Transformers : Dark of the Moon - Decepticons

Transformers: Dark of the Moon -- Decepticons Review

I miss the cartoon Transformers. Not the ones from the '80s, though they were great too. The more recent, more happy-go-lucky ones. From Transformers Animated. That Cartoon Network series ended its run around two years ago, but while it was on the air the developers at Behaviour (then named A2M) tapped its license to release a vibrant, inventive DS platformer starring its unique versions of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron and the rest of the usual 'bots. It was the best Transformers title we'd seen on a Nintendo system in a long time, thanks to its inspired, teamwork-focused design that had you using three different Autobots with three distinctive skillsets to solve puzzles in 2.5D side-scrolling environments. This new Transformers: Dark of the Moon, also developed by the same studio, loses nearly all that inspiration and charm. It swaps in the gritty, realistic movie versions of the same characters and loses the colorful pop of the cartoon. It abandons the unique, side-scrolling, puzzle-solving gameplay and replaces it with a generic, third-person shooting design. And, perhaps worst of all, it takes away almost all of the individual personality of its characters -- so whether you're playing as Optimus, or Bumblebee, or whoever else, there's really no difference between them.