Terminator: Salvation is what we all thought it would be: crap

For every game like Chronicles of Riddick or the recent X-Men Origins: Wolverine which proves that games based on films can work if given the right circumstances there’s always a game like Terminator Salvation that pops-up and takes the movie game category back 10 steps. Terminator: Salvation is completely devoid of originality, style; good visuals and most importantly fun. Seriously, how can you make a game in which you fight killer robots in the apocalypse boring?

The interesting thing about Terminator: Salvation is that it’s a prequel to the events in the film. Now while that may disappoint some who wanted to perhaps relive certain moments in the film with a playable Marcus Wright I prefer it when games take the prequel route since it allows a bit more creative freedom. But in the case of the game taking place before the events of the film doesn’t help the game at all, on both the story and game play fronts.  In the game players find themselves in the role of John Connor, albeit one not modeled or voiced by actor Christian Bale, who with the help of his ragtag group of Resistance fighters try to track down soldiers pinned down at a Skynet facility. The premise of the story isn’t anything new and could’ve worked but instead players will be faced with some of the most droll and uninspired writing to ever be featured in the game. Obviously with a game like Terminator: Salvation you’re not expecting a deep or enthralling story along the lines of Metal Gear Solid or Killer 7 but it almost seems like no effort was made at all to offer a unique or entertaining experience for the players.

The dialogue and insipid story isn’t all that bad since at least you have some good voice acting to go along with it. Things weren’t as bad as I thought they would be especially since Christian Bale wasn’t voicing John Connor and the replacement actor does an ok job although at times it feels a bit like “generic action hero #125”.  Despite Christian Bale being a holdout fellow actors Moon Bloodgood and Common reprise their roles of Blair and Barnes and are ok but at times feel a bit stiff, especially compared to the seasoned voice actors in the game such as David Kaye (Clank from Ratchet & Clank) and Nolan North (Nathan Drake from Uncharted). Actress Rose McGowan is also in the game as a new character named Angie but she’s pretty much forgettable and at times is quite annoying as her character loves to yell “Leave me alone” on the battlefield whilst fighting the Terminators. That sounds terrific doesn’t it?

Now while developer Grin is pretty competent in the field of graphics and their latest project Bionic Commando looks quite good from a visual standpoint the same can’t be said of Terminator Salvation. While their other film adaptation project “Wanted: Weapons of Fate” featured ok visuals and nice little visual touches like interesting water and fulfilling blood effects none of that is present in Salvation. Even the explosions which you would’ve thought would give you a satisfying feel when you destroy a Terminator aren’t present. Instead what you’re given when you finally take down a T600 is a massive blue glow that has a massive blast radius. I honestly don’t know what the hell is up with that. To my knowledge I’m not aware of any of the Terminators having a blue explosion that almost looks like an EMP effect when you take them down.  Perhaps that would make sense when if you were shooting EMP bullets but you’re not, just the standard issue bullets and grenades.

Speaking of the weapons you can use to take down the Terminators with there isn’t that much variety. You have a standard machine gun, a heavy machine gun, a shotgun, two types of grenades, a grenade launching gun and a rocket launcher.  That’s an ok selection I guess and it somewhat fits with how the Resistance isn’t a massive military force that has high-end weapons but it perhaps would’ve been nice if there were a few more selections or if perhaps the guns had more character and an impact to them. The game also only allows you to carry two guns at once so at times you may find yourself backtracking slightly to replace a weapon that has no ammo which can be a tad bit annoying at times.

Instead of having a nice visual progression as you go through the nine chapters you pretty much see everything the game has to offer after chapter 2. It’s all the same drab textures, building designs, destroyed cars, and PS2 quality foliage. Even the Skynet facility at the end is lacking that punch and visual design that you thought it would’ve had being the last level in the game and the most tech advanced area.  The game is just missing that level of grit and dirtiness that is needed and games like Killzone 2 offers. Now that isn’t supposed to be a “The game should’ve looked like KZ2” but the overall style of Salvation seems so by the numbers and bland. There’s just no excitement to it and the constant cover objects in the levels and invisible walls that prohibit you from jumping or climbing on a 2ft object really take you out of the experience even more.

When it comes to action games that have poor visuals and design there’s always a small bit of hope that perhaps it’ll be fun to play. Even Wanted: Weapons of Fate was an ok game to play. Terminator Salvation on the other hand is probably the worst Gears of War clone I’ve played so far. Everything about the game play is boring and uninspired. The guns lack a real impact and seem to have the smallest ammo clips in the history of games. There’s also the problem that the guns in the game just seem off in terms of control and aiming. It’s not in the sense of how games like KZ2 have an added level of impreciseness given to them to add a level of realism but in Salvation it just feels like the weapons needed some much needed fine tuning.  And who ever thought it would be wise to only include 5 Terminator enemies should be shot. Seriously, the game just continues to spam the same enemies at you constantly and for the first 4 levels you’re just facing the game 2 enemies wave after wave until the last three levels change things up a lot by spamming the same three enemies at you constantly. If you thought the air drones in Resistance 2 were annoying bullet sponges then be prepared for the most annoying enemy ever in the form of Salvation’s Aerostats, who quickly became the bane of my existence while playing. And if anyone was awaiting taking on the massive Harvester from the movie then you’ll be disappointed as it only appears in the second level and you can’t even attack it. It merely stands in the background shooting at you with the purpose to be to add a level of “immersion” while you try to escape. Instead it just feels like something that was added in the game for the sake of it.

Another odd occurrence in the game is that your allies can actually die during a level. Now these aren’t the nameless soldiers that sometimes accompany you but are the main characters like Blair and Barnes. The interesting thing is that once you finish a combat section by yourself they magically rise from the dead and are back in the battle again. Now not only is that lazy development but you can’t even revive your allies when they’re down nor do you have an ideal of what their health status is. This is just one of the many poor development issues the game has.

There are also a few turret sequences with John being on the back of a car taking out the same bland enemies with either a machine gun or rocket launcher. These sequences along with one towards the end where you take control of a massive Terminator ground unit feel boring and you’ll most likely just be counting down to when it’s over.

Despite being a movie license game and the bar being set generally low to begin with Terminator: Salvation manages to go even lower than what was expected from it. There’s absolutely nothing enjoyable about the game, it has no amazing action or set pieces and you can finish it in four hours. Now a four hour single-player campaign may not entirely be bad news since games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare could be completely quite fast but when Salvation doesn’t have any real replayability outside from getting all the Trophies/Achievements and doesn’t have any additional modes outside of playing the campaign with a friend via local co-op. For what is given to you $60 is way too damn much to spend on Terminator: Salvation as it is one of the weakest and poorly put together games I’ve played not only this generation but in all my years playing games.