Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark

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Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
"I thought this day would never come..." - Optimus Prime's reaction to this game.
Protagonist(s): Autobots
Decepticons
Genre(s): Third-person shooter
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows
PlayStation 3
PlayStation 4
Wii U
Xbox 360
Xbox One
Release Date: June 24, 2014
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
Developer(s): Edge of Reality
Publisher(s): Activision
Series: Transformers
Predecessor: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron


Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark is a third-person shooter game based on the Transformers franchise, developed by Edge of Reality in 2014. It serves as a "multiversal" crossover between the Michael Bay film universe and the games War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron.

Plot

The game's story is centered around the Dark Spark, a powerful relic capable of traveling into other universes. The movie-verse Autobots and Aligned-verse Autobots alike fight to prevent the Dark Spark from being used by the Decepticons.

Why The Dark Spark Fell

  1. The story is full of wasted potential; it is inconsistent with their source material, and full of plotholes, not to mention continuity errors. A big example is that Megatron appears in his rebuilt body from the previous game, even though the Cybertron levels are set before the Cybertron games.
  2. Low quality and flat visuals with blurry textures that struggle to load in and blinding visual effects. Despite using the Unreal Engine 3 like the previous games, it somehow looks worse, and it also runs horribly, especially on the Wii U version.
  3. Bland designs for the Transformers, mostly for the Bayverse levels, making it hard to tell between who is an Autobot and who is a Decepticon, a flaw shared with the Michael Bay movies. It also recycles assets and models from War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron.
  4. Generic and forgettable soundtrack, even compared to the previous games. In fact, even the menu music is revealed to be stock trailer music.
  5. Poor voice acting except for Peter Cullen, who reprises his role as Optimus Prime.
  6. Dull and overly formulaic level design.
  7. Stiff and clunky controls, especially if you’re on Stealth Force vehicle mode.
  8. Bad selection of weapons compared to the previous games. Most of the weapons like the Neutron Assault Rifle feel mandatory to use, while others like the Riot Cannon are useless because they deal very little damage or have an insanely large spread that makes it never even hit the target in the first place.
  9. There is only one multiplayer mode: Escalation, which is basically the co-op survival mode from Fall of Cybertron but outright watered down. To make things worse, this mode is absent from the Wii U version.
  10. The story has a lot of padding. Effectively 3 hours go by accomplishing very little in the Cybertron levels.
  11. The game's story conflicts with the story for the movie as most plot elements contradict the events that happen in the movie.
  12. Despite being marketed as a crossover between the casts of the movie and the War for Cybertron series, both casts have completely separate stories, never encounter each other a single time, and even at the end of the game aren't even aware of each other's existence! The whole point of a cross-over story is to have both sides discover the other sides' existence and then group up with each other. Having neither universe even discover the other universe in this story basically destroys the whole point of having a cross-over.
  13. All enemies are extremely bland, generic and lack any real tactics- simply shooting basic projectiles at you from across the room.
  14. The Wii U version of the game is worse, as it runs poorly with severe frame rate drops when more than a few enemies are around, as well as ugly muddy textures that take very long to load the proper high-resolution textures. It also has a lack of multiplayer support.
  15. The failure of this game led Activision to cancel the beloved War for Cybertron series, despite the rest of the series being very financially successful and critically acclaimed. Adding insult to injury, Activision effectively doomed the game from the start, handing development to a new dev unrelated to the first two games in the series and rushing the game's development to launch with Age of Extinction.
    • Related with above, Activision did released the well-received Transformers: Devastation made by Platinum Games, but the game was not a huge seller and later by the end of 2017, Activision got rid of their Transformers license recently following the box office failure of the follow-up to Age of Extinction, The Last Knight and because of this, fans' hope for a Transformers: Devastation 2 were dashed.

The Only Rising Quality

  1. While bad, the combat in the game is admittedly fun, like the Grimlock rampage level for example.

Reception

The game is met with negative reviews from critics. It currently has a score of 43 in Metacritic, from 32 reviews, and is widely considered to be one of the worst Transformers games ever made.

IGN gave it a "bad" rating of 4.0 out of 10.0, due to "frustrating" and "dull" design, a "confusing" story, and the total absence of multiplayer support on Wii U.

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