First Review

Terminator Salvation (Multiplatform)

With any game based on a movie franchise, one's expectations regarding the game's quality are understandably low. Movie games have a long history of inferior stories, graphics, game mechanics, and value. As a result, I approached Terminator salvation with extremely low hopes of having a fun and engrossing experience. Fortunately, this game turned out to be superior to most movie-based games of the past. Though there are many aspects of the game that are poor when compared to the standards of today's triple A titles, the game is basically fun to play, and at times, I was hesitant to put the controller down. The game doles out Xbox Live achievements liberally, so if you get satisfaction from bolstering your gamerscore, then Terminator Salvation is a fun way to do it. The story is extremely simplistic, and it is only peripherally related to the movie that shares its name. The events of the game take place several years prior to those in the film. Unfortunately the game's developer Grin was unable to get Christian Bale's likeness for the main character John Connor. As a result, we're stuck with a bland looking replacement. But multiple actors have played Connor in the movie franchise, so the absence of Bale's face is not a huge disappointment for long-time fans. However because the game's Connor, and all other character models in the game, is poorly modeled and relatively flat in terms of personality, Bale’s face and voice are occasionally missed.

The game begins in a war-torn Los Angeles. You assume the role of Connor, but you have not yet risen to a prominent position within the human resistance. In fact you're simply a grunt in the resistance army taking orders from superiors such as Rogers. This poor choice of names, actually leads to the line, "Roger, Rogers." It’s a minor point, but come on guys your dialogue is already cheesy. Couldn't you have been a little more creative? When Connor receives a distress call from a stranded ally, he goes rogue by ignoring orders to evacuate the area. Instead he sets out to rescue the isolated survivors. A generic female sidekick named Blair joins you in this seemingly impossible endeavor. The stranded humans are isolated in an area that is entirely controlled by Skynet. As a result, the allies you meet along the way continually remind you that you’re on a suicide mission. Comically, the survivors you intend to rescue seem to share this sentiment. As you make your way to their location, you do the resistance a favor by taking out some of Skynet’s key defenses, which allows for an unprecedented assault on the enemy's infrastructure.

That's the story in a nutshell, and it's clear that there wasn't a whole lot of thought put into the campaign. In any case the developers did a good job of creating a convincing Californian wasteland. Though the graphics don't stand up to anything like Gears of War or Resident Evil 5, they aren't terrible. The character models appear okay during actual gameplay, but they’re horrifyingly rendered in the game's poorly written cut scenes. Otherwise the graphics are decent, and in some places, I'd even call them beautiful (if you can call a destroyed shell of Los Angeles beautiful). Particulate effects are particularly bad though, and when there's an explosion or the crumbling of walls, the player is reminded of particle effects on the last generation of consoles. Environmental textures are fairly bland early in the game, but they seem to improve later in the campaign. Objects within the environment, such as burned-out cars and fallen lamposts, are often rendered impressively.

The game is fun to play, and fighting humanoid machines from the future is inherently cool. In fact, encounters with the "endos," which consist solely of metal skeletons, and the rubber skinned human appearing machines, can be quite intimidating. There are other enemies you'll encounter on a much more frequent basis, which include the flying "wasps" and the arachnid-like "spiders." The wasps represent somewhat of a challenge, and it is extremely satisfying to engage them with the shotgun. The spiders are also fun to confront, because like the tanks in certain World War II shooters or real time strategy games, their weak spots are on their backs, and you frequently have to outmaneuver them through flanking to expose this weakness. Though this tactic may seem a bit simplistic, I did enjoy flanking enemies and attacking their backs while my allies kept them occupied with suppressive fire. The game also requires you to make ample use of cover, especially on the more challenging difficulty settings. The cover system is fairly simplistic. You can enter or exit cover by pressing the A button (in the 360 version of the game). Conner is also capable of moving fluidly from one piece of cover to another. Though simple in function, the addition of a cover system is a nice feature that adds complexity to a game with otherwise simple mechanics.

There are a lot of achievements in Terminator salvation, all of which can be unlocked by simply playing through the campaign. To get all of the achievements, however, you have to complete the entire game on the highest difficulty setting, which may prove frustrating at times. There are no collectibles or skill-based achievements, which detracts significantly from replay value. However, in a time when many developers make acquiring achievements extremely difficult (or in some cases next to impossible) it is somewhat refreshing not to feel compelled to "collect 30 widgets on level number five." Collecting agility orbs in Crackdown may have been addictive, but gathering hundreds of rooftop flags in Assassin's Creed was downright infuriating. Considering my less than stellar gamer score, I was happy to receive a sudden influx of achievements from Terminator Salvation. That's not to say that the game isn’t challenging. In fact it does require strategic thinking in certain areas, but veteran shooter fans are unlikely to be challenged significantly.

The guns of Terminator Salvation are extremely generic and limited in variety. There’s a light machine gun, a shotgun, a heavy machine gun, an RBG, and grenades. It doesn't get any more generic than that. All of the weapons, with the exception of the RBG and grenades, are relatively weak against the machines. At least this aspect of the weapons is somewhat realistic, as one might expect titanium alloy endoskeletons to be relatively impervious to projectiles. In any case, despite its lack of variety, the gunplay is fun and engaging. The sight of an endoskeleton approaching is always a bit scary, and they put up a very good fight. Popping off wasps with the shotgun and frying spiders with grenades doesn’t seem to get old.

The game's weakest points are its cut scenes, which seem to have been cobbled together at the last minute. In addition, the character models are very poorly detailed and the lack of climactic boss battles is glaringly apparent. The game employs the Terminator soundtrack effectively, but the soundtrack is worthy of much better-choreographed cut scenes. Regardless, the music helps create the feeling of being in the Terminator universe and we’re fortunate that the developers at least had access to this asset.

Overall Terminator Salvation is a fun and satisfying single player game. It is however relatively short, and it’s not a good value while carrying a full retail price of $60. This game should be reserved for die-hard fans of the Terminator series, or shooter fans with $60 burning a hole in their pocket. Regardless if you're into the Terminator franchise, then Terminator Salvation should be rented at the very least. It's an experience worth having, and you'll likely be pleased with the game’s ambience, the gameplay, and the freely flowing achievements. It may be no Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, but it's one of the best movie-based games I've played. If you have the free cash, or the ability to rent the game, enjoy the single player campaign first, and then go see the movie. Having not seen the film yet myself, I fear that seeing the movie prior to playing the game will make you wish that Christian Bale were as much a fan of video games as Vin Diesel.