Transformers: Shadows Rising (Arcade)
Arcade games need to make money, and it’s not uncommon for light gun shooters like Transformers: Shadows Rising to include features that try to force players into paying eventually if they want to keep going. Increasing the damage that you take if you’ve avoided damage for a while, forcing damage, and lessening the time you have to hit a target before it strikes you are common tricks of the genre, but while Transformers: Shadows Rising does have different difficulty settings for the arcade owner to potentially set, it plays as a remarkably honest game where it almost feels wrong to fault the moments where it does push a little harder than usual. It’s not overly easy despite playing fair either, leading to an interesting question on whether the arcade owner or the frugal player are truly getting what they’d want out of this first person arcade shooter.
Transformers: Shadows Rising is available in both a stand-up cabinet orientation or a sit-down theater format shaped a bit like the truck form of the Autobot leader Optimus Prime, a replica of his head with flashing lights hanging over the marquee to welcome players before they sit down inside. Up to two players can play at a time, each one using a sci-fi gun peripheral with a dual grip. The only function of the gun itself is to be aimed and fired with infinite ammunition meaning you don’t even need to be careful when you fire really, the game even protecting targets you shouldn’t be hitting like humans or the heroic Autobots who are on your side. While you do get ratings for accuracy and the like on level completion, even then the game doesn’t hold it against you much if you hold the trigger and rarely let go, the only moments you really need to ease up being when you use a few other elements of the cabinet for special sections.
Transformers: Shadows Rising will make rare use of the Start button outside of simply confirming when you enter credits, mostly both players needing to mash it as quickly as possible in a short time to repel some enemy pushing against you, but the Hyperenergy lever is a bit more interesting. If you manage to shoot Energon Cubes in the environment, you’ll get charges for some special functions. Push the Hyperenergy lever forward and you’ll blast all enemies on screen, able to wipe out large groups of standard foes. The game will even sometimes remind you of the option for when it throws a lot of evil robots at you at once just so you don’t sit on it too long, but the Energon can also instead be used to raise an energy barrier to protect you for a time. The lever will also be used a bit similarly to the Start button mashing, but instead you need to do some fairly simple lever movements in time with indicators that aren’t too difficult to hit. Some weapon pick-ups will also appear and swap out with your infinite machine gun should you shoot them, the player able to get tools like a fast firing rocket launcher that easily destroys foes or less exciting options like a slow firing rifle that deals heavy damage but doesn’t quite fit the game’s usually rapid pace as much. You get the weapons for a limited time and don’t need to worry about ammo still, but picking up something like a minigun doesn’t feel like too much of a power trip when your standard weapon is already unfettered and highly effective.
The story of Transformers: Shadows Rising can whizz by you a bit as you play, mostly because a lot of the writing is spent more on the two human characters spouting cliches or making very basic observations about their situations. Both players will find themselves as members of NEST, an armed human organization who works alongside the Autobots to repel the evil transforming Decepticon robots. Player 1 finds themselves as the more professional Vanessa while player 2 is a more inexperienced average joe called Jay, his frequent reactions making it easy to miss the plot details for a situation that can look a little confusing at first. Despite working with the Autobots, you’ll find yourselves shooting down antagonistic machines from both sides, some force cloning characters and turning them against you. It is pretty easy to tell the evil version of a character like Bumblebee apart from his copy who is a different color entirely, and then the game will also have characters like the Dinobot Grimlock mind-controlled instead. It all seems to be in service of providing more interesting battles rather than telling a story with intrigue, especially since the culprit feels so obvious it’s a surprise no one in the plot sees it coming before the reveal is in their face.
Transformers: Shadows Rising starts off with letting you pick between three levels to tackle in whatever order you like before culminating in a fourth and final mission. The areas are differentiated pretty well, the nighttime city of East China features combat in a glittering metropolis and more familiar indoor spaces, Wales mixes the humbler UK streets with some more historical places and rolling green hills, while the Pacific Ocean sees you shifting from fighting aboard an aircraft carrier to diving down to explore an undersea base. In most locations you will have a lot of similar grunt robots to fire at, the busy character designs inspired by the live action Transformers films meaning it’s hard to sometimes make out the differences between bipedal gun-firing mooks, but there will also be swarms of little robots, missile salvos to shoot down, and some vehicle enemies like cars and bikes to shoot before they transform to vary up the regular action. Here is where you’ll see some of the fairness pop up consistently, the player able to shoot whatever robots they see but the game will mark the ones that should be prioritized. A robot marked with a hexagon indicator will eventually deal damage to you if left alone, but even as it starts flashing you’ll have a bit before you actually take that damage, and it won’t likely be severe damage at that. This does mean aiming your easily fired weapon takes less thought as a result with unmarked foes basically bonus points, but the markers are handled well enough you won’t really be upset when something does slip past. After all, even though shooting down missiles can sometimes be more demanding, you were given a fair bit to help you and it was more a matter of your accuracy and consistency on whether you took them down properly.
The more interesting conflicts in Transformers: Shadows Rising will be against boss characters though, and there are a good deal of them in fights that can last a surprising bit of time. The most memorable will certainly be the encounter with the giant metal T-Rex Grimlock and the rollerskating clone of Sideswipe who pursues you as you’re dragged along by a car, most of these encounters based around the boss revealing a host of weak points you need to quickly shoot to prevent their incoming attacks from landing. While there can be up to four or five weak spots at a time that need to be rapidly worn down with Transformers: Shadows Rising pulling back a little on making it clear how to prioritize them, you can still deal enough damage with decent accuracy to make it through a boss unscathed. There will be a few attacks that are quicker to hit or you might need to hit smaller or thinner targets like Grimlock’s moving tail, but there are more fun concepts for areas to hit too like blasting all the facial features of a Decepticon during an extreme close-up too. These will probably be where you might find yourself spending credits because of the more difficult targets, but they’re also still playing about as fairly as everything else, just with an increase focused on hitting multiple targets properly as you would expect of what should be the more challenging parts of a game experience.
Transformers: Shadows Rising does have a few little shifts away from the norm like a sniping section that actually doesn’t require as much pinpoint accuracy as the characters imply, but mostly it does feel like the game is playing things remarkably fair. Even on a cabinet where one of the guns had a wobbly crosshair and the other gun couldn’t aim at the totality of the screen, my co-op partner and I were still struck by how manageable the game felt, especially since Sega has made plenty of light gun shooters before and after that aren’t very shy about having credit-bleeding tactics. Another strange curiosity in the game’s design is the existence of Achievements, there being no good way to get a readout of all the rewards for special actions you get, these likely just a contributing factor towards your score or a way to make the player feel a bit special since some Achievements are for rather basic actions like using the Hyperenergy lever at a point the game was going to suggest it anyway.
THE VERDICT: Transformers: Shadows Rising gives players the tools and info needed to play an arcade light gun shooter surprisingly well, it not feeling like it’s using any cheap tricks to make you put in more credits. However, that also might be why the game feels like it’s missing some of the bite you’d hope for to make the action more thrilling. The indicators that tell you who to shoot undermine the busy war zones despite being helpful for avoiding damage, the infinite ammunition and lack of punishment for firing constantly mean you don’t need to think much beyond aiming, and little gimmick sections like mashing start or using the lever are too easy to be interesting. Luckily, some huge boss battles with robots from both sides do bring some more substantial excitement to the unique locales, but it’s not likely to be a lasting light gun classic because it is a bit too nice to the player and less memorable for it.
And so, I give Transformers: Shadows Rising for arcade machines…
An OKAY rating. There are elements of Transformers: Shadows Rising’s gunplay found in good light gun shooters like the indicators to let you know who will hurt you soon or the infinite ammunition, but it is the particular mix here that holds back this game from being compelling enough to return to after you’ve cleared its four stages. The boss fights are better structured to mix information and ability with risk though, the spread of targets and more time sensitive nature allowing there to be a more present sense of danger while not diverging too much from the game’s usual reliance on well communicated threats. A few little moments like shooting down missiles also keep some challenge intact between the bigger moments too, but there is certainly a sense you don’t need to think much when mowing down regular robots and it also undermines some of the extra weapons or things like the Hyperenergy blast. You don’t need to be too accurate or careful, and gun pick-ups usually just make things like blasting tanks faster rather than providing you a noticeable shift in how well the fight is going. It is fortunate then that Transformers: Shadows Rising relies on boss fights as often as it does, giving you more time spent with the points where it will test you a bit more even if some fights feel a bit long as a result. It would be a bit of a shame to encourage the game to play a little less fair since it will be a nice part of an arcade experience because of its simplicity and minimal impact on your wallet, but the brand and the robot designs are probably carrying the experience considerably in terms of making up for its plain plot and often simple shooting.
Mediocre arcade light gun games are a dime a dozen in some ways, but at least Transformers: Shadows Rising sits in comfortable decency because of it being too nice to players rather than having an utterly plain design. The big robots are impressive to face even if the human characters could do with letting the sights stand on their own rather than contributing generic commentary and weak comedy. But because you aren’t thinking too much about the shooting or getting worked up over cheap deaths, you might better remember the spectacle of the robot fights and at least walk away feeling like one full play was a decent enough part of your arcade excursion to not regret it.