Terminator Salvation: The Videogame

Review from George - Monday, 01 June 2009 @ 10:17am

Until recently I worked at GAME. Now I mention this because, if you’ve ever set foot inside one of their stores you would’ve noticed they have game trailers running on one of their 16 LCD screens that flood the showroom.

And if you’ve been into a GAME recently, you might’ve seen the trailer for Terminator Salvation. Which to me, looked really cool. But now I reflect upon it, my opinions on this game were based entirely on the awesomely animated cut scenes they’d chopped up and used in the trailer. No game play just cut scenes. And so going by this fantastical, magical trailer, which I saw at least 30 times a day, 3 days a week … I was, well through the magic of constantly viewing something+ maybe subliminal brain programming, forced to buy this game when it came out.

Over the course of 6 hours all I did was walk 20 meters, encounter enemies, defeat them, walk another 20 meters, defeat them, have a car chase, then go to the next chapter. Swap car chase for train and motorbike and you have the last two chapters. I usually enjoy not having to spend 4 hours finding all 20 magic crystal healing bananas just to unlock an 5G achievement, but the lack of any collectables or side missions in this drone of a 3rd person shooter added to the thrown together atmosphere of the game.

Although the game started out on a interesting wim with John Connor reflecting upon times where one could dance on beaches, buy petrol below the dollar and not expect our toasters or electronical appliances to kill us, the vision of a fast paced 3rd person shooter set in a atmospheric dystopian future dies. I could almost hear my childhood self crying.

This game is more thrown together, and non thought out than those stupid Maxi Bon ice creams.

If you are at all familiar with the Terminator franchise then you’d know it basically centers around either preventing Sky Net ever happening, or destroying it. This game centers around going to an evacuation point, and then destroying a radio tower jamming the humans communication between each other. You learn this, in the last 10 minutes of the game. This is a 6 hour game.

Spinning in mid air to destory this helicopter was the highlight of the game. And It's a cutscene.

You play as John Connor who through a series of cut scenes I didn't watch devises a plan to destroy Sky Net. Again. And he obviously fails, because well, there wouldn't be a Terminator Salvation movie then would there? You can also play co op through split screen online, yes that's the really hyper cool online option, or just con someone into playing with you. Which I will suggest, as some parts in this game you need a 2nd player as the ai wont do shit to help you.

You're thrown into the action almost as soon as the opening cut scene ends and it basically sets the tone for the whole game. As you can't move 10m without being attacked. And if by any chance you happen to fall into a enemy free zone, you are transported to the next chapter. Meaning to progress any further in the game, all enemies need to be killed. The game improves on this to make it harder to pass levels by adding in 2 more of each enemy at every battle. Effective game play right there.

The only threat the enemies hold in this game is ammo loss, as they just stand there like little bitches and take bullets, RPG’s, whatever you throw at them. There are, mm let me count…6 enemies in this game. Two of them being exo skeletons, the T600 and… Umm, the other namely the Skin Job. Which is another name for the Cylons from BSG and something I can’t name on a PG review. Killing enemies is an easy as hitting the fuel pack on their backsides. But not the T models, no, they continue to piss you off until you accidently kill them. I say accidently because you can quite easily load enough lead in to the bastards to poison a whole countries water supply before they die.

Encounter 2 in the first level, and 3 and in final level :D

Now there are games you finish because they’re very enjoyable and you power through holding on to hope that the ending will equal this already awesome game. And there are games that breed a hate within yourself so pure that your innate want to set things you hate on fire is overcome by an unbreakable, hate filled rage so powerful only finishing the game and enduring 6 hours of controller throwing outbreaks will return you to your former calm self.

This game falls into the 2nd category.

With the plot and outcome of the game so obvious it became obsolete to me while playing, so I just concentrated on game play and not dying. This'd be fine if the game play wasn't ridiculously repetitive and dying a compulsory need. Your health will regenerate in this game, once you've killed everything. So if you were low on health, your best option was to step out in the line on fire, let your team mate heal you, then wait several tens of seconds for both of yours to regain at the same time.

This game lacks any replay ability whatsoever as has no collectables, all achievements can be grabbed playing through on hard difficulty and playing online only means split screen co op. It can be finished under 6 hours and the only difficulty you will come across is deciding whether or not to burn the house down after the game throws something stupid at you.

My final opinion on the game? I think it's pretty obvious. Instead let me show you what I spent some of the money I got from returning it.

Double Caramel hot chocolate, with vanilla syrup, three marshmellows and whip cream. If you know how crap Starbucks actually tastes, then this shows how this game drained my sense of dignity

Oh, and few words from the person I played through this with.

Pros

The highlights of this game were an extremely badly animated cut scene of a car turning mid point in the air and the over done African American character being blown out of a tunnel while screaming. This game is also very good for Cheevos. Playing it once through on Hard gives you 1000G.

Cons

This franchise has so much potential in gaming. Unfortunately they sold the license for .25 cents and a bucket of apples and out came this thrown together game lacks any replay ability what so ever. All gameplay is an exact copy of the level before hand, but with a few more of the same enemies. .