Transformers Devastation is a game brought to you by Platinum gaming studio (Metal Gear Rising). These guys know what they are doing, especially when it comes to one particular genre which is character action, 3rd person character action. And that’s exactly what this game is.
There are 50 levels in Challenge mode. You have an options of 5 Autobots to play with: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Wheeljack and Grimlock. Each of these guys handles differently, can use different weapons and equipments, and has different specials. Grimlock is the most interesting perhaps, in terms of how he handles, because he doesn’t have a vehicle mode, like the rest of the guys. He has a dinosaur mode which has dinosaur kind of abilities: the flame thrower and the fire breath is very much there. Everybody can use Menasor’s ionizer sword, but Wheeljack is the only who can use thermal missiles. In the equipment section you can see exactly who uses what kind of weapon.
You can also upgrade these weapons. You can level them up and you can add new attributes to them. And weapons have different ranks as well. BY default they are all either B or C. In order to promote them to A or B, you need to either buy them (no microtransactions, don’t worry about that), or if you do higher level difficulty challenges, that’s how you can get the higher ranks.
Ok, let’s dive into mission, and see how the combat works.
It is borrowing a lot from previous Platinum games, although it does have a couple of interesting things: There’s a ‘rush attack’ which will allow me to smash through a shield, and than I could do a ‘vehicle attack’ which will be an instant transformation attack, or I can just continue to combo and joggle and all that sort of things, which all together performs really really well. The “ultimate ability” is incredibly destructive and it varies again based on which Autobot you decided to choose.
So if you are familiar with Platinum games’ way of doing things, you will I imagine get the hang of this pretty quickly. There are few things that are a little unusual, for instance, the way that reversals work. You actually have to hold the dodge button down, and than hit the button in order to do a reversal. So you have to do a perfect dodge and than you have to hit the button. There are few different types: a light reversal, a heavy meele reversal, and also a range reversal.
The game feels uber-responsive, looks great, and of course runs a 60 frames per second.
The game also gives you some pretty solid range options. You can actually use your range weapon while in vehicle mode, which will allow you to either lock on, or just fire blindly as you’re moving, and than very quickly go right back into melee.
“Devastator” brings a boss fight for you and that repeats throughout the game..
Regarding the game length, it is not long at all. You could beat it in about 5-6 hours, straight through the game’s 7 chapters, and than 50 challenge missions and than a bunch of side missions, which is good, but you can beat it really really fast.
Transformers Devastation is available for 50$ on Steam and also for Play Station 4 and XBOX 1. The game is brilliant, not perfect, but should definitely not be overlooked. Release date is October 2015.
