Megatron's dead, the Autobots have won and Shia LaBeouf got it on with Megan Fox. The world is awesome. Until!
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the predictable movie-based game coming from Activision. The first movie's tie-in game was pretty mediocre, averaging around 50-60% on GameRankings, so the hope is that Activision will pick up the pace for the sequel. They've brought in a new developer, Luxoflux, which made a name for itself as the minds behind Vigilante 8, True Crime and the surprisingly not terrible Kung Fu Panda game. The hope is that they'll bring this expertise to Revenge of the Fallen, and based on a brief run-through of the game, it certainly looks improved over the title from two years ago.
Predictably the game features events and characters from the movie. Peter Cullen provides the voice of Optimus, Shia LaBouf offers up the voice and likeness of Sam Witwicky and a handful of other characters from the film also appear.
A major shift from the first game, though, is that you'll have many more choices as you march through the campaign. You'll start by picking the Decepticon or Autobot campaign, but for every mission you'll be able to pick from a squad of your chosen faction. So, for example, you can play through the first mission in the game as Sideways (the evil Audi A8 Transformer), or you can play it as Starscream if you'd rather fly instead of drive. There are a couple of missions where you're limited to picking only flying Transformers, but even in those cases you'll always have a selection of flyers to pick from.
As you progress through the game you'll also earn Team Upgrades, which allow you to reduce the cool down on weapons, increase damage dealing capabilities, so on and so forth. It's a light RPG element, but it does give you more customization options than the first game had.
The coolest new bit, though, is the revamped transformation system. You can transform from vehicle to robot and back on the fly, meaning you could hit a ramp, fly in the air, transform in mid aid and slam down with a giant ground pound. It's much more consistent with how the movie handles transformations and allows you to fluidly move about the world like a giant robotic cat.
We haven't gone hands-on with the game just yet, but Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen certainly looks like a fun romp and has definitely improved over the original. We'll have more on the game as it nears release, right around the same time as the movie.
