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PCTerminator : Salvation - Review

Terminator Salvation                                                     5/10
[PC Xbox 360 and PS3]
A prime example of why movies should stay on the big screen

The multi million dollar film is set to be released shortly and is the fourth instalment of The Terminator series, and with each movie comes another game where you play the character from the movie, and to quote the famous Arnie line, ‘I’ll be back… to the store to return this game…’
 

A small variety of enemies

Story
The game is a prequel to the movie, set 2 years before the events in the movie, which tells the tale of how John Connor, an average piece of cannon fodder, becomes the leader of humankind in the struggle against the machine, which leads to the events that occur during the film

Terminator Salvation
Despite this being the future, and the technological advances that have corrupted the world which sent it into a post apocalyptic struggle for survival, it doesn’t make sense why you must agonizingly jog from location to location, without much vehicular transport, along your journey though you encounter some formidable metal foes, and some more, and some more… it’s a surprise after the onslaught of mechanical monstrosities that you don’t feel all your electronic equipment in your house may suddenly turn against you…

Movement is simple, you lightly jog around environments unless you want to dive for cover, in which case once hidden, a semi circle appears allocating the next suitable position to cover in, this comes in handy as along your way you will come under fire quite frequently and even spend tedious periods of time waiting for the opportunity to move again, though your AI buddies can help you out of a sticky situation, by distracting the enemy, or firing at weak points, though what I experienced was the friendly AI leaping to a suicidal death in order for you to progress.
 

Ah Mr. Crab we meet again…
 

The enemies you meet aren’t very diverse, there are only three main enemies you fight against, that all have there own weakness, which kind of works in a ‘rock paper scissors’ style way, one ammunition defeats one, whilst not another, and so on, but a very warm welcome to some special enemies and boss characters you will meet that provide some challenge to the game, but other than that it’s the same simple routine each and every time, get to cover, fire the desired ammo at a certain weak point then progress, its that simple.

The game is broken down into many, many cinematics and clips, which do add emphasis to the fact you’re playing a terminator game just to remind you that this isn’t actually a totally independent game and isn’t using the franchise to promote a game, a game that will take just under 6 hours to complete,
 

Yet another crab…

The good
However bad the game, the terminator will always be cool!
Boss characters impose a challenge

The bad
Extremely repetitive
Ridiculously short, for a full retail price
Graphics aren’t very impressive
Although it’s meant to be the Terminator, you never get a sense of tension, drama or excitement just a poignant feeling that you’re wasting your time
Doesn’t really add to the storyline

The ugly
The game appears to be half finished in areas, as if they rushed it to coincide with the release of the film
The friendly AI can be particularly odd at times, that don’t aid the struggle for survival at all
 

The post apolyptic world does looks fairly decent… Hey look another crab!

Summary
Unfortunately, yet again, a game derived from a movie has decided to show its ugly face on gaming shelves, and with the multi million blockbuster franchise title, that’s so popular with great effects, drama and excitement, that they cannot portray these aspects onto a video game. Terminator Salvation is short lived and repetitive, anyone looking for a solid prodigy, look elsewhere, I’ll be saying Hasta la vista to this title.




Liam Copping