The history of Terminator games has been pretty rocky, while we are not going to go in the history of these games, we are going to focus on the newest entry and tie in game to the new flick, Terminator Salvation.  The current reviews for the game are pretty bleak and the Meta review sits at about 50% at the time of this writing.  We here at the JFP are going to let you know the TRUTH of this game.  Is this an epic crapfest tie in, or under-rated master piece.

Before you get your fan boy gear on,  lets get a little background on what we are up against. 

The Metacritic rating is 54% while Halo 3 is at 94% and Orange box is 96%.  So you can see that the Meta ratings are not always perfect.  I own "Alone if the Dark" and that is in the 55% range and I enjoy that game, so I am going to give this game a fair go.

If you wish to check out the history of the Terminator in games, check out the wiki article here.  This game is destined to suck, but does it? The game is 'partly' developed by GRIN, the company that worked on fantastic games like GRAW1 and GRAW2.  so that should not be so bad right? I mean, GRAW has an amazing cover system that’s works great for shooting people, but what about robots?

What you get is a 3rd person shooter, much like Gears of War series,(and GRAW) that is set 10 years before the film on how John Conner becomes the man he is supposed to be become.  Or more of, how John Conner's friends become a lot less negative.

 The word on street is that you can beat the game in 3-4 hours on the hardest difficulty and get all the achievements in one play through.   That said, when I loaded up the game, I crancked it up to hard, I am taking the challenge!

The opening movie was quiet awesome and gives the feeling of how the machines are totally relentless and only want to kill humans.  So far, this is cool! I especially like that part where John plays dead to avoid the Flying HK that wants to kill him. Because he is not a robot. Robots say 'Affirmative"

First level, this is just a tutorial, nothing special. Half of it is blasting little flying robots called Wasps and the other half was a really vanilla rail shooter.  But you can not judge a game on its first level.

I have to say, this game has the coolest loading screen ever.  It’s a close up of the a t-600 head that you can move around with the thumb sticks. You get to play with it a lot too. Load times are long compared to the amount of time spent playing.  Think of a Metal Gear game, all dialogue, plot and cut scenes were you can not interact with game, that the Loading screens.  Now think of the loading screens in a Metal Gear game, That’s the play time.

Level 2,  this is a nice post war urban level, were I get to kill more wasps. You can not explore the level as it is 100% liner.  The squad AI guys always run like mad from scripted way point to scripted way point.  If the AI is in cover, then there will be things to shoot.  Hey, I get to shoot a 4 legged spider tanks.  This is fun, you have to flank them and shoot them in the engine to kill them.  So far the squad does a good job of shooting when you are flanking.  This bit of the makes me want to Play Full Spectrum Warrior again.

Level 3, So far, the only robots you really get to fight are the T-70 spiders and the wasps.  The game has had some cool moments and has done a good job setting up the fact that machines are after you in an un-ending supply and there is not hope left at all in the world.  Maybe I feel this way cause my AI squad buddies are total jerks to John Conner and need to shut up! You remember that part in "The Happening" where all the characters are screaming and yelling at Marky Mark to save the day and can't get two second to formulate a plan to save the day because everyone is telling him to save it? Its kinda like that.  Your squads consists of Debbie Downer and Sad Sally and a guest appearance by Butt Hurt Bob.

I lost track of game time until ran into the first t-600 battle(not a bad thing at all).  For the first three or four tries I died before I could get across the room and hit the stairs in the room. The t-600 is an amazing shot, like a robot should be.

That is unless I stand still, It seems to only want to shoot who is first in line to saftey. So I wait and follow my team up stairs and grab some cover.  The music in this game is very true to the movies and creeping me the heck out!  t-600's can take a lot of damage in hard mode. They also can raise their arm up like they want to give you some bones, but you die from a across the room when this happens.  Note to self, if a Robots is trying to give you bones, he wants to kill you.

To get around this level I found out that if you don’t stand next to your team and instead hide in the corner behind the action the T-600's can not see you! This level went from hard to really easy!

Once I started the next sequence, the t-600's started to walk backwards and shoot in the opposite direction! This makes it easy until they lift their arm and kill you!

The game play continues as follows, Run around and shoot Spiders and Wasps. Cut Scene, Rail Shooter.

Kill a t-600. repeat.

There is one rail shooter level that really stands out to being awesome.  You get to drive a HK-Tank.

The screen is all red and terminator ish with numbers that mean nothing. And you get to kill robots with a robot! That is pornography in japan.

The game continues on in a very short last level.

The game ends in the most anticlimactic way possible. (you walk down a hall!) And has a pretty ok end cut scene.

I held my camera tight, ready to photograph unlocking 3 achievements worth about 320 points! But alas I only got the achievement for winning on easy!  When you continue a game, you get to choose the difficulty again, and I must have picked easy by mistake! GYAH!! Ohh well.

Lets do a recap and end this travelogue of Terminator: Salivation.

Bug Report.

If you die, you do not get what guns you had at the last check point when you restart, instead you get a full load out of what ever the default guns are for that area, plus the ever so important grenades.  Dying is good! I noticed an additional bug with this when a rocker launcher magically spawned on Johns back. And a rocket magically and slowly rose out of the ground and loaded it self into the launcher. Just like pornography in Japan!  Said rocket quickly disappeared when I need to blow something up unfortunately.

The Auto aim ranged from, your bullets turning corners and killing all who need to be killed to, "Wow! That stupid bar just keeps moving!"

When you out of ammo in cover and try to fire. You raise your weapon and hold it in the air, as if you are firing away. Some times, you character will yell for ammo and it will magically appear in your gun!

This only happened once, but a t-600 picked John up and I was till still about to fire my gun in to the floor.  The t-600 looked at me for a good five seconds, motionless. And then I died.

Graphic Report

Meh

Sound

The music quiet good, very fitting.

Overall

This is like the beta of Gears of War using the original Unreal engine.   Without all the fun.

 This game gets 2 fists if you rent it. 1 if you paid more then 10 buck for it. It really does take less than 5 hours to win.  But cause terminators are cool, and this game is not, it gets....