DigitalBattle.com

A developer recently said that Hollywood and the movie industry were treating games like any other merchandise; slap the sticker on any crap and hopefully people will buy it. Which is exactly the way one can describe the hideous failure called “Terminator Salvation” (both the game and the movie, but we’ll stick with the game here). The game takes place two years before the movie, where you play as John Connor, in the resistance against the Machines, which have take over Los Angeles. And that’s about it for the story (there is nothing more).

But don’t expect any voice work from Christian Bale, the real John Connor (at least for now), instead, you get a no-name voice actor, and not a good one either. However, that would be considered fine, acceptable even, if there were some decent battles and set pieces like they were in the movie. But the battles are so few, so banal and so repetitive, that I literally completed the game in one setting, in less than a few hours (coffee helps, especially with a game like this). That’s how long the campaign is, and if you count out all the repetitive elements, you probably have less than two hours of decent gameplay.

A few positive things are worth mentioning though, most noticeably, the cover system, which in cases can even beat Gears of War — not that Gears has the most advances system in the world, but I’ll use it a benchmark here nevertheless. But no matter how good of a cover system you got, it’s useless if you only have a few different enemies to fight and only a few different weapons to fight them with. After completing the game, there is no replay value whatsoever. At least they could have added some form of achievements and unlocks, or some items that could be collected, something, anything, that would justify playing through the campaign again. But no.

Technically, the game is up to decent standard when it comes to visuals and audio, the ruins of LA are rendered great in particular. Also, some of the actors from the movie provide voices for the game, but nothing that makes any difference. As a matter of fact, you’ll hate them because the ally AI is so horrendous, compared to the enemy AI, which is occasionally good and challenging. Soundtrack wise, it features the popular Terminator theme and the soundtrack from the movie, which is always a plus.

With the single player lasting only a few hours, you might expect the developers to include a solid multiplayer feature, but they haven’t. There’s no online multiplayer, and only a split screen mode for the campaign, which can be fun. That is, if you have a friend you’d like to torture for a few hours.

Of all the bad things about Terminator Salvation, one thing could have saved it, and saved the reputation of the developers: the price. If the game was priced at $10 or $15 and sold as a DLC, it would have been acceptable, especially for fans of the Terminator franchise. But it’s priced at $50 — full retail price. Which means you’re paying $10 an hour to play the game. A movie ticket costs $10, and the movie runs two hours. This is probably the first time in history that you get more value per $ by seeing a movie in the theater than playing the game.

The Good:
Cover system is impressive.
Ruins of Los Angeles looks great.
Good soundtrack

The Bad:
Repetitive gameplay.
Lasts only a few hours.
Only a few different enemies and weapons.
No real multiplayer.
Way too expensive for what it is.

Final sore: 2/10