Quick Look: Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark

I was pretty into that War for Cybertron game, but it wasn't because of the gameplay mechanics. The fact they really haven't tried to improve them since that first installment really bugs me about this franchise, because I am both as into Transformers as Jeff and not quite as dogmatic. But while we're on the subject, while do the transformers still have future car designs in a game set on Earth? Shouldn't they be looking like real cars and jets?

This game seriously needs a Changeformer with a pirate accent just so I can hear it say Darrk Sparrk.

durkspurk

Good on them for spending the effort to make loading and restarting extremely fast. It almost fooled me into thinking it wasn't UE3 - not that the engine doesn't support streaming and custom state management, but just that most developers are lazy. It's the kind of polish that should be more prevalent than it is.

That's... all I got. It seems the critical flaw is that they're following the movie plots instead of being able to make everything bigger and more ridiculous. At this point, you should be fighting on huge guys who are also fighting, and you shift between both scales as the battle progresses, and at the end you kill the dude by punching him with an entire planet... and that's the first level; it gets bigger from there. That's the kind of progression I was expecting from the little I saw of the High Moon Studios games. Nobody cares about the movies and their human hairshirts that keep the scale at our level and waste our time with nonsense and uncool voices. Getting rid of them was one of the reasons why Beast Wars was the best Transformers has ever been.

Changeformers, Activision is now making games based on The Asylum knock off movies.

This is the darkest of sparks.

Say hi to your mom for me.

This really didn't need to be 46 minutes. Oh my god this looks so bad.

This looks like a fucking PS2 game...

DARK SPARK

Fuck this game, if it's not High Moon I don't care

I kinda was thinking that too. Incredibly plain looking. I haven't kept up with the Transformers games, but could it be that they're still releasing Wii versions of these, and made all assets to work on that limited hardware, and then just putting some extra shaders on top of it for the slightly more powerful last and current gen consoles?

I really like Edge of Reality's logo though. Extremely 90's, in a pretty good way.

I really liked the High Moon games.

Yay more @jeff shitting all over anything that isn't G1. Geewunners are so annoying. I rewatched the original cartoon a few years ago and aside from the 1986 movie and some select episodes it is not good and does not hold up. Now if you want to talk about the old Marvel and Marvel UK comics then I'll listen to you.

Yep! Noticed that immediately. I love when games come off like they were developed by people who've never been to this planet, but rather have only seen pictures of all the individual objects in their games separately. "This is looking like a taxi car, that is equal of size as train cars, right?"

I have absolutely no attachment to the Transformers series (didn't watch it as a kid), but didn't the robots in that show have human looking faces too? I'm not sure I understand that argument against these current versions of Transformers. Though I do kind of agree on them all looking pretty similar.

Regardless of the design of the robots, this just looks like a bad video game.

The whole "change form" thing sums this game up nicely.

Change form and sally onward!

Myst for Life! :D

@gbrading: In the past, talking with people who don't like Myst has led to me discovering a pattern. Most of them didn't read any of the library or found books in the world. So for them, Myst was a lifeless, story-less game that had puzzles that made no sense unless you used the lighthouse. I think that is the main reason many people have issues with it.

This is also probably why Cyan started having more live characters in the future games, so they could relay the story visually rather than through books.

Man, writing all of this up just reminds me how much I wish Uru was still in development.

@bionicspark: they literally should go into immediate robo-mortis when you knock them out. or transform into a coffin.

More like "Dork Spork" amirite?

Alterestaters! Mechs incognito.

@bunkerbuster05: All 4 movies are 4 of the worst films ever made.

@brad

Oh god.

Bah, I'll play it. Why not.

DORK SPORK!

CHANGEFORMERS, MORE THAN WHAT IS READILY APPARENT TO AN UNTRAINED OBSERVER!

You know Transformers and Transmorphers are in a collision course with each other in lightspeed that would create singularity, right?

Marky Mark and the Dark Spark

This game looks like cold moist garbage. An order below the hot steaming variety of trash.

this game looks like it borrows heavily from the last high moon game in terms of UI but it has none of those games personality

They all look like creepy robot cadavers.

Surprised that Michael Bay & this game hasn't done the the transformers just going through shooting go-bots, ninja turtles, street sharks & all the rest to just screw everyone's enjoyment over revisiting franchises from the 1980s-1990s cartoons. Great quick look & while I did enjoy the first two games mainly due to High Moon, this looks average Activision in a might be good on a weekend for a rental if nothing else is really good at the moment, but not that great.

Though I'd probably be more happy playing this than watching the films.