Terminator: Salvation
Platform: Playstation 3
Release Date: May 19, 2009
By: CapnMattBossy
Movie based games tend to be a really bad representation of the actual movie. Terminator Salvation tends to follow that statement. Terminator Salvation seems to be a rushed product that had high hopes for Terminator fans but it fails with technical problems, abysmal AI, boring story, and worst of all, the game is repetitive.
In Terminator Salvation you play as John Connor and you are trying to battle the machines called Skynet. Terminator Salvation is actually a prequel to the movie so nothing is spoiled if you haven’t seen the movie yet but the story is nothing to brag about. In the game, the story is… Wait a second is there a story? John Connor is sent out on a rescue mission to save some Resistance soldiers. That’s about it. The story isn’t engaging and the voice acting is not convincing at all. You are fighting in this huge war against these machines and all the humans are talking like nothing historic is happening.
I am John Connor and you will die!
The gameplay to the game is nothing to brag about either. You get very few weapons to choose from and the best gun is by far the shotgun because it has the same exact range as the assault rifle. The game is pretty repetitive too. You basically go from section to section clearing out enemies and you find yourself doing the same objectives over and over again. On top of that, there are only four or five enemies throughout the entire game. The machines do the exact same thing with no intelligence to any of it. They usually just stop and shoot. You would think since they are machines that they would try to flank you and push you out of cover but that’s not the case. GRIN tries to mix it up with select few “on rails” sequences but every sequence is god awful and it is a pain to get through because of the stiff gun controls. The default sensitivity layout is extremely toned down and when you try to boost it up, you can’t find the happy medium. The only good thing about the game is the cover system. It seems like GRIN really put a lot of time and effort into it. Once you go into cover, you have the ability to blind fire, pop up and fire, and move from cover to cover with a press of a button. The game also froze up on me quite a few times and it can be a bit buggy at times. I noticed some of my fellow Resistance soldiers getting stuck on walls or just walking through walls. The sound in the game is nothing but pathetic. Like I said before, the soldiers around you don’t sound convincing at all. But even worse is that in the cut scenes they sound even worse sometimes. The gun sounds are nothing to brag about either. They sound muffled at times and they don’t feel like you’re holding an M4 or an RPG. The music to the game is actually quite good. However, by the time I was done with the game, I was pretty sick of the Terminator theme. The graphics to the game are a little below average. The post apocalyptic L.A. looks pretty detailed at times and the scenery carries out throughout the game. The character models look average at best and the explosions can look nice from time to time.
Fight for the Resistance!
There is really no reason to play through the game more than once since there are no unlockables and you can get all the trophies in one playthrough. Also, there is no online multiplayer whatsoever. You can play the game splitscreen with a friend in Co Op but that’s it. I was really hoping Terminator Salvation would be a game I could recommend to other action fans but with the bad story, bad gameplay, and 4-5 hour campaign, Terminator Salvation can go on the long list of bad movie based games.
Gameplay- 6… Stiff controls, bad AI, repetitive. Nice cover control.
Sound- 5.5... Horrific voice acting muffled gun sounds. Terminator theme is well done.
Graphics- 6… Character models can look cartoony at times. L.A. looks fully blown apart in a good way.
Replay- 3… There is absolutely no reason to play it again. No unlockables. No online multiplayer. Splitscreen Co Op.
Overall (Not Average)- 5/10