PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

There's fun to be had in Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, but it's a dialed-in action shooter game, which is a mistake since there was never a chance that this game would compete with the big budget games in the genre, such as Destiny, Call of Duty, or Titanfall.

Being a robot that can transform into different shapes and use cartoony weapons to blow up other robots is fun, and maybe story is unnecessary for this kind of play.

A hard sell even for die-hard Transformers fans, Rise of the Dark Spark brings nothing new to the table. [September 2014, p72]

While far from the worst Transformers game, Rise of the Dark Spark's interesting ideas are eclipsed by bland action and frustrating design.

If Activision cares to know, fans are indeed hungry for a new Transformers game – just not one that shamelessly tries to make us trade our hard-earned cash for junk.

Rise of the Dark Spark is a step back from Fall of Cybertron, and that’s an utter travesty.

Some solid action can’t cover up the fact that Rise of the Dark Spark feels horribly rushed, with massive splotches of shoddy design and a poor plot evident from the opening cinematic to the end credits.

It’s not really good game or a really bad one, it stays somewhere in the middle.

Although it feels like more than a mere movie tie-in, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark still isn’t a good enough game to stand on its own.

The bland campaign is a slog with uneven difficulty, while vehicle transformations and combat are largely unsatisfying. Without nailing that, you’ve got a bad Transfomers game.