Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark Review - An Optimus Crime

[LaoJim]

My thought processes was probably similar to some other peoples on this thread.

1. New transformer game sucks? Unfortunate but not unexpected.
2. So High Moon didn't make it? That explains a lot.
3. So hey what are High Moon currently working on? Something awesome?
4. (Checks Wikipedia) Nope, Activision has them making CoD because of course they effing have.

See this is why I really don't like Activision. Sure people complain about the shitty business practices of EA and Ubisoft, but at least they make a number of games I like. Activision does nothing but CoD, Skylanders and crappy licenced games. Occcassionly one of the studios, will go the extra mile on their limited budgets and make a licenced game that's halfway decent (Wolverine, Spiderman Shattered Dimensions, the Cybertron games) and immediately get reassigned to working on CoD. Its almost as if they are punishing success.

I also don't always understand the mentality of churning out these cheap licenced games. Sure if its something like Family Guy, Ice Age, or SpongeBob put something out with zero effort to con a few bucks out of people who don't know better; but the Transformers franchise is huge and you know Bay is going to keep on pumping out movie after movie so surely you want to develop a parallel gaming franchise that people are going to want to keep coming back to. And more than nearly any other franchise out there, Transformers is highly suited to be turned into a video game; you've got your shooting and your driving (and flying and levels where you ride a dinosaur...) and you should be able to combine them in a way that feels natural for Transformers, and is different from most other games out there.

Perhaps, and this is depressing, the bad games based on the films sold better than the good Cybertron games...

 

[Kolyarut]

See this is why I really don't like Activision. Sure people complain about the shitty business practices of EA and Ubisoft, but at least they make a number of games I like. Activision does nothing but CoD, Skylanders and crappy licenced games. Occcassionly one of the studios, will go the extra mile on their limited budgets and make a licenced game that's halfway decent (Wolverine, Spiderman Shattered Dimensions, the Cybertron games) and immediately get reassigned to working on CoD. Its almost as if they are punishing success.

This is more or less my thinking on Activision these days too. I actually think they do a really good job with Call of Duty, and the E3 footage of the next one looks good, but Fall of Cybertron is the only other game of theirs since around the dawn of the last-gen consoles that I'd actually recommend, the rest is shovelware and iffy use of licenses (War from Cybertron wasn't objectively all that great, I mostly enjoyed it because of the intensity of my Transformers fandom).

Meanwhile, EA, Ubisoft and 2K are routinely hitting it out of the park (I say 2K because they have close to a 100% success rate as far as I'm concerned lately).

Activision's slide downhill feels like it started back when the complaining about Bobby Kotick was at its height. Part of me wonders if Activision decided to give up on the audience that was constantly raging and bad-mouthing them, and just started targeting kids instead?

 

[ron1n]

Saw this train wreck coming as soon as they announced high moon wasn't making it.

Seems to be inevitable for all IP games. Easier to just pump out shovelware with the name attached and make money while the movie tie-in is fresh rather than taking the time to make a quality game that does it justice.

Looks like Activision pulled an EA with High Moon as well, dumped half their staff after Deadpool was finished and now have them working on shitty CoD porting.

Such a waste of talent.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

"in its desperate attempts to marry two universes that were never designed to fit together"

Except they were. The bible for the Transformers projects that aren't G1 are all the same, so everything from the Michael Bay films to Transformers Prime are actually designed - by Hasbro, at least - to click together. Though this "Aligned" continuity doesn't actually seem to be an idea anyone has bothered investing much interest in, so when anyone does try to stitch up universes you kind of inevitably run into trainwrecks like this.

But yeah. As far as Hasbro is concerned, the Optimus Prime from Transformers Prime is the same one from Fall of Cybertron.

dumped half their staff after Deadpool was finished

Apparently it was even before Deadpool was finished.

 

[LaoJim]

Meanwhile, EA, Ubisoft and 2K are routinely hitting it out of the park (I say 2K because they have close to a 100% success rate as far as I'm concerned lately).

I've reached the conclusion that Activision is simply not interested in releasing good games. Seriously, with the possible exception of the better CoD games, do you know what the best "Activision" game released this past generation was...

Sleeping Dogs,

The game that Activision cancelled and had to be picked up by Square Enix (Thank you SE by the way). While Dogs didn't have quite the same budget and consequently production values as GTA or Assassin's Creed, it was a lovingly created and smartly designed and written game, far more so than anything Activision has put out recently.

In fact its not just us, if you have a look at Metacritics publisher rankings for the past few years...

(available here: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2013-releases )

Activision is consistently at the bottom of the table (with only Namco Bandai lower) and usually at least 10 points below the other major publishers, even with the (usually quality) Blizzard side of the business pulling their rankings up.

This is more or less my thinking on Activision these days too. I actually think they do a really good job with Call of Duty, and the E3 footage of the next one looks good, but Fall of Cybertron is the only other game of theirs since around the dawn of the last-gen consoles that I'd actually recommend, the rest is shovelware and iffy use of licenses (War from Cybertron wasn't objectively all that great, I mostly enjoyed it because of the intensity of my Transformers fandom).

When I said halfway decent games in my previous post, that's pretty much what I meant. Wolverine had very fun combat, but it was also clear that the development team didn't have enough money to make varied levels and detailed scenery. The Cybertron games have fun multiplayer and is a solid shooter, but are hardly revolutionary use of a licence in the same way that the Arkham games have. These are games I'd give about 7.5 to, none of them are games I'd buy day one.

Activision's slide downhill feels like it started back when the complaining about Bobby Kotick was at its height. Part of me wonders if Activision decided to give up on the audience that was constantly raging and bad-mouthing them, and just started targeting kids instead?

I'm not so sure. If you look at the list of games here (and sort them by date)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_games

I'd say you have to go back to 2004 to find a really good Activision year. 2004 saw the first CoD, the release of WoW as well as Rome: Total War, Doom 3, and Spiderman 2.

I had to remind myself of what exactly had gone down with all the Bobby Kotick stuff, but it does seem like gamers were criticising them (as I am now) for output which was already pretty shitty, rather than the other way (them deciding not to produce quality games because gamers were unreasonably criticising them)

What I find strange is if you look at the Kotick controversy he was basically saying he wanted franchises he could exploit every year rather than one-off "interesting" games, and yet there is little sign that Activision is actively trying to make new franchises. The whole Watchdogs pre-launch hype might have gotten out of hand, and you might call it cynical that Ubisoft were planning a franchise before the first game had even been a success, but at least they were trying something slightly new (to exploit with sequel after sequel). The last big franchise Activision tried (successfully) to establish was Skylanders in 2010. To establish a franchise you have to make a quality game, do something halfway new, and put a lot of hype behind it, and as far as I can see they are just not interested in doing this, but are happy with their three main pillars of Skylanders, WoW, and CoD.

 

[Kolyarut]

This is more or less my thinking on Activision these days too. I actually think they do a really good job with Call of Duty, and the E3 footage of the next one looks good, but Fall of Cybertron is the only other game of theirs since around the dawn of the last-gen consoles that I'd actually recommend, the rest is shovelware and iffy use of licenses (War from Cybertron wasn't objectively all that great, I mostly enjoyed it because of the intensity of my Transformers fandom).

When I said halfway decent games in my previous post, that's pretty much what I meant. Wolverine had very fun combat, but it was also clear that the development team didn't have enough money to make varied levels and detailed scenery. The Cybertron games have fun multiplayer and is a solid shooter, but are hardly revolutionary use of a licence in the same way that the Arkham games have. These are games I'd give about 7.5 to, none of them are games I'd buy day one.

Even if I wasn't a rabid Transformers fan, I think there's enough to recommend about Fall of Cybertron to get an extra point on that review score, though it did drag a bit during the Dinobot segments, but yeah, they're no Arkham Asylum.

I'm not so sure. If you look at the list of games here (and sort them by date)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_games

I'd say you have to go back to 2004 to find a really good Activision year. 2004 saw the first CoD, the release of WoW as well as Rome: Total War, Doom 3, and Spiderman 2.

I had to remind myself of what exactly had gone down with all the Bobby Kotick stuff, but it does seem like gamers were criticising them (as I am now) for output which was already pretty shitty, rather than the other way (them deciding not to produce quality games because gamers were unreasonably criticising them)

What I find strange is if you look at the Kotick controversy he was basically saying he wanted franchises he could exploit every year rather than one-off "interesting" games, and yet there is little sign that Activision is actively trying to make new franchises. The whole Watchdogs pre-launch hype might have gotten out of hand, and you might call it cynical that Ubisoft were planning a franchise before the first game had even been a success, but at least they were trying something slightly new (to exploit with sequel after sequel). The last big franchise Activision tried (successfully) to establish was Skylanders in 2010. To establish a franchise you have to make a quality game, do something halfway new, and put a lot of hype behind it, and as far as I can see they are just not interested in doing this, but are happy with their three main pillars of Skylanders, WoW, and CoD.

Fair enough, I was going off gut feeling more than I was going off proper fact checking.

Fundamentally there's nothing all that wrong about trying to make exploitable franchises so long as they're quality product, but as you note, Ubisoft are better at that. Given the expense of developing game assets and engines, it makes sense to start planning sequels asap, so you can factor in and balance their costs ("We can spend an extra 2 mil on this now if we can save it on Game 2"), like the movie industry does. That's a really good point, though, about not developing new franchises to exploit - instead, they seem to have killed off ones they already had (and with this game, it looks like the Cybertron franchise is over now too). I had no idea Rome: Total War was published by Activision before Creative Assembly moved to SEGA. "Shit, we have a good franchise, someone get rid of it!"

 

[LaoJim]

I'm aware I'm probably starting to rant now, but I could do with a good rant, so please indulge me as I foam at the mouth.

Part of me wonders if Activision decided to give up on the audience that was constantly raging and bad-mouthing them, and just started targeting kids instead?

Thinking about it just now, you know what? Even if they have adopted a kiddy friendly strategy (and I'm absolutely fine with that), why it is okay for their licenced kiddy games to be terrible? (sorry I know that's not what you're suggesting, but Activision seem to feel this way)

I mean look at their recent licences.

Kungfu Panda and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I put it to you that any game with the words Kung-fu or Ninja obviously have at least the POTENTIAL to be good.
How to Train Your Dragon: A game involving riding a flying dragon. And Vikings. Both POTENTIALLY awesome.
Fast and Furious: How difficult is it to make a racing game?
James Bond: Can you imagine what Rocksteady would do with James Bond. More than a generic shooter thats for sure.
Spider-Man: Should be awesome.
Family Guy: If South Park can produce a well received game version of their show, why can't Family Guy? (Okay I'm stretching things here)

I had no idea Rome: Total War was published by Activision before Creative Assembly moved to SEGA. "Shit, we have a good franchise, someone get rid of it!"

Right, I don't know exactly how much Sega offered for Creative Assembly, and why Activision let them go. But again, I'm sure the Total War games are profitable and they're definitely well respected (bar the disastrous launch for the last one), but they're never going to be WoW or CoD big.

Thinking about it, I'd always kind of felt it strange that while EA and Ubisoft do shows at E3 each year, Activision doesn't, but you know what, they'd have problems filling up a whole hour with the games they're currently producing. Hell, with what Jim is saying about their marketing for the new Tranformers games, their strategy would seem to be to let the consumer to know as little about the licenced games as possible and hope the name on the box sells some copies before people get wise.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

It may be daring to hope, but is there any explanation for how and why the Insecticons are playable?
I'm pretty sure I recall Grimlock killing Hardshell and pals towards the climax of the last game.

Not that the Insecticons don't have a nasty habit of coming back from the dead, just curious if it's addressed.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Part of me still thinks even after what's transpired, the lack of marketing and hoping we buy the game without lack of prior knowledge still makes me think that in the end, having Kotic as the Ceo, a guy that doesn't give a toss about us, about games and just wishes to exploit them any way he can just for money just seems so damn wrong and misfitting with this industry, it just seems to be incredibly potent and poisonous, especially when we've seen good games before they start to slide into hell where they never return, I mean High Moon is clearly alive we know that but they didn't get to work on the franchise they were good with, what hope do we have they will for the next few TF games?, probably very slim because it's easier to put less effort and love into a game and just stitch crapo together, don't market and hope it sells.

I don't think Bobby should be allowed to run Activision, I know he's a CEO but he's really not helping us, yes he's probably helping the business but the business is supposed to be attracting us and make quality products, not seek complete and utter shit ways to actively exploit and insult our intellect at the same time, that's just not what any business should ever be about, there has to be something wrong to get him caught out on that.

 

[Buizel91]

I actually liked the game, the earth sections are weak, but the parts on Cybertron are quite enjoyable.

And didn't Highmoon come out a while ago and say they are working on a xbox1/ps4 title? I could of sworn i saw something,
maybe last year?

But yeh guys i wouldn't worry, the game to me isn't a true Cybertron game, Some of the voices have changed, and characters, such as Jetfire and Optimus, really feel like there movie self (Jetfires voice could easily be a younger sounding ROTF Jetfire) in fact, some act in a way that completely changes them from what we saw in WFC/FOC. With that in mind, i just see this a movie tie in game that uses the same models.

Have to say though, Best movie game by far (not that that is saying much xD)

 

[Buizel91]

Part of me still thinks even after what's transpired, the lack of marketing and hoping we buy the game without lack of prior knowledge still makes me think that in the end, having Kotic as the Ceo, a guy that doesn't give a toss about us, about games and just wishes to exploit them any way he can just for money just seems so damn wrong and misfitting with this industry, it just seems to be incredibly potent and poisonous, especially when we've seen good games before they start to slide into hell where they never return, I mean High Moon is clearly alive we know that but they didn't get to work on the franchise they were good with, what hope do we have they will for the next few TF games?, probably very slim because it's easier to put less effort and love into a game and just stitch crapo together, don't market and hope it sells.

I don't think Bobby should be allowed to run Activision, I know he's a CEO but he's really not helping us, yes he's probably helping the business but the business is supposed to be attracting us and make quality products, not seek complete and utter shit ways to actively exploit and insult our intellect at the same time, that's just not what any business should ever be about, there has to be something wrong to get him caught out on that.

Or Activision see's ROTDS doesn't sell as well as WFC/FOC and decide to give HM the green light again? They may have to if Hasbro want better game sales on current systems. Unless Hasbro could just give gaming rights to someone else.

 

[V4Viewtiful]

I hate the FOC didn't do so well and it was well advertised too, from what I remember

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Or Activision see's ROTDS doesn't sell as well as WFC/FOC and decide to give HM the green light again? They may have to if Hasbro want better game sales on current systems. Unless Hasbro could just give gaming rights to someone else.

I really think instead of that we have a talk with hasbro because if what you say happens then really what's to, stop the same routine to happen again?, it'l only harm the franchise and ruin the cycle of good to bad game ratio knowing Activision, I was lucky yo be able to buy War on Steam for a decent price that didn't have just a measly 10% knocked off because Activision are terrible with their cuts, especially since BLOPS II is priced in the UK at £29.99 which is basically near the same full price of some other AAA's that come out not priced at £39.99, it's still nowhere near as cheaper as other games that are even a year old or even less like Wolfenstein which technically beats most of the COD's with it being £17.49, it's like maybe a month and a half old.

I just don't think Activision will do anything to make the next one if there's even going to be a next one a better game, I think they'll just "transform" the franchise into a version of COD where it'l be even more simplistic (the driving in all of them has been pretty damn slow due to small maps) and will probably end up using edge and HM to churn out more and more, more isn't a good thing, especially with a case like COD, Ass creed and more, we need quality Transformers games that aren't cut round the corners or merged to make a businessman's life easier to obtain our money in exchange for less enjoyment and an insult to a favourite well loved franchise.

Worst case scenario is if Activision decides it didn't do too well, they kill off both HM and Edge, maybe a little of the good side is them giving up the IP back to Hasbro to give to someone more competent, I would love if High Moon could break away from Activision and be given the rights to make the games, I'd love that more than anything.

 

[COMaestro]

From the moment I heard a new Transformers game was in the works I got really excited. Once I learned this game was going to merge the Cybertron and Bayformers together I knew it was going to be horrible. Moreso once I heard High Moon wasn't making it. Glad to see my instincts were correct. I'm just going to let this one go and replay Fall of Cybertron I think.

 

[shrekfan246]

I feel like a lot of parallels could be drawn between this and Batman: Arkham Origins. Though, for my money, I find another stealth-brawling game to be worth more than another third-person shooter.

My thoughts were basically echoing this review when I watched Jim playing it on his Youtube channel, and I even concluded to another person that I felt a profound sense of "Why should I play this when I still have the older games?" upon finishing said video. I was skeptical right from the beginning when I first saw an advertising poster, because of the Bayformers Optimus design being displayed, and then when I found out they were trying to combine the two continuities together into a single story... ugh, I just felt that there was no way it would work well. High Moon not being the studio working on the game was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me; I still held a small amount of hope because Edge of Reality were the guys behind Loadout, but apparently Activision couldn't let them make something actually good or interesting, eh?

Such a shame that the Cybertron franchise is going to go out like this--with a pitiful whimper--rather than continue on with the conclusion it deserved.