Review: Transformers Exodus

[dvandom]

Reads like a much longer novel with random passages condensed into summary form.

Comments

[zqadams.livejournal.com]

Since the new video game begins with Megatron, Brawl and Barricade invading a research station in search of Dark Energon research, I can only assume that Book Two is so rushed and piecemeal because Irvine had to tell the entire story of the game and either Irvine or his editors felt it would raise fan hackles to skim over the entire Decepticon storyline. (It's set up so that you follow Megatron through his acquisition and weaponization of Dark Energon, Starscream and company's joining the Decepticons up through the Autobots' lowest point of the war with Omega nearly dead, Zeta Prime presumed dead and Optimus--who is never referred to as Orion Pax--as temporary command of the Autobot forces in an Iacon under siege...then you switch perspectives and help the Autobots get their own back.) The problem with that, of course, is that in a novel you don't have to segregate the point of view so rigidly, and there's no reason they couldn't tell half the second part of the game from Megatron's point of view.

Anyway, I have misgivings about the new Prime continuity (I was just talking a couple of months ago about how I felt that one of the strengths of the brand was its willingness to reboot and tangent rather than risk continuity lockout) and the whole concept of Dark Energon bothers me for reasons I can't easily articulate, but I have to say I'm enjoying the game (I'm only through the Autobots' first chapter, though). Even without the lack of an ebook version (which nobody at Botcon from Hasbro, including "the publishing rep" could explain) I think I'd be skipping this for now; I've read enough late-period Weber lately to not need any more infodumps disguised as fiction.