
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Action Publisher Activision Developer High Moon Studios ESRB T (Teen) Released June 14, 2011

- Lots of robot destruction - Each character plays uniquely

- Huge updates - Crashes? On a console? Seriously?

Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (360) Review: Transformers: The Game (360) Interview: Transformers Q&A Review: Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (360)
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Score: 5.0 / 10

The video game tie-in to a blockbuster movie… Every once in a while these can be quite entertaining, unfortunately this one isn’t it. The designers decided to provide the prequel-style material prior to the movie for us fans. While that does free them from having to recreate every action scene in the movie; the general direction of the game and the build up as you progress through it are lacking a payoff. Major plot points of the movie are eluded to, but never revealed so that the movie isn’t ruined. The game itself does not focus on any specific Transformer or side of the

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- Playstation 3 Game Reviews
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- Games Published by Activision

conflict, but is content to jump between the two.

Borrowing heavily from the Transformers: Battle for Cybertron system that came out last year, this title showcases a few tweaks but limits the action to Earth. (So much for the fun locales of an ever-changing robot planet) The game plays from the behind the back 3rd person perspective – so you keep your Charge directly in front of the

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camera as you battle through your terrains. As it wouldn’t do to destroy main characters, you get to blow to scrap all of the “generic” Autobots and Decepticons while the boss fights are against the those characters who have an uncanny talent for slinking away just as defeat is imminent. Can’t remove Starscream from the movie now.

Each level is played from the perspective of a different Transformer (except Soundwave’s where you get to play part as Lazerbeak). That being said, each level plays quite differently – a specific balance of carnage/stealth comes with each character requires adapting to the strengths of each character in order to do well. Mirage’s level being one of the more interesting with forcing your character to fight without firearms for half of the level and instead using stealth and position to maneuver the level.

The game itself looks mediocre. Character edges are blurry and ill-defined at times, backgrounds recycled with such frequency one is left thinking about how rushed the project must have been to finish. Voice acting is one of the high points in the game; any time you can get Peter Cullen to reprise Optimus Prime you have a winner. In game sound is pretty much what one would expect – does the job, everything sounds the way it should.

The out-of-packing experience left something to be desired for me – a HUGE 127 MB download upon sliding the disk in; the download only taking a few minutes but the installation taking a frustrating 19 minutes to install. During my playthroughs I suffered through 4 crashes of the game – 2 of which kicked me to PS home, the other 2 freezing my console. One of such freezes occurred during an in-game auto-save and thus corrupted the file, necessitating yet another playthrough.

All in all, Transformers Dark Side of the Moon wasn’t the worst game I’ve played, and moreover certainly wasn’t even the worst movie adaptation of a game I’ve played but it certainly could have used more QA time.

- Tazman

(August 8, 2011)