The recent Terminator movie is what the last one SHOULD have been. No more time travelling - this is the period where the machines wake up, the human race hardens up, and the CIA stops pushing too many pencils. Terminator Salvation the game, is set just before the events of the movie, we reviewed it on PS3.
Terminator is a 3rd person cover shooter that you can play solo or split screen with someone next to you. The machines have some heavy duty firepower, so you and your squad will need to rely heavily on shoot & move tactics, which suits the movies perfectly. Each new room will contain several bits of cover, a la Gears of War, and your health won't go back up until the firefight is over. If you're pinned down on 10% health with no ammo, you're already dead. You just don't know it yet.
Emphasis is placed on flanking, and there's always some side path that'll take you right round the robotic rear. Even if they just follow you, you're squadmates are smart enough to pop em in the back.
Yeah, useful squadmates are a good thing. When you're out of ammo, they'll chuck you some. When you get flanked, they let you know.
Terminator also tries to build an emotional bond between player and squadmate, and fails completely, I didn't care whether they lived or died, but at least while they're alive, they do stuff. One thing that baffled me though, and it's relentless, no one in the game can stop saying the name John Connor!
Waaah, get these people some air!
And for a linear game, sometimes it can be hard to find the way, and without a jump button it's annoying being unable to get over a 3 foot piece of concrete. You will spend most of your time behind that concrete though, the machines target you specifically if you're out of cover.
Like any Star Wars game, it benefits heavily from that memorable franchise music. You could show anything to this music and it would sound epic. I could show you Glados the cat.
That is one epic cat, man. I'm actually kinda scared!
Nothing. There is no multiplayer, and after finishing, no real reason to come back to it. It's quite short, and while some levels were fun, I think it fits snugly into that well deserved stigma that movie games have Jung.
I had to wonder, with these games, has the bar just been set really high? I mean, after a level of CoD4, you feel like putting it down because it's so intense. After a level of Terminator, you're like, this is kinda fun, but I hope it gets better...A great example is the giant boss they show you early on...which you NEVER get to fight!
About ready for final thoughts?
As far as movie games go, it's more fun than usual. Sliding from cover to cover is pretty cool. But it is very much a movie game. It feels thrown together, there are the odd glitches, and it only lasts about 6 hours. As for the variety of enemies? You can count em on one hand. 5.5 from me.
It's the same old story, great graphics and music, but average gameplay and length. If you ask me Jung, 6 hours is about the ideal time for a rental. 6 from me.