Review by: Tony Mitera

Considering its status as a movie game, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a surprise. Though the game follows the movie’s overall plot arch it throws nameless Autobots and Decepticons at you to fight with at every turn, usually in groups of three or more to keep you on your toes. Thankfully the combat is suitably fast-paced barring a few noteworthy rough edges. Though the Transformers franchise has had a few black eyes as of late, Revenge of the Fallen is more than serviceable.

At the beginning of the game you must choose a side: Autobots or the Decepticons. Each of their campaigns follow the same order of missions and locations, though with differing objectives—either saving the day or ruining it thoroughly. Each side has five playable Transformers to choose from, though for most missions you can only pick from one or two of them your first time through. Once a mission set has been completed or other criteria have been met you can unlock all of the selectable characters for that location so that you may improve upon your time or score.

You see, one reason that Revenge of the Fallen has such high intensity pacing is because of the timer that is constantly ticking on your screen. Completing a mission quickly nets you a platinum medal, with slower attempts giving out gold, silver, and bronze. Thus the game can at times feel something similar to The Club in that scoring the highest is often a matter of really ripping through a level and leaving a trail of skidmarks and robot parts in your wake. There is a point to going through the hassle, as performing better gives you increasingly higher gains of energon, which is used as currency to upgrade various aspects of your side such as how long you can fire before you weapons overheat or how much health you have.

Combat forms the majority of the gameplay, and while it is overall a solid showing it does have its pitfalls. Though you can use melee attacks they do less damage in the long run as compared to your other weapons, and since you can’t really move and attack at the same time it leaves you vulnerable to getting shot at yourself. The ranged weapons a Transformer has varies, but every one of them has a primary attack, a secondary attack, and a special ability. The attacks range from flamethrowers and missile pods to grenade launchers and sniper rifles, but the special ability is a grab bag of self-heals, massive cannons, and the ability to deploy sentry guns as additional firepower. What is more important is that these attacks and abilities all serve distinctly different purposes, and often the selection of which character to play as can boil down to both the mission at hand as well as which weapons you are the most adept with.