Terminator Salvation Review

Spiderman 2 and GoldenEye are the exceptions when I cast my eye across the catalogue of movie based video games. Throughout the year we’re bombarded with adaptations from the silver screen and more often than not left with a bitter taste in our mouth. Yet despite the luke-warm reception these titles garner, they’re still released regularly so it’s only natural for an inkling of hope that we may yet enjoy a decent movie game. Alas, it seems as though it won’t be happening any time soon.

Brought to us by Grin (the folks who also brought us Wanted: Weapons of Fate), Terminator Salvation has hit all major consoles, ready for the masses to take the T-600’s head on whilst assuming the role as John Connor. However, unlike the film you won’t be a reincarnation of the short-fused Christian Bale and as far as I’m aware, the storyline isn’t that of the films either. I could be wrong, but after the blasphemous Terminator 3, I promised myself never to watch another “sequel”.

The game is broken into seven or eight incredibly short missions all with three alternate difficulties and the ability to play in split-screen co-operative. Whilst the addition is nice, the frame-rate felt a little choppy and trying to make neither heads nor tails of what was going on was a bit of a struggle. Starting the campaign you’re thrown into battle with the objective to reach a drop-zone whilst avoiding the regular barrage of enemy fire and making haste away from your first confrontation with the famed T-600. You’ll soon come to realise the structure of the gameplay within a short amount of time though.

If you’re not in a face-off against a handful of the four different enemies, you’re running to a face-off. The only time you get to experience any other diverse play is during the on-rails driving sections, where you mount up and once more, shoot the evil conniving robots but these instances only happen three or four times throughout the entire campaign, which is a real shame because it’s probably the strongest part of the game.

The graphics are surprisingly good for this flavour of game and hold up well throughout. They certainly don’t put the likes of Uncharted: Drakes Fortune to shame but with a few diverse locations, some well planned (but insultingly linear) levels and a fair amount of details on the enemies and civilians you won’t be too let down. You will be pleased to hear the cult theme tune crop up on occasion to help you ease into the roll and for the most part, you do feel fairly immersed. Yet, after a fair dose of repetition, lack of diversity and a campaign that will last no longer than five hours, you can feel fairly out of pocket. There’s no reason to play through the game again (unless you’re a die hard fan of the Terminator universe) so give the game a rent. It’s not the worst game you’ll ever play, but it may well be the shortest.

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