The game looks cool, but I am the wrong age to "get" Transformers. I'm too young to a seen the 80s show and too old to care about the later shows. I was a DBZ and Pokemon kid. I know... I know...
I feel many people are judging this game for what it is not; that it isn't like or as good as previous titles in the series in your mind, does not comment on its actual quality as a video game.
If you think it's shit, you think it's shit. But if your reasoning is based largely or solely upon it being unlike the previous titles, or changing things from the previous titles, you dun fucked up.
When they use the name of the previous games and number it as the fifth one than yes people are more than welcome to compare and judge the game based on the ones that came before it. But I think even if it was not the same and it's just a skateboard game you judge it against other games of its kind. I don't go in every game I play and forget all the games that came before it...that is not how any form of entertainment works.
But when you speak of what it isn't, you don't speak of what it is. A pencil is not shit because it's not a car. Grand Theft Auto III was not a bad game because it was no longer top down. Mass Effect 2 is not a bad game because it gutted the already minimal RPG mechanics.
Of course anyone is welcome to dislike anything they want and this is a forum they can use to say as much. I'm simply pointing out the error in criticizing what something isn't in place of criticism for what it is.
EDIT
This actually happens a lot in music, where an artist or group will release a new record that sounds unlike or differs perhaps even slightly from a previous sound, and suddenly it is a terrible piece of shit. While the record might be shit (in your eyes/ears) saying it is shit because it doesn't sound like a different album is a very odd criticism. I don't like Britney Spears's music, not because it doesn't sound like Slayer, but because it bores and often irritates me.
If you want X and someone offers you Y, it says nothing of Y's quality that it is not X.
Video games are a different medium
It's expected of video games to not be a step down from the previous iteration.
Again, Y not being X, does not mean Y is bad because of that.
Y can be bad for many reasons, but it not being something cannot be a criticism of it, as it holds no actual criticism; it says nothing of the product and its features. Grand Theft Auto III is not bad because it isn't top-down. You might think 3rd person perspective is bad and that's valid. But your criticism would then be "I dislike the third person perspective." I fucking hate Japanese adventure games that call themselves RPGs (more modern Final Fantasy titles, for example). That they are not racing games, is not a criticism. That I hate the dialog, however, is a criticism.
Comment on what a game is, not what it is not.
I can see your argument, but It is a bit flawed. If you were to take the Tony Hawk Pro Skater name off of this game, it would still be not very good. The fact that is share it shares the same name of a series that many people loved in the past, only twists the $60 knife even more.
Take a look at MGS5. That game shares almost nothing in common with the other games in the Metal Gear series gameplay-wise or storytelling, but it will still end up on a lot of people's game of the year list. That is because it is such a great playing game, to negates most of what makes that game crappy.
Had Tony Hawk 5 been a better game, it would be worth arguing over, but this just isn't there.
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