[360/PS3] Terminator Salvation Review

[AgtFox]

Terminator Salvation Review

Title: Terminator Salvation
Platform: 360/PS3/PC
Developer: GRIN
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
ESRB: Teen
MSRP: $59.99 (360/PS3), $49.99 (PC)
Editor: Loren 'AgtFox' Halek

What's Hot: The opening cinematic; the close-up graphics when aiming; the vehicle combat; local co-op adds an extra human versus idiot AI

What's Not: Very short; very easy; story is stupid; friendly and hostile AI are both dumb; myriad of other things

It took me 11,700 seconds to beat Terminator Salvation. In hours and minutes terms, that is 3 hours and 15 minutes. Yes, this game is that short. It is one of the many problems that make up this game. It seems everything done right with a movie tie-in game like the recently released X-Men Origins: Wolverine (my review) is undone here by GRIN. Granted, GRIN is a busy place since they also developed Bionic Commando which was released this week as well. Add into that the underwhelming Wanted game from earlier this year and they’ve been a busy company. That still doesn’t excuse this shoddy game though.

Since the movie came out just yesterday, I can’t really talk about whether this game follows the movie or not. What I do know is that neither Christian Bale’s image nor his voice is present in this game. John Connor in the game kind of looks like Jet Brody from Fracture and looks nothing like Bale. In fact, even the characters that are voiced by their movie actors (like Rose McGowan) look nothing like themselves. Granted, the voice actor doing John Connor does a good job of channeling his inner Edward Furlong, but I’m going to doubt Bale took the role in the same way.

When I first put the game in my 360 it would get stuck on the loading screen. After installing the game onto my hard drive I was finally able to get to the title screen and into the game. I note this just for those out there that may be having the same problem. The opening cinematic in the game is quite good, but after that everything pretty much goes downhill. The voices don’t match up with lips moving. In fact, half the time the lips stay closed as people talk. There are points were the graphics look pretty good, but then you start to see a lot of jaggies and you see character graphics and they just seem so last generation.

When you finally get into the game you come to the realization that this game is trying to mimic two other games, and you could arguably put other games in the place of the ones I am putting here: Gears of War and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. It has the perspective of the former, but they forgot to bring over the run button, the relative smoothness of motion and the beauty of the cover system. It has the gameplay of the latter where you come upon an open space with obvious cover opportunities and it’s obvious you will be getting into a firefight, but it leaves the story and personality of Uncharted behind. Problem is that Terminator Salvation is basically a game where you are going through the motions. You move from point to point, watching cutscenes with the awful story and getting into firefights with spiders, wasps, Terminators and Skinjobs (Terminators with rubberized flesh-like substance on them to fool the Resistance). There are some notable sections though, but they usually revolve around you at the gunner’s position on a vehicle. This is where the game shines, it’s just too bad these sections are few and far between.

The cover system in the game is competent, but it honestly could have been so much more. Instead of making it smoother like the two games talked above, it is pretty much broken here. You should be able to move from cover to cover, but there are points where John just won’t move to that other cover location. Instead you have to pull out of cover and run to the other section and re-enable cover with the A button. When it does work, the cover system is very good at moving you toward the rear of your enemies where you can do the most damage. It’s just that the cover system here is not as intricate as other cover systems in other games.

The weapons presented in the game are pretty fun to use. You can only hold two at a time and there is some strategy involved depending on what type of machine you’re facing off against. I found going through that I kept the shotgun with me to take care of all the airborne enemies and then switched between the grenade launcher and the RPG to take out the bigger Terminators. The trick is to generally get behind the bigger enemies and take them out from there, but the grenade launcher, RPG and the bombs you get are good for assaults from anywhere and they have nice lighting effects tied to them.

There is local split-screen co-op present in the game. One of you takes John and the other one takes his partner Blair through the story of John trying to find some group of soldiers holed up in Skynet’s headquarters. The co-op is actually pretty cool and the game was obviously built around that because there are sections where John and Blair take separate roads, especially during the vehicle combat stages that are over way too soon. Now, this doesn’t make the game any harder or longer, so you have to take that into account.

Terminator Salvation is not a good movie tie-in. There’s no way I can recommend anyone to pick this game up for $60. The game is over too quickly and there really is no extra incentive to play through the game again unless you wanted to play it via local co-op. This game is a good pickup for a rental though, although you may feel dirty afterwards because the game tries to be like Gears of War and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and fails on pretty much all levels. I think if they had gotten all the actors images and voices, the game may have turned out better…although it may not have turned out longer. Leave this game on the shelves unless you want a quick game to score Achievement points on.

Score: 2.5 out of 5 CoGs


Loren says, "Unlike X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this is a movie tie-in game done wrong. The game is too short and boring to recommend for anything other than a rental. Even then your experience will be over soon."

*Note - Review based upon the 360 version of game

[Kelegacy]

I wish these games were priced to reflect their content. But I guess then Fallout 3 would cost $200.

Sounds like a neat rental...but I think 8 bucks might be too much if I can beat it in 3 hours. If I see it in the bargain bin for $10 I might play it and just trade it back in.

[Xerxes]

So is this Turok bad?

[AgtFox]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

So is this Turok bad?

Never played Turok, so can't say. I can say it is Haze bad if that helps. This is far shorter than Haze though.

[Fubl]

Ouch... i only played to the first checkpoint of haze.... its that BAD

[Orca]

I wouldn't even have rated it that highly, though I have to say that several outdoor sequences made me think this is what Fallout 3 would have looked like...if Bethesda had a functional third-party view.

[AgtFox]

Originally Posted by Orca

I wouldn't even have rated it that highly, though I have to say that several outdoor sequences made me think this is what Fallout 3 would have looked like...if Bethesda had a functional third-party view.

Yeah, I've only played a bit of Fallout 3 (sorry, other games that needed to be reviewed or played kept popping up) and in the outside environments I kept thinking, "Man, he looks like the Fallout 3 protagonist in the outdoors".

[Wolvie]

Here's one thing I noticed during the Gametrailers.com review video:



What the fuck is that? Even the CG video's are done poorly.

[Xerxes]

Are you talking about his arm or the gun?

[Stmfuller]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

Are you talking about his arm or the gun?

I think it's his pistol connected to a machine gun.

cue Xibit meme

[Wolvie]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

Are you talking about his arm or the gun?

That pic needs no explanation. I mean just look at his arm, the upper arm is all bulky, then the forearm is so small it's almost deformed, and his elbow is ridiculously thin. If the picture isn't enough, just watch the gametrailers.com review video and wait for that scene, you'll see what I'm talking about.

[jeffbax]

So how is a game you "cannot possibly recommend" still 2.5 / 5

Wouldn't this be 0/5

[AgtFox]

Originally Posted by jeffbax

So how is a game you "cannot possibly recommend" still 2.5 / 5

Wouldn't this be 0/5

Maybe you should read the rest of the sentence ("for $60") or the one where I say it may be a good rental pickup. It isn't a broken game with gamebreaking problems, it just doesn't rise above average...no way does it deserve a 0/5. If it was priced lower maybe it would be a good purchase for those that like a short game.

[Adam Blue]

Originally Posted by Xerxes

So is this Turok bad?

Don't get me started...

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Adam Blue

Don't get me started...

Baited!

I didn't mind some of the game play choices of your pick.

[CappinCanuck]

I guess you couldn't have expected too much from a game that shipped broken and had to be recalled. Thanks for the headsup.