What kind of role did he have in the Decepticon hierarchy? Clearly he wasn't the scientist as we know from the cartoons. Perhaps a very high ranking military commander?
Originally Shockwave wasn't a scientist. He was the Decepticon's ultra-logical military commander, sort of the bad guy's answer to Prowl. The idea of him as some kind of scientist is a (rather lazy) interpretation of that whole "logical" angle which came later on. Shockwave's growly movie incarnation doesn't have much to do with either, although in the novel his hyper-logical persona is referenced (he could just as easily kill Prime or not, depending on whether he got in his way. He wouldn't go out of his way to do it and regardless of the outcome it would be nothing personal), but the movie character is pretty clearly just a name slap beastmaster-type.
Yup. That's what the game called him, at least. I think that if there's one character the movies should retcon out of death(besides Nitro Zeus), it's Shockwave. He could definitely helm a movie as the main antagonist, possibly motivated to resurrect the Decepticon cause. ...Hey, if TFP Shockwave can survive getting his eye destroyed and repair it with one hand while blind, so can movie Shockwave.
