Transformers: Devastation

Over the past decade, Platinum Games has made quite a name for itself. With games such as Mad World, the Bayonetta series, and Metal Gear Rising, it's pretty much become the master of the action-game genre. Bayonetta in particular is a standard to which...

Transformers: Devastation plays it safe when compared with other Platinum Games titles. It borrows and streamlines gameplay mechanics from other games, but makes the experience satisfying...

I hope you like the sound of Transformers, transforming. That iconic soundbite of techno-nonsense that sounds like a digitized baby babbling features heavily through Transformers: Devastation. That, and, obviously giant space robots doing battle across...

Hearkening back to the ‘80s cartoon There is an extremely high chance that if you grew up in the ‘80s you have at least heard of Transformers, even if you weren't a fan of the metal titans from Cybertron and the civil war they brought to Earth. Since...

Transformers Devastation is not quite Platinum's A-game material, but it's more than we could've ever possibly expected from a franchise tie-in. A tad anemic and weighed down with extraneous systems, but a damn fine experience...

Transformers: Devastation is essentially fan-service. Only Transformers fans would have the patience to persevere with the repetitive enemies, the arduous Boss Fights, the fiddly customisation and the levelling system that only really rewards players who stick with one Autobot throughout the campaign.

No matter. Platinum's game draws out much of the smooth, knockabout fun of the hyperactive cartoon-world of early Transformers, which has otherwise been lost to time. This is the best Transformers game since Melbourne House's memorable 2004 game. Its best tricks may have been pilfered from Platinum's back catalogue, but they're no less appealing in disguise.

Honestly, I had fun just driving around trying to do donuts, and at one point, I randomly picked up a taxi and threw it over a building just for laughs. That's pretty great. And when that perfect rockin' soundtrack kicks in as you face off against Megatron, that's even better.

Transformers Devastation succeeds as fan service by shoving the things it does poorly far enough into the periphery they’re hard to see while pretending to be a robot punching other robots.

Transformers Devastation’s nostalgia-fueled fisticuffs are a fun way to revisit the classic TV show. Sophisticated combo-based combat delivers a fast and furious barrage of action, but the gear and perks systems left me wondering why they were there at all in a game all about over-the-top boss fights and robot dinosaur beatdowns.

In a lot of ways, Transformers: Devastation feels like Bayonetta in disguise. It has the same linear arena combat format that alternates between narrow hallways (in this case, roads) and open environments that signal a fight from miles away, even borrowing a few similar action set piece ideas later in the game.

If you are one of the many Transformers fans who are disgusted by the direction the franchise has taken of late, both in the movies and video games, than simply catching a glimpse of artwork from the lightly advertised beat 'em up title from Bayonetta...

This is Bayonetta dressed up in robot clothes, which is a Very Good Thing. Brilliantly playable, and full of Transformers fan-service, only its brevity and simplistic level design let it...