Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

When I was young, my mom decided it would probably be a good investment to buy my sister and I a computer. When she asked me what kind of computer I wanted, the choice was obvious to me... a Commodore 64. Why? Because the Commodore 64 had a Transformers game. I never did end up getting a Commodore 64 or that Transformers game, instead I got an IBM compatible (probably a wise decision on my mom's part). But what boggles my mind is the fact that, in spite of my mutual love of Transformers and videogames, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the first Transformers game I've ever played.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, like most games based on movies, follows the plot of the movie its based on... but since the movie its based on is a Michael Bay summer blockbuster, the plot is a little thin. The gameplay mostly takes the form of a top down shooter, a la Smash TV. You battle your way through the various levels against the Decepticons or Autobots and the military, collecting power ups of various effects along the way. I say "mostly" a top down shooter because there is a level where you take control of a Transformer in its vehicle form and gameplay turns into more of a Spy Hunter clone. I'm scratching my head at why only one level is done this way. The level is a nice change of pace, but why go to the effort to create something so radically different from the other levels in the game if you're only going to use it for one level?

96% of the gameplay is the arcade style Smash TV clone and again the PSP shows it's one major design flaw again with the lack of a second analog stick. Instead of using one stick to move and the other to shoot (like Smash TV) you use the analog stick to move, the square button to fire your primary weapon and the shoulder buttons to rotate your character. You can also fire a secondary weapon using the triangle button, melee using the circle button and dodge using the X button. For the most part the controls work fine... you may not be able to turn as fast as you'd like, but that's just part of the challenge. Really where the controls break down is the secondary weapon. While firing the primary weapon, you become locked in whatever direction you're facing unless you hit the shoulder buttons. Not so with the secondary weapon. You will always fire your secondary weapon in the direction that the analog stick is facing. It may sound like a minor flaw, but considering how frantic some of the levels get, it's a flaw that gets very annoying very fast.

You do get to choose one of two campaigns, either Autobot (good) or Decepticon (evil), but it barely matters which campaign you choose to complete since the levels consist of the same thing over and over again. You also get your choice of which Transformer to play through the levels with and each of them handle slightly different but for the most part it's not enough to effect how you play the game.

Probably the coolest part of the game are the unlockables. As you progress through the levels, you gain medals depending on how many points you acquire. There are three levels of medals, bronze, silver and gold, and the more gold meals you earn, the more rewards you unlock. At first you unlock things like original and concept art, but then you start unlocking full episodes of the original cartoon! Sure, the PSP probably isn't the best venue to watch the cartoons on and you don't get to control the video (pause, fast forward, rewind) like you'd be used to on dvd but it's still cool that the episodes were included as rewards for playing the game.

The other nice thing about Revenge of the Fallen is the voice talent. Not only do you get to hear Shia LeBouf and Megan Fox reprising (read: phoning it in) their roles from the movie but you get most of the Transformer's voice actors as well. With one noticeable exception, Megatron is voiced by Frank Welker, the voice from the original 1984 cartoon.

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