Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation – You’ll be back!

The mechanical terror made for the sole purpose to annihilate the human race, or what’s left of them after the nuclear fallout depicted in the story is back in the latest instalment of the Terminator series.

Now, anyone who’s worth their salt knows that the third Terminator movie (the one with the female terminator in it) sucked. So for this movie and game to impress me it would only need to have lots of explosions and hopefully no lame terminatoress.

Well, with great relief I’m pleased to say there’s only decent terminators in all their various models, from the original T1’s to the more advanced and familiar humanoid types. Your mission is simple, to run around the levels, taking out all the Terminators, making use of every power up and obstacle you can put between you and the enemy. The game reminds me of classic third person shooters from the golden age of the arcade and it’s surprisingly quite good for a game that’s been pumped out to capitalise on the franchise.

So there I said it, it’s a shameless trade-in on a big budget movie and massive franchise, it won’t be the first and I doubt it’ll be the last. However, as far as they go, this isn’t so bad and actually offers some good action and strategy and of course some heart-in-mouth moments which is usually saved for the big screen!

The graphics aren’t too inspired, but they are adequate. The movements are quite smooth but it is quite simple to overdo it and end up jumping over the sandbags and blazing cars which offer you some defence by pressing the up key once too many times. Needless to say this is an error you tend to learn from quite rapidly and can be all too costly.

The aiming function is pretty good, but generally keeping your finger on the trigger as you move your crosshairs around the terrain will usually mean the enemy fall to pieces. I would have liked to have seen the Terminators in the distance take a few hits rather than only the ones in the immediate aiming distance.  This would have meant I could have cleared the level and the realism would have been a little more authentic.

Setting this niggle aside, this is a pretty decent effort in terms of action and it easily will entertain you for quite a few minutes if not longer. So If you’re a fan of this style of game then there’s quite a bit to like about this title. Also if you enjoy the movie or have played other Terminator games over the years then you’ll probably find yourself in familiar territory.

Rating 76%

Positives

It’s got terminators

You get to blow stuff up and shoot at Terminators

The game follows the movie script to some degree

Negatives

It’s a soulless game pushed out on the coattails of a blockbuster

Graphics are pretty tame

You can’t shoot everything on screen, you have to move in closer than you’d otherwise choose to