Review: Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen (Wii)

Happy New Year to everyone out there in ICP Reader land! To start the year off right, I completed Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen for the Wii. My son and I started playing it on New Year's Eve and then this morning, Optimus laid The Fallen to permanent rest.

The motion controls and the ability for a second Wii remote to join in as a remote weapon system for co-op play was the perfect way for my son to get fully involved in the game while not being frustrated or overwhelmed with controlling a character in the environment and staying alive through combat.

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is a third-person shooter that puts the player in control of many of the main characters from the movie, both Autobot and Decepticon. I found this switching back and forth to be an interesting attempt to tell the same story from both sides of the coin.

The game loosely follows the story of the movie but stays solid to the actual movie plot of stopping the Decepticons and The Fallen from powering the Star Harvester to bleed our Sun of it's energy. Although there's no sign of Megan Fox's attractive body, or Shia Labeouf's rediculous hair, the game does stick much closer to the movie story it was modeled after than the movie does to the '80s cartoon from which it was born.

The graphics are as to be expected from any Wii game, and the shooter-style controls are also the typical configuration of other Wii shooters, but the game play itself is smooth and entertaining.



The story line is mostly progressed via cut scene videos that allow for the player to easily transition from one character to the other to participate in the action and the cinematics do a great job of leading in to the next mission or boss battle and then generally present the result of your success on the overall story.



In addition to the story, there are many bonus unlocks that you can collect as your progress through the environments. You can unlock images, videos and new models to use in the versus mode (which I didn't play). Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to go back and look at everything that I had unlocked, but I do know that it wasn't all just from the new movies (i.e. some classic '80s Transformers stuff is included).

Overall, I'd have to give this game a 7/10 because of it's available co-op that was great for me and my son, and the use of the motion controls to help pull the player in to the on-screen action. And let's face it, what's not cool about destroying buildings, ancient Egyptian ruins, aircraft carriers, buses and tanks as a giant biomechanical being?