Terminator: Salvation

Terminator: Salvation

This videogame prequel to the recent box-office crash finishes the demolition job on a much-beloved franchise.

We actually like the latest Terminator movie, if you see it for what it is: an excuse for lots of robots and guns, and a bit of Guns ‘n’ Roses for tongue-in-cheek measure. But you’re right; it isn’t a great Terminator movie, let alone a movie to take seriously. And the same goes for Terminator Salvation on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It’ll be back… to the shops, we’d wager, before long.

Excuse us while we breathe a heavy sigh. We so badly wanted both the movie and the videogame to be a springboard for more Terminator fandom into the next decade. Rumours suggest there will be no Terminator 5 in theatres. And unless somebody with more imagination can weld something decent together in the next couple of years, the dream of the ultimate Terminator videogame ends here too.

“But the trailers look awesome!” we hear you cry. Indeed they do, and in the first 10 minutes or so of Terminator Salvation the game you believe this could be everything the movie wasn’t: a clear leadership role for John Connor, more focus on lesser machines invented by Skynet, nauseating fear of Hunter Killers.

The promise of Skynet machines that are not in the movie is also enticing, but that red LED light in your eyes soon dims when you realise that the console-exclusive enemies are kind of wee and stupid, and invariably Aerostats or spider-like mobile turrets that eat grenades all too readily.

We kind of understand (we think) what ambitious new developer Grin was aiming for with T4 the videogame: A cleverly scripted Terminator ‘experience’ aided by movie studio Halcyon – perhaps Gears of War with T-600s instead of the Locust horde. Maybe time / budget restraints, we’ll never know, prevented the vision from being realised. In the end we have an uncharismatic John Connor and headless-chicken team of resistance fighters flee one bombed out building to the next, rifling down Aerostats and firing rockets at spiders.

As with the movie you could sit around with your mates and discuss a far better treatment of the Terminator franchise on Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3. It might involve some nerve-wracking stealth missions, a boss battle to remember against ‘Arnie’. Props to the team who had the responsibility to tick all the right boxes for Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, but when you’re falling asleep while blasting a distant HK that’s hot in pursuit of your truck, there’s something fundamentally missing.

2 out of 5