Transformers Rise of the dark spark

This is the 3rd game in a series that started with the surprisingly good Traonsformers: War for Cybertron.

There is some rather poor level design at times with Invisible walls all over the place, and objects you just can't jump over. Most obstacles are there, so that enemies can take cover. Something you still haven't learned to do  properly yourself. You can angle yourself to stand behind an object, but there is no stick to/active cover system like we now see in so many 3rd person shooters.

The fixed camera is a bit on the close side. Even for a 3rd person shooter things feel a tad claustrophobic at times, and it also plays silly buggers with scale. 

Rise's lock/gear box system makes exploring every nook and cranny far less tempting:
There are still audio logs, but more than once I had one of these spawn only after a certain event. You won't be finding any blueprints, since all weapon upgrades/unlocks now are random drops from said boxes. (With a very high duplicate ratio) The same goes for unlocking characters, skins, and consumables.

You get these gear boxes by levelling up via XP, and completing challenges. You can increase gained experience points with consumable temporary multiplier items, or applying a “hack”. These range from enemies that explode upon death to removing the game HUD.

Unlike previous games this does not seem to allow setting classic skins in the campaign, so you are stuck with the film stuff.

The story could have gotten interesting, but sadly never actually goes anywhere. Most of the game takes place in the past. There are no bridging events with the present. The story from the last game isn't expanded. Instead quite a few things are changed in a very poor attempt at cramming the film universe in. 
This results in large gaps/changes without an explanation: Why are we fighting cybertronian Mercenaries, and where did they come from? Where are the decepticons? Why are there no soldiers even inside high security military bases?

Rise of the dark spark screams sequel, but doesn't quite go for that good old “To be continued” text at the end.

Rise of the dark spark is also the shortest game in the series. Total game time clocked in steam is a very meager 6 hours for completing the campaign. That already includes quite a bit of idle time.

The gun play is more or less identical to Fall of Cybertron. I had some issues with triggers: Interacting with a certain object, or helping an npc would require wiggling my character around before the prompt showed up. I also died a few times by falling/clipping through the level.

All in all this is by far the weakest game in this series. It feels rushed, and lacks any passion. Some segments feel like they have been poorly copied from earlier installments. Certainly avoid it at the current price. Even if you are a major fan wait until it is a fiver at most. 

On a more personal note: The changes made to Grimlock are a bloody waste. The character no longer speaks, but just roars/groans. For some obscure reason he has been made a good chunk larger (Actually so has Bumblebee), and they replaced his sword with a glorified club. Now he is nothing more than a overgrown mute brute without any personality what so ever. 
These new designs look wrong to me. Even the T Rex form doesn't actually impose. It has a faux organic look that just detracts from the overall robot aesthetic. Same goes for the new robots forms. With the old models you could clearly see what vehicle each of them transformed into. There was some “logic” to the designs that these new ones miss.

Hey Optimus: Where did your trailer go anyway?