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Terminator: Salvation Game Review

I know this game came out a while ago but I just got around to playing it. I got distracted by Borderlands and Batman: Arkham Asylum. What can you do?

The game Terminator: Salvation acts as a prequel to the movie. John Connor is just assembling his crew of Blair Williams and Barnes played by Moon Bloodgood and Common in the movie. Both actors voice their characters in the game but, sadly, Christian Bale does not. The plot and the game itself are pretty basic. You play as John Connor and guide your team through a post-Judgment Day Los Angeles trying to find a group of survivors that are holed up at Eagle Rock: the Sky Net headquarters.

The game is extremely linear. Burned-out cars and debris form perfect pathways that guide you to the next checkpoint. You literally can’t go outside the lines. I found this to be frustrating and stupid. If you try to go back to retrieve some ammo or a weapon you left behind—you get a warning that flashes on the screen telling you “Do not leave the battle!”

I found the weapons and the enemies to be unimaginative and tiresome. You can choose from a shotgun, assault rifle, machine gun, grenade launcher and rocket launcher. You can pick up grenades and pipe bombs. All of these items magically appear at each battle ground so you never have to worry about conserving ammo or grenades. There’s also no danger of an ambush because the weapons caches act as giveaways.

There are only five types of enemies: flying Aerobots, T-600s, T-70s or “Spiders”, the motorcycles from the movie and T-600s with rubber skin. The T-800s have not been invented yet. You also encounter several “Hunter/Killers” or “HKs” as they’re called. Those are the flying planes that shoot plasma blasts. You get a quick glimpse of the giant “Harvester” that appears in the movie but nothing more.

The game is designed to be played as a mixture of stealth and straight action. You will survive longer if you employ their cover system. I found this to be very similar to the cover system found in the Wanted: Weapons of Fate video game. As you’re pressed against a blocking object like a wall or car, a menu will appear. It will give you the option to dash to the next piece of cover. It was pretty fun to out-flank the machines. The game could have improved by allowing you to tell you team mates to move to flanking positions or ask them for covering fire. The graphics were really crisp and smooth. The developers definitely captured the atmosphere of a post-nuclear-holocaust L.A.

It seems like this game had a lot of potential but didn’t have the funding to make it really slick. Instead it plays like a fun-of-the-mill FPS. Normal gamers should play this on “Hard”. I found the “Medium” setting to be way too easy. The weapons are too powerful and it really wasn’t a challenge.