What I Think Of: Transformers - Rise of the Dark Spark

I am in full on Transformers overload, and I love it. I am a member of Loot Crate, which sends a box full of mystery items to my door once a month, this month's theme was Transformers, in which I received a T-Shirt, a mini vinyl statue of Jazz, an Autobot sticker (among other things).Transformers: Age of Extinction hits theaters this week AND we get a new Transformers video game that's in the style of War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, 2 of my favorite Transformers games of all time.

Growing up a big Transformers fan, I am always up for more robots in disguise, and while Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox tried desperately to make me hate the films, I rather enjoyed them and look forward to Mark Wahlberg's entrance to the franchise.

If you are like me and get a little nerdgasm every time you hear the iconic transforming sound, then you want to know if the new game, Rise of the Dark Spark, is any good. Let's roll out!

While War and Fall were developed by High Moon Studios, Rise was developed by Edge of Reality, who worked on the N64 ports of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, the PS3 version of Mass Effect and most recently the Free to Play shooter Loadout. You can tell though that EoR went with HM's idea to make a Transformers game as it looks and plays very similar to the older titles.

Which is fine, for the most part, since I loved those other games. I just can't help but feel like I've played this game before. What's more, this game is available on this gen (Xbox One, PS4, WiiU) and previous gen (360, PS3) consoles, and they all look pretty much the same. I guess I was hoping to be blown away by the first appearance of Transformers on the next gen-consoles in the same way I was blown away the first time I played War for Cybertron. Not only is it a little disappointing on that end, you don't have to look too hard to find textures that are real muddy and never pop-in.

I'm about a few levels into the campaign. Mission 1 you play as Drift alongside Optimus and Bumblebee trying to stop Lockdown from getting the Dark Spark, the antithesis of the Matrix of Leadership (any child of the 80's remembers the Matrix from the Transformers movie that we all know and love). Mission 2 you play as Shockwave and Soundwave as you, alongside Starscream (my favorite Decepticon) search for the Dark Spark as commanded by Lord Megatron.

Hey, three are standing...does that mean three shall fall?

That's as far as I've got in the campaign cause it's BALLS HARD. Not because the game itself is hard, but because you die so fucking fast. It should be called Rise of the Dark Souls. I'm not bad at games, I mean you won't find me on any MLG teams ever, but I can play a damn video game. I died on the first fight of the game 3 times. twice cause I walked for a second and got gunned down, and the third because the bridge story beat fell on me and crushed me. One time in Mission 2 I had full shield (100) and full health (100), I dropped down off a ledge to a platform just below, I lost all my shield and was down to 50 health from 2 shots before I touched down. Another time with full everything I took two shots and died. It's beyond frustrating.

I want to run and gun and be a badass robot, it's hard to do that when I am trying to find cover to regenerate my shields every 5 seconds. This is on Normal difficulty by the way.

When you are actually doing the running and gunning, it is still fun, and strangely satisfying when you get to uppercut Insecticons.

#BadassMode - Just insert flames.

While the other games had a choice of competitive multiplayer and co-op horde mode "Escalation", Rise of the Dark Spark ONLY has Escalation. This is a huge bummer to me and I can't help but feel let down after spending the same amount of money on this game but getting less out of it. If you want to get your competitive Transformers on, looks like you should play War for or Fall of Cybertron.

That being said, the options available to you within the Escalation mode here seems cool. You have over 40 characters to choose from, you have currency to upgrade and repair stations such as Rocket Turrets, barricades, and corrosive stations. You can also create a loadout of your character with HACKS, such as explosive headshots, extra ammo with less health, less ammo with more health, etc, all which give you various XP bonuses.

Escalation mode seems like the ideal way to level up overall anyway, so I would focus on that as soon as possible, as I went from level 4 to level 9 in one game.

Hey, no fair. You got a dragon.

What does levelling up get you? It gets you boxes. Follow me here: There are different levels of boxes, Bronze, Iron, Silver, Gold and Prime. They contain such things as character unlocks, abilities, weapon upgrades, HACKs and so on. The level of the box I don't think actually matters since I have seen the same thing in different tiers. I liken this to Mass Effect 3's multiplayer. I like the concept, but I wish they would have taken it further, like being able to customize your Transformer, put decals on them, create your own Transformer and name it, maybe unlocking taunts, something like that.

That's kind of the overall feeling I have with Rise of the Dark Spark: a product that is solid, but doesn't stray from the formula any, making me wish they would have taken this game further. This feels like a step backwards/sideways for the franchise, mainly because this game has been done already and done better in War for and Fall of Cybertron. While Transformers fans (such as myself) will still get something out of this game, I can't help but look forward to the next great Transformers game.