Terminator: Salvation

The Good
Know I knew what I thought I was getting into, I knew the game wasn't all that great, besides it's a movie-based game and a good majority of these games kinda go down the crapper, but I was willing to give it a try. I've been watching this game on the shelf for ages and I've been a little curious, I know it's not technically based off of the actual movie itself, more of a prequel of sorts, but still the cover art kept calling me forwards.

Recently this game has dropped to a very low price, most places now have it for $19.99 while others range around $10, but still it couldn't be all that bad. Well I finally gave in and rented (the key word here) and took it home to give it a try. When it first started up I was actually wowed me when I saw the loading screen of the Terminator skull and how impressive it looked. I thought that I was going to enjoy this, I mean it seems simple enough and I've heard that it's easy and a trophy hunter's dream, but unfortunately this is where my optimism ended sadly.

The Bad
Good lord, where do I begin, the graphics are terrible, the sounds, just basically the overall experience is a horrendous encounter. While the graphics in the loading screen are pretty damn impressive, it seems like that's the extent that the developers put into it. The drabness of the colors doesn't bother me, but the crappy looking backgrounds, almost PS2 standards at times, and the graphics of the characters are substandard, very stiff and rigid at times. The cutscenes are a bit of an improvement, but the horrible lip synching more than makes up for that, almost like watching the old Godzilla films.

The sounds and the music are somewhat alright, the gun sounds are decent, but the clanking of the spider-bots does get old after a while and the music is nothing but of a rehash at times of the main Terminator theme. The voiceovers doesn't help matters, while Youngblood and Common do try their best, Rose McGowan shouldn't even be in the game, she seems more like she is there for nothing more than a paycheck and didn't put much effort into her voice work. Also, this John Connor doesn't hold up to the other films and that is saying something compared to T3. The voice actor just seems plain and bland and the character design looks like a generic soldier that is constantly spawned in a first-person shooter.

The controls are actually pretty decent, but could have been tweaked a little. I would have like an arc graphic for tossing grenades and pipe bombs since it can be very hard to judge distances in the third person perspective. I also didn't like the zoom in aim for the weapons, it really doesn't help seeing how when you zoom in you can still miss the target even if your circle is red and point blank, you can see your bullets pass right by without touching the target. The cover system is a nice idea, but is glitchy. There are times where you think there is a nice cover spot, but for some odd reason it wouldn't come up to choose it and I couldn't get up and get away from an advancing enemy, like I was stuck there.

This game is very glitchy too, have had some lags, couple of freeze ups, the first time happening within the first five minutes of the game and some odd glitches like not being able to pick up weapons or grenades and pipe bombs. There was another time I mounted a stationary machine gun and pointed at an enemy and started to tear them up. Well I went to turn my gun to the extreme right and when I fired, the bullets where actually firing forwards, like the gun was pointing to my original position.

The weapons are in short order, a few assault rifles, a shotgun, grenade, pipe bomb and only a handful of enemies including spider bots, some weird flying bots, the T-600's and so forth, plus the game is very short and the story is somewhat meh. The game would have had a better chance if they actually followed the movie and had Christian Bale and the Marcus character. Hell there could have also been a multiplayer mode, even an online co-op, just an offline co-op. I would have loved to see a multiplayer mode where one half would be the Resistance and the other be Terminators, but sadly it was ignored.

The Bottom Line
In the end I don't recommend this game for anyone, either casual fans, passersby and even hardcore Terminator fans, the game is that bad. Horrible graphics, bad glitches, crappy voiceovers and no multiplayer in sight really ruined this game, the only thing it had going was the impressive cover art and the somewhat responsive control scheme.

I actually rented this game and felt cheated and returned it the very next day and was able to convince them that there was something wrong with the game (which technically it was) and was able to get Batman: Arkham Asylum instead and when I returned Batman I saw that the game was checked out. I hoped that either they took the game out and not that someone else was suffering through the pain. Hell I feel more for the people that bought this game for the full $60 back in the day. Like I said, ignore it and forget this poor excuse of a game ever existed.