As burly robotic brawlers go, it doesn't get much more genuine than Transformers. What's more, when it comes to flouting the excessively improbable exploits of said Transformer, nobody dishes out mega doses of mechanized mayhem better than Michael Bay.

As evidenced by the critically panned blockbuster currently tearing up the box office, pausing only to eat critics for lunch, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is as good as it gets when it comes to visually vivacious, cerebrally vacuous entertainment.

As a movie-based game, furthermore, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen captures Michael Bay's cinematic sensibilities to remarkable effect while mostly avoiding silly little tie-ins to thematic encumbrances such as "plot."

Indeed, the high-definition game has little in common with the film of the same name save for the key characters and their good vs evil contrivances, opting to combine and/or extrapolate from the film's story (term used loosely) to deliver much longer and thoroughly interactive segments of the definitive bits, the action.

Basically, this boils down to bashing the bolts out of opponents, playing as either an Autobot (a good guy) or a Decepticon (a bad guy), sometimes fetching this, blowing up that or protecting/destroying the other thing, but bashing through most of it. And that's all you need to know because that's pretty much all you do and it's all rather generic, technically.

That said, considering the Transformers' innate ability to switch from some sort of vehicle or craft to a giant mechanized biped with the push of a button (the pull of a shoulder trigger, actually), Revenge of the Fallen offers a special brand of otherwise-generic action in that it involves both flying or driving (and bashing) plus running, jumping and climbing while shooting, punching, kicking and slashing (and bashing) within the same context, making it all appreciably raucous, intense even.

The setting for each scenario, meanwhile, is respectably huge, usually offering the equivalent of a few square miles in which to roam, jockey for best-bash position, recoup, explore and otherwise tear it up through cities, forests, deserts, or sea and sky.

However, aside from the dual personality transmogrification shtick, all that is not unlike many of the souped-up, super-strong, super-resilient, super hero/villain games on the market today. So where Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen differentiates itself - and rises above typical movie-based game schlock in the process - is by way of a remarkable blend of solid but typical game action peppered with Michael Bay's outlandish theatrics, including the gleeful destruction of environmental collateral, swooping camera work, color palette hyperbole, sharp angled lighting, and more noisy glitter and garish gloss going on at the same time that it's verily impossible to stay focused on the outlandishness of it all. Woohoo!

Also, when applied to the remarkable wealth of content available to the sentient robots that is the Transformers, the standard game convention of upgradeable and/or unlockable characters, parts and assorted accruements takes on a whole new meaning, because that's what these things are all about in the first place.

After all that (or before, but not if you know what's good for you), you can take it online for some generic multiplayer mayhem with said same distinctive 'bots in all their outlandish glory.

All told, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is gaming made great by its subject matter, not by its formula.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Cheat: Enter LB, Y, LB, B, X, X in the Cheats menu to unlock all upgrades.