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

Sure, Terminator: Salvation probably isn’t one of the best games on the block but apparantly some users haven’t even been able to experience its suckery. Joystiq says that a bug in the software has left some gamers unable install the game at all.

Acting quickly, Evolved Games issued a recall for the defective copies and has just announced that they will begin offering a replacement which you can read more about here.

Of course they also apologized for “any inconvienence that end users may have suffered”. Gee thanks Evolved, at least we know you care!

However, the games purchased on Steam work with no issues. Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game are also unaffected. The publisher hopes to replace the broken games within a few days.

The game will also be out on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, these versions however, are developed by GRIN, who previously worked on Bionic Commando.

In development at GRIN (Bionic Commando), the game is being described as an “action-packed, third-person shooter” with game-exclusive enemies. It is set to arrive “in conjunction” with the movie.

No specific platforms were mentioned, though a sweeping mention of “next generation consoles” was made.

“The player will be led through a visceral story with extremely polished production values to create a fully interactive Terminator experience,” said Cos Lazouras, president of Terminator license holder Halcyon Games.

It will be published by Equity Games, co-published by Evolved Games and distributed by Warner Bros. themselves.