Customer Reviews

Terminator Salvation

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Who knew that a 1980's movie about a killer robot sent back through time to kill a waitress would become a pop culture phenomenon, spawning three sequals, numerous catchphrases, action figures, novels, and of course, video games. However, the terminator universe has never really fared well in video game format, so how does the latest game hold up? Having a lot to live up to, it also has to deal with the ever present curse of being a game based on a film, which gives two strikes against it. However, despite the odds, Terminator Salvation manages to pull through, and while it is not a perfect game, it is surprisingly satisfying...depending on your tastes.

Taking place two years before the events of the film of the same name, Terminator Salvation follows John Conner, famed leader of the resistance...or at least, that's what he's supposed to be. At this point in time, Conner is still a common foot soldier who has yet to embrace his destiny, and is content to run around the wasteland that was Los Angeles, blasting away at killer robots. But one day, he gets a radio call from a few soldiers trapped behind Skynet lines, cut off and begging for help. Defying his superiors (and maybe common sense), Conner takes off through the Los Angeles wasteland to save his fellow Resistance fighters, and along the way, learning about the value of friendship, love, and peppering killer robots with high powered rockets.

Terminator Salvation is your standard third person shooter. You run around levels as John, armed with a variety of death dealing weaponry, while shooting at a multitude of homicidal robots who have nothing better to do in life then rip you to shreds (or punch you to death). Things get interesting though, thanks to Salvation's most innovative gameplay mechanic...cover. Though John is one tough cookie, even he can't take much damage from Skynet firepower, so standing out in the open while shooting at the opposition will end up with him lying on the ground with numerous bloody holes in his body. Thankfully, there's a simple way to avoid taking all that damage, and that's through the use of cover. As you travel through the post apocalyptic landscape, you'll find countless waist high obstacles to duck behind, whether it be cars, concrete pillars, oil drums, etc. While hidden behind these obstacles, you'll be safe from attack, as well as being able to move about to other forms of cover. Thankfully, this mechanic works very well. Want to move to another barrier? Simply creep to the edge of your current one, press the analog stick left or right, click a button when the semi-circle appears on screen, and you'll leap, slide, and otherwise slickly move from barrier to barrier. This system is well designed, easy to use, and is very easy to master. In no time at all you'll be flanking enemies, sliding around and firing off rounds, at times feeling like a real soldier, and feeling the flush of victory when you sucessfully defeat an enemy group.

Though you'll be spending most of your time fighting on foot, Salvation mixes things up a bit with the occasional on rail sequence, during which you'll be in a moving vehicle armed with a very big gun, tasked with blasting away at your robotic pursuers. While you never drive a vehicle during these sequences, it does offer a nice chance of pace and easily manages a great sense of speed. But whether on foot or on vehicle, Salvation never lacks in the action department, offering dozens of spectacular set pieces that rival, and even surpass, the action scenes from the film. In fact, we've never seen this much action in any of the films, and if you love action, shooting things, running, and riding in vehicles, then you'll have a blast with Salvation.

You'll be doing a lot of fighting and cover leaping throughout the game, but while it may be simple, you'll be doing it in some really slick environments. Easily Salvation's best aspect, the game is a graphical powerhouse, packing in huge, lavishly detailed post apocalyptic landscapes, ranging from plant infested suburbs, to crumbling skyscraper canyons, to wreckage lined freeways. Each aspect of the game is gorgeous and beautiful to look at, especially if you're a fan of the post apocalyptic look of crumbling buildings and general destruction. In fact, at some points, the graphics are so good that they match the level of photorealistic. The opening cinematic, for example, at times looks as though it was live action. The audio, while not quite matching the quality of the visuals, still does a good job. The voice acting of the cast is good all around, including a few actors from the film reprising their roles (Christian Bale not included), though the music occasionaly gets very repetitive, due to the same, short pieces repeated over and over.

But while Salvation works on the basic levels of fun, great graphics and an immersive world, it has a few things going against it. Primarily it's length. Salvation is a short game. A VERY short game. From start to finish, on medium difficulty, Salvation should take you no more then four to five hours to finish. That's an astonishingly short amount of time for a big budget game...heck, any game in general. Before you know it, the game is over and you're watching the credits roll by, wondering if that's really it. Sadly, it is, and unfortunatly, there's not really any rewards for your efforts. You do get some Playstation trophies and the ability to go back and play any level you want, but there are no cheat codes, no unlockable costumes or skins (I want to play as AHNOLD!) for you to earn. You get the main game, and that's it.

While the main game is fun, and I do like to go back and play it again, it will not be to everyone's taste, due to the game being, at heart, very simplistic. There's really no depth here...you spend the game running around, taking cover, flanking robots and shooting said robots until the game is finished. There are no items for you to pick up (except new guns and ammo), no interacting with the environment, and there are only four enemy types, hovering bots, spider bots, T-600's, Flying Hunter Killers, and the motorcycle bots seen in the film. Those are the only enemies you'll fight during the game, blasting them over and over again and again. Each bot is weak against a specific type of ammo, but that's it as far as gameplay depth goes.

Storywise, there isn't all that much to go on. The story is straightforward, with no twists or turns, and while it does show Conner slowly growing into a leader, most people will likely be disapointed at how thin the story is, especially when characters die and you don't feel anything for them. There are a few glitches to be found, such as robots occasionally getting stuck inside walls, the game occasionaly freezing, textures vanishing and replaced by textureless black surfaces, and at one point my teammates, who are supposed to be invincible (commonly standing point blank in front of a T-600 and getting blasted with mini gun rounds for minutes on end), were killed, which led me to run around a level all by my lonesome, while still hearing the characters talk, even though they were dead, and they respawned at the end of the level! Even more bizzare, at one point you're fighting two semi-disguised T-600's who have the ability to punch you to death through concrete barriers, making it impossible to take cover from them. I was also very disapointed in the lack of a final boss fight, which would have been awesome, especially had it been the giant harvester bot.

There is also another factor that must be taken into account, and that is the game's price. As of this writing, Salvation goes for an asking price of almost sixty dollars, which is far too high for a game this short and simplistic. With five hours of gameplay, you'd be paying about twelve dollars for each hour of gameplay, and that's far too much. Because of that, I cannot, in good faith, recommend this game for a purchuse. I would recommend waiting until the price drops to within the ten to twenty dollar range, as twenty is the maximum I would personally spend.

In the end, is Salvation worth a play? Some will no doubt find the very simple gameplay to be dull and repetitive, but I personally had no problem with it due to how challenging Salvation is. For while you do fight the same robots over and over again, it's never easy. You're often bombarded by multiple robots, and trying to take them all out can be a seriously challenging endevour, considering how easy it is to die. So while the basic gameplay mechanics never change, the game is never dull, nor is it a walk in the park. It has simple, yet effective gameplay that takes place in gorgeous environments, and allows you to shoot a nearly endless stream of killer robots with lots of guns. Like the B-movie franchise that spawned it, Salvation is essentially a B game at heart. It's flashy, action packed, and doesn't require a whole lot of brain power. Some will like that, and some won't.

While Salvation is not worth a buy until its price goes down, people who love the film franchise, enjoy the post apocalyptic genre and like simple, yet challenging gameplay will most likely enjoy Terminator Salvation. I easily recommend it is a rental, and as a buy...eventually.

I really enjoyed this title, most did not and complained of its length. I on the other hand have not seen the film and only saw the earlier stuff from the first two movies. I found that the extra mythology that was in the game was pretty cool (the Harvester and the Hunter Killers). The game had great uses of Bloom and HDR; plus the game made great use of shaders to give the game very almost surreal appearance, especially the wasp. I was not expecting this much polish on a movie based game. Now is this game as beautiful as Uncharted 2? No way, is this game as bad as most movie game titles? No, this game has very good run and gun gameplay and co-op is a blast. I very much recommend this game.

I decided to buy this game because I am a huge fan of the Terminator Franchise and wanted to support the game. The game was a huge disappointment. For starters, this game froze up or crashed regularly, which made the game nearly unplayable. Once, there were two cut scenes playing on top of each other, so there were subtitles, as well as voices, on top of another cut scene's subtitles and voices. The game wasn't altogether unenjoyable, but there were only 3 or 4 different enemies throughout the entire game! And it only took a matter of a few hours to beat the whole thing. To top it off, there were multiple misspellings and missing words in both the game manual and cut scene subtitles, which simply showed the developers to be quite careless and unprofessional and this was reflected in the game. The best thing you will get out of this game is a great opening cut scene, and some easy gold trophies (though many would even call this a detriment as well).

This game was cool for following reasons:
-Variety of cool weapons
-Amazing graphics
-Fun/cool objectives and enemies
-Difficulty just right
-Cool storyline(videos between levels).
I recomend this game.
:)

I'll start off with the main reason people. including me, buy this game. It is a monster game for someone who loves trophies. There is only 11 trophies, all gold, needed to get the Platinum, and they are all story related so it is impossible to miss any. The game also consist of working with the A.I co-ops, or a friend, to flank machines and pick up ammo to destroy the robots.

Pros:
+Only takes one play-through on Hard to get a Platinum on this game, including the 11 gold trophies. Took me about 6 hours to complete, it's my 4th Platinum.
+It's actually very fun to play. Similar to Uncharted, not as good, but anyone whose played Uncharted will get use to the constant looking for cover and aiming.
+The story is pretty good. It makes you want to reach the end to see how the story progresses.
+Great characters. You meet some cool people while playing that make you want to continue the story.
+The difficulty, on Hard, is actually hard. Other people made this game sound like a breeze but if you are going for Platinum there will be several parts in the story where you continue to die. I enjoyed the challenge.

Cons:
-Didn't ever happen to me, but there are several complaints from other people who claim the game freezes often.
-There's only about 3-4 different types of enemies in the game. They are cool enemies, but just not much variety. Wasps, which are annoying robot-bugs that keep flying and never stay in the same place. Spiders, which either are killed with grenades or pipe bombs, or be flanked so you or your teammates can shoot the battery pack on their backs. Then there's the T-6s, I think that's their names, which are the terminator looking robots that can only be killed after several pipe bombs, RPGs, or hundreds of bullets to their chest. They are very hard to kill without any grenades or RPGs, because shooting at their chest leaves you right in their line of fire. There is also an enemy called a skin-job, there's only about 3 of them in the game and they are push-overs.
-At the end of some chapters you find yourself on top of a car to shoot a machine gun, but the aiming here is very annoying and the guns easily overheat if you keep your fingers on the trigger.

Overall:
If you like third person shooters and are addicted to trophies, you wont regret at least renting this game. 7/10 rating.

This is a lane playing game, (you can't leave path of play) its ok if you like shooting up things, Buy used if you want this game i give it a 3 just beacuse its a good shooting game (no Brainer)

Much like a T-600 Terminator trying to look human, this game is trying to look like a full-priced game, but I see through its rubbery-skin.

Most high-quality shooters try to provide an experience that lasts longer than a single afternoon, offer many types of enemies to confront, have hidden collectibles to find, and offer plenty of trophies/achievements to be had. Many of these games will also have online multiplayer as well, adding to its longevity. Most importantly, a good shooter will have strong gameplay with tight controls and reticles that don't drift randomly. Then there are the games that are clearly incomplete, rushed out to meet the debut of a big-budget movie.

Terminator Salvation is a clear example of wasted potential; this game could have been so much more than what it is, and that's a shame. With games like Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War 2, BioShock, Halo 3, Unreal Tournament III, Uncharted, and Fallout 3, there are much better ways to spend more than half a hundred dollars.

I rented this game and rather liked it. First of all, let me be clear that I DID NOT like the movie, although I am a fan of the other movies in the series. I got it mainly for the platinum trophy and it came to me pretty quickly, although it wasn't a walk in the park to finish the game. But is it worth $24 (the price at the time of writing)? Heck, no! Just rent it or get a used copy for $10-15. Not worth more than that.

Here is my summary:

Pros:
1) The game kept me engaged throughout. Although you simply fight, fight, and do nothing else, you need to figure out the best method, weapon and vantage point to put down your enemy. At the end of the game, I felt rather satisfied about the victory.
2) Your character feels very human - you don't get to act like a superhero and go guns blazing - you'll be punished very severely if you try. You need to use the right tactics and play it safe, cooperating a lot with your teammates (at times drawing fire to yourself to allow your teammates take the shot).
3) This is an easy platinum trophy and a lot of gold trophies for those who care, but don't expect to breeze through the levels. The levels with T600 will make sure you die several times before claiming victory.
4) I liked the music score. I haven't played a lot of games where my attention is quickly drawn to the music score, except perhaps Modern Warfare 2 (Hans Zimmer!). In this game, the music was pretty racy at times especially when you are about to encounter deep trouble.
5) I saw a co-op option but didn't have a partner to play with. But I felt that this game would be a LOT more fun if played with a friend. In fact, you pretty much have to rely on your teammates most of the times to either draw fire to themselves or to flank the enemies shooting at you; and this is better done when the teammate is a human you can talk to.

Cons:
1) Terrible, I mean TERRIBLE frame rate issues especially in the last level. When you start seeing the frame drops, you'll pretty much be stalled for a few moments when your enemies are hitting you. This doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it is bound to annoy you.
2) The game will end very quickly and has no replay value (in my opinion). This will be a huge disappointment if you are looking for something more than a weekend.
3) Unlike most shooters, there is no online play. Hardcore shooter fans will hate this.
4) It seems to be targeted more at those who are NOT hardcore shooter fans, but want to play shooter games anyway. Hardcore fans may not find the quality of the game as high compared to the other shooters out there like KillZone and MW series.
5) The game's auto-save points could have been made a little closer to each other in some tight spots. Some sections can be rather frustrating, depending on your skills. There are controller flinging moments, oh-this-game-is-so-glitched moments, that will require several retries, but you would end up starting from a point much earlier in the fight because of poorly placed checkpoints.

I liked this game it was based upon but didn't follow the movie Terminator Salvation. Salvation took place in 2018 this took place in 2016 it does tie into the movie with the fact it tells how Barnes joined the Resistance your in the role of John Connor the story is about some Resistance soldiers that are pinned down by Skynet so you disobey orders to go rescue them eventually you get a team to help you Blair Willams Angie Salter & more join you. You fight HK's Terminators with the rubber skin known as skin jobs & T7T or spiders as they are called. Aside from not following Salvation's storyline the actors & actresses didn't do voice overs for the game & Angie & Blair are annoying they'll almost drive you nuts. It's a good game but being able to beat it in 5-7 hours really kills replay value. So I wouldn't buy it unless your a fan of the Terminator series like I'am don't hesitate to but honesty you should wait till its $20-$30.

My husband, who is adicted to video games, bought this one, and thinks is not so much fun. He finished it in about four hours in all. It is a repetitive game, not really challenging. This makes the game not so fun, he says. But for those players who love to collect trophies, this game is a literal gold mine of them, as they all are exactly of gold (plus the platinum ones at the end of the game, of course), and very easy to obtain.

When he finished it, my husband exchanged this game for one called MAG. He really likes this one, so I think this MAG game might be very interesting, because my husband is a nuts for challenging games such as "Call Of Duty".