though, is that they are generic. I fought hundreds of the same little turrets, or general Decepticon that fire some kind of weapon at you. The only time you actually fight a Decepticon with a name is during the boss fights. Even these are normally lesser known Decepticons early on. The boss battles are repetitive as well. You fight them for a bit, before they hide behind a shield and call for support. You then kill a few enemies before finding some way to hit them. You repeat this a few times, then they die and you move on.

Graphics

I’ll be honest, I did not come into this game expected great graphics. However, I did come into it expected to see better graphics than Game Boy Advanced games. The graphics were very blocky. Buildings seemed to have no textures added to them. This was the same for the environments you go through as well.

While I’m on the subject of environments, there really is not anything that is distinguishing. You move between the different continents, but I really could not tell much of a difference between one area to another, such as Europe and Asia. The overview map of the world is also a bit strange. Nothing is colored in. It’s all a black background, with wire-framed continents. Would giving a bit of detail to the map be that much harder?

As far as the Transformers go, I really couldn’t tell who they were supposed to be most of the time. I know they were humanoid figures and that their coloring normally gave it away, but the mechanical detail of their bodies made them seem jumbled. I could tell where Ironhide’s head was, but his body seemed like a jumbled mess. Optimus Prime looked a bit better, but it was mainly due to him being that much bigger and having more space to work with in designing him.

Their car forms were blocky as well (at least it kept with the environmental feel). My main character seemed like a few smaller squares attached to a larger square. A bit more polish here could have done wonders for the game.

Sound

The sound was very average in the game. It wasn’t good, but it also has not been the worse that I’ve ever heard. Most of the Autobots have voices during pre-mission banter, even your own character, and it doesn’t sound bad. You can normally place voices to the different Autobots, and the pictures besides the text help. But, can I ask one question. When in the movie did Bumblebee have an actual voice? I thought he talked through the radio. In the game, however, he has his own fully functioning voice. A bit of continuity here would have been great.

The music also isn’t bad. The intro screen seems like some kind of generic heroic music. It would have been nice to have heard the Transformers theme here, something that fans are familiar with. The music in game is also ok, but nothing about it is really memorable.

Sound effects in game, though, were not the best. Gunfire was just “blips” as they came out of your gun, and the melee sounds were not much better. They get the point across of what’s going on, but really do nothing to add to the game.

Lasting Appeal

This is basically one of those games that you’ll play for a day or two and then forget about it. The campaign is fairly short, only having a handful of missions on each continent with a few challenges as well. You can scan objects during your play-through for extra items to equip as well, but you can get most of that through your first time playing.

For people that don’t get enough of the fighting through the campaign, there is a four player versus mode through a local wireless connection where you can take on owners of either version in combat using your own character. There really isn’t much more to say about the mode, as it’s the same as the game, just fighting human opponents instead of computers.

Online, there is a Battle for Earth mode that offers missions to play where the objective is to get the best ranking. the mode uses items already in the game, and doesn't offer any true player vs. player action. It's more of a competition to see who can get the best time between the two games.

Fun Factor

I really wanted to have fun playing as a Transformer. I enjoyed the Xbox 360 version in 2007, and wanted to do the same here. However, thanks to the unresponsive controls, generic gameplay and shoddy graphics, I lost all thoughts of that fun quickly.

The flying missions were a bit of a nice change and fun to just fly around in for a bit, but that too lost all enjoyment after about 30 seconds when the mission kicked in. The other missions just got annoying with the escort missions and time limits that barely gave you enough time to finish the mission.

The 411

It seems that the Fallen had their revenge, in this video game. Everything here is generic at best. While the movie is good, this game can be looked over. I know many people probably got this game due to the blockbuster title attached to the name, but this game does not hold up compared to other titles on the DS.

Graphics	4.0	You can distinguish everything in the game, but the graphics just look very block and unpolished.
Gameplay	4.5	It’s a very generic action game, with most of it being seen before in one game or another. The controls are bad, and repetitive enemies and missions are aplenty.
Sound	5.0	The voices aren’t bad in the game, and the music is decent. The action could be muted and it would be fine, but the sound that is there is passable.
Lasting Appeal	4.5	There’s a multiplayer, like I said, but this game won’t hold your attention long enough to even try it. Even if you do, don’t expect anything different here.
Fun Factor	4.0	The fun of playing as a Transformer left quickly and got replaced by boredom and annoyance.
Overall	4.4   [ Poor ]

Screenshots
All 5 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen DS Screenshots