It is extremely rare for videogame adaptations of films to be enjoyable. For every Spider-Man 2 we’re given a slew of other horrible games that feel rushed from head to toe. The Wii Version of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen touts that it is a unique experience that expands from the box-office smash film. While that might be the case, we take a look to see how it measures up.

Gameplay

Revenge of the Fallen loosely follows the plot of the film. You will spend good chunks of the game playing as various Autobots and Decepticons as you try to assist them with various tasks that mirror to some extent the plot of the film, with some elements not seen on the big screen. The Autobots are trying to stop the Decepticons while the Decepticons are trying the destroy all of mankind.

You will play through the storyline from a third person perspective with a mixture of sections as Transformers and as their respective objects. Unfortunately, only in select sections will you be able to transfer from one to the other, often being restricted to one form in order to complete a specific task. This means that when you’re fighting other Transformers you won’t be able to transform into a car to get away.


Combat, regardless of which side you play as, is elementary. When you’re not firing your regular attack, more often than not, you will press the down button and performing a special attack or fire a stored power attack with the Z-Button. There is a power meter that limits your use of any of the power moves, but it quickly refuels so you never have to worry about not having the strongest attacks for a long period of time.

The game plays itself in a 3D world but you never actually play the game with any sort of open-world feel. The fixed camera poses numerous problems that can cause you to lose track of your enemies. You can easily get stuck behind walls, not see clear objectives and make foolish mistakes that should never happen.

Because of the horrible camera, even in combat, you will often have a hard time trying to do simple moves. There are certain enemies that require a melee attack in order to break their shield. You will be waving the Wii-Remote like a moron trying to get your character to swing. Even performing an evasive roll using the Nunchuk is unresponsive. Never once will you feel like your movements are natural, so expect a lot of mistakes thanks to it.

If you happen to die at any point in the game, worry not, death has no consequence here. You can easily fall off or die during a battle and return to continue as if nothing happened. This might be great for younger players, but it doesn’t add any necessity to play cautiously.


Even with all that is bad with the game, the only good thing associate is that the game is relatively short. Most people will breeze through the game in a matter of a few hours so if you actually do decide to play through the story, you know it won’t take you too long. There is also a co-operative and arena mode which allows for two player action. In Co-Op, your friend gets the honor of playing as a generic robot while the Arena mode has you two battling it out as Robots. Neither mode really offers anything extra and probably will never be touched.

Graphics and Sound

With the recycled environments, poor details and so many other ugly things about this game, there is nothing good to say about the graphics. Enemies are extremely generic, buildings look identical, even the main characters lack any sort of pizzazz to interest anyone. Considering the amount of detail that goes into Transformers on the Big Screen, you would have expected a bit more here. The limitations of the Wii really show their ugly side here. There are noticeable clipping and collision detection problems that can cause simple frustration as you play.


The voicework of the Transformers is extremely limited. You will often hear the same few lines of dialog repeated by all the Transformers, both the main characters and the extras. It often feels like the writers just had two scripts, one for Autobot Characters and one for Decepticons and just had each voice actor re-read the same script. It’s that bad. Even the sound effects with the explosions and ambiance don’t help to give the game any added depth.

Value

Thankfully with this short game, once you’re done, you really have no reason to go back unless you want to collect some of the game’s special items. There are models, images and other nuggets available but will only appeal to truly die-hard Transformers fans.

There was one positive with the extras, that is until I actually saw it. There is the ability to unlock classic episodes of the 1980s series. This should be a great thing, but the moment you start watching them, you will look away in disgust. These clips have been poorly translated onto the Wii. The aspect ratio is not even 4:3 and the compression rate makes them practically unwatchable. This is yet another disappointing aspect of the game that could have been an incentive to replay the game.

Conclusion

In truth, there is absolutely nothing good about Revenge of the Fallen on the Wii. From the horrible graphics, sound, controls, camera and value I could not find a single meaningful positive thing to say about this game. This is yet another poorly made videogame adaptation that should have never been made.