
Transformers: Devastation is a Platinum-strength exercise in nostalgia
Look back in anger.
Look back in anger.
The subject of an artist’s work is the source of endless armchair psychoanalysis, but I’m not going to touch this one. The artist Scott Listfield has a fixation for astronauts, painting them over 130 times since the early 90s. You’ll typically find them gazing in blank-eyed wonder at pop icons like Optimus Prime, Mario’s coins twinkling behind a cloud, and the Queen in Aliens. That is to say: anything except what you’d expect an astronaut to be doing. Perhaps there’s a statement in this, something about the decline of the Space Age and the cult of culture. Maybe he just…
This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your opinion of Bay’s growling, baroque renditions of your childhood heroes, but the upcoming Transformers MMO is opting for the visual style of the Universe toy line rather than the movies. I’m personally a little underwhelmed with the trailer for Transformers Universe, because Bay’s vision for the toy property involves hulking autonomous engines ripping out each other’s motors, and the clip contain none of that signature overblown vulgarity. The gameplay footage is basically tiny bots shooting other tiny bots and very gradually wearing each other down, which is…