The plot to Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark switches perspectives from both the Earth parallel and Cybertron. To be honest the story is easy enough to follow for the first few chapters, but once it starts to continually switch parallels, it becomes unnecessarily over complicated and it quite literally loses the plot. This is a shame as War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron had cracking stories that had you gripped from start to finish. After the first few chapters I unfortunately began to lose interest in a game that I had been eagerly awaiting for quite some time. For what story there is in Rise of the Dark Spark, I will briefly explain the plot the best I can, before moving on to the more technical aspects.
The Autobot’s are once again fighting against the Decepticons, to not only save their own existence, but also the whole universe (no pressure then). The Autobots will stop at nothing to prevent an ancient Cybertronian artefact known as the Dark Spark which has unimaginable powers falling into the hands of the Decepticons. The Dark Spark can bend and manipulate the universe as we know it and can turn every life force into slaves with no will power. But the presence of Lockdown, relentless bounty hunter throws a big spanner into the works for both the Autobot’s and the Decepticons and now all factions want the Dark Spark for different reasons, but who will prevail?
Having played both the previous games developed by High Moon Studios, I had high hopes (pun not intended) for Rise of the Dark Spark. But then I found out that the latest instalment was not developed by good old High Moon, instead the reigns had been passed over to Edge of Reality, but while I would have preferred High Moon Studios to continue the great work that they had started, I still had some faith in Edge of Reality. It’s good to have faith in many aspects, sometimes no matter how small, that faith can sometimes be misled and result in great disappointment. Especially where Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark is concerned.
I can’t speak for the last gen version of this game, but for the new gen instalment of Rise of the Dark Spark, it falls incredibly below par in the visuals department. The textures are muddy, bland and are seriously copy and pasted, more so perhaps then any recent AAA game that I’ve seen recently. In fact many of the copy and pasted floor/wall panels in the game look suspiciously like the generic texture plates that I had seen on the software used during my videogame development degree course. To say the visuals are uninspired is an understatement. Thankfully not all is bland in the visuals department, because many of the playable Autobots and Decepticons look great, which will surely please some fans at least.
The same cannot be said in regards to the generic NPC’s, because most of which look like they’ve been thrown together in the shortest time possible. Even during the latter stages when you finally get to play as the once awesome Grimlock, he just looks odd and quite frankly poorly put together. I don’t think his new look is even down to him being taken from the new movie, because I actually quite like his new makeover (though the retro look will always win). Like the NPC’s, Grimlock also looks like he’s been put together in the quickest time possible and much like the game itself, he lacks any kind of real polish.
Seeing as I’m on the topic of the legendary Grimlock, there are 14 levels in Rise of the Dark Spark and you do not get to play as Grimlock until level 13, for which you only get to play him during one measly level and then that’s it! What makes it worse is that he features in the most generic, copy and pasted level in the whole campaign (and that’s saying a lot). I know this may seem like a silly statement to make, as I know Grimlock is one of the biggest Autobots in the Transformers universe, but he feels way too big for the level in which he is located and the environments have clearly not been accommodated for him. It almost feels like the developers had rushed through the game that much, they suddenly realised that “shit! We’ve forgotten to include Grimlock and the game is close to its release day deadline! Ok let’s just plonk him in this level and that will have to do!”
Playing as the Dinobots in Fall of Cybertron was something that fans had very much looked forward to and was in my opinion one of the best moments from its campaign. But yet somehow Edge of Reality have managed to make this moment one of the game’s biggest disappointment, in a game already full of many regrettable features.
Rise of the Dark Spark is a simple pick up and play third person shooter, which is fine, after all this was one of the appeals from the last two games. The problem perhaps is that it would have been nice to see at least one or two relevant new idea’s, but as I’m guessing with this game being pushed out to coincide with the movie release, time was not of the essence. The premise is simple, start a level, blast as many enemies as possible, while making it from A to B. This method however begins to grow rather stale before you even reach the half-way mark of the campaign. It’s all good at times playing a brainless shooter, but each stage feels more like a wave based mode, as in practically every level in order for you to progress, you must defeat waves of enemies.
However each level does have their own set of challenges, which could involve killing enemies with a specific weapon or reaching your goal in a certain way. By completing the challenges, you will earn extra XP and be rewarded with a Gearbox. Each category of Gearbox will have a value, the higher value Gearbox you earn will result you in gaining a number of goodies, such as Autobots/Decepticons to use in Escalation, as well as perks known as T.E.C.H’s and Hacks. The Hack’s depending on which you choose will or won’t work in your tactical favour. If you didn’t want the Hack (for some reason) to work in your favour they can make enemies a little tougher, remove the HUD from your screen and more.
If you choose the Hack’s to work in your favour (the wise option), you can get enemies to explode upon death, drop extra health or ammo, but be warned as they often come at the expense of stronger enemies and other stipulations. You can also select up to three T.E.C.H’s, which can regenerate your health, offer drone support, drop shields and more. If I’m honest I found most of the Hack’s to be more of a hindrance then anything, but should you select the right T.E.C.H’s it can certainly tip the balance of the battle in your favour, especially in the latter stages.
Other then the simplistic run and gun formula, obviously the Transformers all have their own trait…can you guess what it is? Yes of course they transform…well duh! The Transformers like the predecessors will transform into either a flying object i.e. a Ship like Starscream or a truck like good old Optimus. The flying elements work fantastic and were possibly my favourite gameplay moments from the campaign, however the same cannot be said for the driving sections. The driving feels slow and cumbersome and when I say slow, I mean really sloooooow. So slow in fact that I had to double check that I was using the Nitros like speed boost, there is no sense of speed what so ever, this is particularly odd when driving as Bumblebee in his Chevrolet Camaro form.
Thankfully the weapons of Rise of the Dark Spark feel great and there is a great variety to choose from, with each and every weapon being upgradable. They range from the shotguns, assault rifles, and grenade cannons to weapons that even fire electricity surges to fry the enemy’s circuit boards and more. As with the previous game, each Transformer can switch between the standard and heavy weapon. There really are some feel good weapons in Rise of the Dark Spark and some are genuinely good idea’s, it’s just a shame that the same can’t be said for the rest of this game. It’s also worth noting that each Transformer has their own special move, triggered by the R1 button. Each Transformers special move will vary, such as Optimus Prime having a shield and Drift having a badass Matrix like Samurai attack. This helps give each character their own identity, other than their visual image of course.
Audio wise, there’s not much all that memorable in Rise of the Dark Spark, the soundtrack certainly doesn’t help develop the story in anyway. The only shining light here is that once again Peter Cullen returns as the iconic nostalgic voice of Optimus Prime, but there’s certainly no memorable soundtrack such as the awesome ‘The Touch’ from Stan Bush that featured in the 1986 Transformers movie.
The other iconic piece of audio from the Transformers franchise is the sound effect that the Transformers make when they transform. Yes that sound is here, but barely. What I mean by this is that it’s almost like the sound effect volume has been turned down. So even something as simple and iconic is the instantly recognisable transform noise, the developers have somehow even made that worse.
There is also one audio trait that annoyed me on a continuous basis, and kinda reminded me of the recycled dialogue in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and that’s the recycled dialogue in Rise of the Dark Spark. I swear I lost count of the times I heard the Decepticons say “Let’s see what you got!” and “He got away!” over and over again, it drove me bloody insane!
Quite possibly the biggest disappointment from Rise of the Dark Spark is the exclusion on the competitive multiplayer modes that featured in the previous two games. Instead the only form of multiplayer that we have is the returning wave based mode called Escalation, for which you can team up with friends and other online gamers to see how long you can survive against waves of enemies. But the fact that the traditional online modes such as the deathmatch for example is an odd one, is the fact that it’s been removed due to lack of development time? Who knows, but it’s a shame none the less.
Other than the actual competitive modes in the previous two titles being fun and far less tenuous then other shooters out there, I loved the fact that you could customise your very own unique Transformer. Sadly that is no longer possible within Rise of the Dark Spark. Instead with Escalation, you will be able to select one of the original Transformers that you will unlock by acquiring a Gearbox. As fun as the Escalation mode can be, soon you will likely become bored of the mode and this is where Rise of the Dark Spark’s lack of replay value begins to kick in.
But for the completionist’s out there you can always return to the game to find the many audio logs scattered throughout the campaign, take on the various challenges that each stage sets, as well as the higher difficulties and of course gather as many Trophies/Achievements as you can. Other than that, unless you really like the Escalation mode, there’s not much else drawing you back for more.
To round up my thoughts, Rise of the Dark Spark should have built upon the foundations left by High Moon’s Fall of Cybertron and especially in the dawn of the new gen, Rise of the Dark Spark should have been a progressive game full of positives. Yet someone even on the new gen consoles, it’s made a backward step for the series, both visually and technically. It’s a game that can’t decide what it wants to be, does it want to be a follow up to Fall of Cybertron or does it want to be a movie tie-in.
It kind of reminds me when you’ve got £9.98 of credit in your PayPal account which is burning a hole in your digital pocket and you can’t decide what you want to spend your money on, even if it’s for something that you don’t really want or need. Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark is both something that clearly can’t make up its mind and it’s also something that the Transformer fans don’t really need, because what we need or deserve, is a quality follow up to Fall of Cybertron. It really does sadden me to say this, because like millions, I am a life-long Transformers fan and I was so looking forward to this title.
Some may frown upon when their favourite games getting delayed, even if it’s for all the right reasons. For this I commend companies like Ubisoft, Sony and Warner Bros, because they made the decision to delay very popular games as they felt that their games were not ready to be released. It saddens me furthermore because I believe that if Rise of the Dark Spark had at least another six months of development time, it could have (should have) been a very good game.
You may very well get on with Rise of the Dark Spark, and if so, I’m genuinely happy for you. But in my humble opinion this is a huge missed opportunity to take the series to the next level and if you’re still out for the best Transformers gaming experience, then you may look back to past instalments. Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will go down as one of my biggest disappointments of 2014 and that genuinely does sadden me to say. Should you want to put that smile back on your face (and I’m sure you do), then “Roll Out” and head back towards Fall of Cybertron because that still for now remains the go to Transformers experience, both for singleplayer and for multiplayer.