Customer Reviews

Terminator Salvation

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

 

 

This game was pretty good. I'll get the complaints out of the way first.
First complaint, The game should have been titled "Terminator Loading" because there was a ridiculous amount of loading screens.
Complaint number two, it only took me about 4 or 5 hours to beat on hard difficulty and the game just came out today. I'll admit though most games aren't long enough to warrant the 60 dollar price tag so I kinda expected a little let down there.

Enough complaining. The game play was fun. You can instantly see some gears of war influence. Not saying it is quite as good as gears but it's the freakin Terminator. Sorry no Arnold and John Conner doesn't look like Batman. Big deal. The weapon choice is scant. To be honest most of them only tickle the enemies but they are war machines so it adds to the intensity of some of the fire fights. If you play this game play it on hard difficulty. You might throw your controller once or twice but it will make the game last longer. Sorry no online multiplayer. Split screen co-op only. Hope this was useful.

The economy is horrible. Money is tight, and this game isn't going to give you the bang for your buck. Simply put, it is way too short (you can beat the game in four hours). If you do plan on buying this, please rent it first. There are only 9 achievements. Load times are annoying (a trend I'm starting to see with all xbox 360 titles...sigh) and no Christian Bale in game. What a let down for a movie tie-in. The game feels rushed; there are only four types of enemies in the whole game: Some flying disc shaped things, T-600s, spider looking robots, and every once in awhile a flying HK. I don't understand why there hasn't been a single Terminator game that doesn't suck. Unfortunatly, this game carries on the legacy of bad Terminator games.

I wish I had taken my own advice. I got it the day it came out because of the movie and for some reason I thought Christian Bale was going to be in it. Turned out he's not. :(

Anyway, back to the game itself. The game is pretty easy and when it comes to achievements there are only 11 achievements to be earned, with each achievement giving you 80 points. 9 of them you can get by just playing in the easy mode which I did with my 8 year old son and we both beat the game playing co-op in a about 3 hours. The other 2 you would have beat the entire game on medium and hard difficulty.

The story line is based on John Connor the savior of mankind going to save a few of his buddies that are behind enemy lines. Along the way you meet a couple of other agents that tag along with you. It's basically a shoot at the machines kind of game. It certainly ain't no Gears of War. Pretty tame stuff if GOW is your thing.

The graphics also could have been better. I expected better from a 360 game. The cut scenes aren't that great and the acting isn't either and the worst news is that there is no online co-op. It's a good thing Amazon has it at the price it is because it surely isn't worth the suggested retail.

This game is fun -- it's satisfying taking down the machines, especially the T-600s. The cover system is nearly perfect, and the gameplay forces you to use cover effectively or get killed. You have to plan your attack within an area so that your attacks are efficient.

Gameplay offers quite a few weapons, and certain weapons are more effective against certain enemies. Unfortunately, you can't carry more than two weapons at a time, in addition to grenades. Although ammo on the battlefield is somewhat scarce, whenever you need ammo, your squad-mates will offer you some, so you're never completely out of ammo for certain weapons. You will, however, need to make your way to the squad member offering the ammo. Enemy variety is limited, so you'll be able to take out most enemies without difficulty by the time you're half-way through the game.

The save system is automatic but forgiving, so you won't have to replay large sections over and over again if you die (and you will). The health system is different than anything I've seen before. Your health will deplete until the end of the current battle, then replenish completely. There's no way to manually replenish your health. It takes a while to get used to this, because you never really know when your health is going to regenerate.

The soundtrack is excellent. The voice-acting is superb, with the exception of a couple annoying voice-actors. Dialog is not stellar but it serves the story well. The CGI animations and cutscenes are really well-done -- pure CGI animations are nearly life-like in quality. The camera bobs appropriately and there's a decent amount of motion blur and film grain. From a technical standpoint, the game is really well-done.

The bad? It's short. For most experienced gamers, this will take about 4-6 hours to complete. It's a game on rails, which means it's entirely scripted and you're just along for the ride, shooting at enemies and doing nothing else. I had one instance in Chapter 4 where the scripting failed and a door never opened, forcing me to quit and reload my game to get past the problem. Earlier chapters are much longer than later chapters, and the last two chapters are so short that it suggests the game was rushed. Some of the last battles, for example, take place in CGI, instead of in in-game combat, leaving you to do very little.

It's very predictable. You'll go down a hall or a road and come to an open area with cover objects (crates, barricades, etc.) which is a sure sign that a battle will take place. There are no ambushes, no surprise enemies, and no bosses. At one point, you'll encounter a harvester -- but it's just an encounter and not a battle.

The achievements are uninspired. There are achievements for completing each chapter, with an additional achievement awarded for completing the game on "hard" mode. There are no achievements for numbers of enemies killed, or for collecting/using all weapons, etc.

There is a local co-op mode, but no online game modes. There are also no achievements associated with co-op. Therefore, the uninspired achievements and lack of decent multi-player provides very little replay value for this title.

If you're a fan of Terminator and have been looking forward to a Terminator game on the current generation of consoles, this is recommended. Just keep in mind that there's virtually no replay value and it is very repetitve. It could have been better, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game.

This game sucked!!! This game has no replay value to its not hard on the hardest setting. I rented this game and was done within 3 days on the hardest setting with all 15 acheivements completed. The story is not based off the movie but 2 years before the movie took place. Its a Third Person Shooter with the feel of Gears. the Grafix are not that great and your buddies come back to life on the next save point. Their are some good fight sceens but not worth playing through again for the fun of killing a terminator. The only fun part is the last mission where you fight about 5 terminaors and you have a rocket launcher. Their is only split screen co op and no ability to play over live. Not worth buying in my opinion since i pay for Live and this game has no online interaction.

After reading some mixed reviews I thought I'd give it a chance as I've found some mixed review, low $ games pretty good in the past (e.g. Dark Sector, etc.). However, this is just terrible - the incredibly repetitive game play isn't much fun and it is very short. The entire game consists of walking forward to an open area, shooting crab like machines in the back, a couple of flying machines come in to distract you and then more crab machines. Afterwards you move forward and repeat. Mid-way through the game they throw some terminators in the mix with the crab machines but that is it. I thought it was an exaggeration from other reviews but it really is that bad.

The only positive I can say is its an easy 1000 gamerscore points - I got the full 1000 in about 4 hours. Outside of that there is no reason to play this game.

Although this game had potential, it did not hold up very well. The game play was very repetitive and boring. The few vehicle sections were more exciting but overall the game could have used more development. There is one bug in the game that was particularly upsetting, where a Terminator ( when in close proximity to you ) would swipe his hand and kill you with one attack. Unfortunately, the bug would allow the Terminator to do this from across the room. A huge let down. The achievements for the game were even more of a let down. Just completion of levels and difficulty. This game is definitely not worth the money spent on it.

Remember how just a few weeks back X-Men Origins: Wolverine managed to kind of restore your faith in licensed games? Well, playing Terminator: Salvation will bring you back down to Earth, as it is as much a cash-in game as you could hope to find. That's not to say that it isn't any good, as it does offer some occasional engaging gameplay, but other than that, the game is too short and too unpolished to be anything other than a rental at best. Once you get past the fact that the game looks pretty good and features a suitably gloomy atmosphere as you trek through a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, you realize that the game's overly simplistic and repetitive gameplay becomes more apparent than anything else. Shoot, cover, shoot some more. That's all that Terminator: Salvation boils down to in the end. That's not to say that it isn't done particularly well, which it kind of is, it's just that at it's heart that's all the game really is in the end. Combine that with the fact that the game is incredibly short and is definitely not worth the full retail price (not to mention the fact that there's no online multiplayer either), and you get the kind of relatively half-decent, cash-in, licensed game that we should come to expect by now. That being said, if you're a Terminator fan, Terminator: Salvation is worth a look, but in the end, the game is best left on the shelf instead.

30 minutes was all it took for me to put this game back on the secondary market on the internet. I bought this second hand and I've recently sold it back via online auction; I'm just glad I got rid of it quickly and still recovered 90% of the price I paid.

This is one of the worst games I played in the last 12 months. I had good expectations; as a Gears of War fanatic, combining 3rd person shooter with Terminators captivated me. But I was profoundly disappointed by the lack of gameplay. I'm one of those gamers who couldn't care less about storyline/plot, I'm all for gameplay. The gameplay here basically involves you jumping from cover to cover and shoot. You do this repeatedly without variation.

But you ask - don't you do this in Gears? Well, not quite, you see in Gears there are intricate level designs, maps and multiplayer options, none of these exist in TS. In TS, you apply the same formula - cover then outflank the enemy and shoot, then regroup with the gang and proceed to the next stage.

What further take this game down several notches are the piss-poor graphics and effects, for example gunfire and explosions effects are just lame; if I played this 10 years ago on the PS1, I would think its cool, but not in 2009 on the Xbox 360! The sound and audio are ok, just. Voice acting isn't great but considering how poorly the rest of the game flares, the voice acting actually stands out.

The boredom is heightened by the fact that there are only 4 enemy types - the spider, aerostats, T-600 and Skin Job (poorly disguised T-600). The AI (on medium difficulty anyway) is fairly poor as well, remember these are supposed to be Terminators.

The weapons you use are the M4, Remington shotgun, RPG, M249 SAW, M79 grenade launcher, M67 grenade, pipe bomb and vehicle-mounted 50 Cal. A decent range of weapons, though nothing really outstanding. I wanted to (but didn't get to) use the SAW. Getting to the SAW on the latter levels (presumably) would incur too much suffering on my part.

Final words - stay away from this game, don't even buy it second hand, if you're curious just rent it. I played this for half an hour tops, got to the third level I think, as I tried to squeeze an achievement out of it before the boredom and the numbness became intolerable and I had to replace it with Winning Eleven 2009. This is only the second time I've quit a game within 30 min (the other was Bullet Witch I recall).

To the developer Evolved Games - This game is far from evolved, in fact it's several steps backwards. I know whenever games are tied to movies, developers are on a schedule to time it with the movie release. A tight schedule is still no excuse for such a poorly made game.

This is the kind of game that I call a "fun" game. Bear in mind it is a movie-based game and as I have come to experience over the years, most movie-based games suck.

My gripes with the game mimic what others have said. Lots of loading and little action in the beginning. Ripping the game to your hard drive helps this a bit. The co-op is local split screen only. The package has coop in orange, suggesting you can play it over Live. Not so. It is split screen only, and the product details on Amazon reflect that accurately.

The gameplay is AWESOME. Now, if you're a die-hard shooter player you will probably HATE this game. It's much easier than most shooters even on the harder difficulties. If you've been wanting to experience a shooter game in an arena where you can suck a bit and get better, this is a good game for practice I think. The gameplay takes a lot from Gears of War style for the third person view and movement styles. I also noticed a hint of Left 4 Dead with highlighted outlines of weapons and ammo.

The combat is really cool in coop. You can use some tactics with your friend to take down the tougher enemies. The heavy weapons will kill most of the big enemies, but the ammo is scarce. So you can draw their fire while one of you flanks around behind to exploit the weak points. There's one engagement where you're in a large underground subway station and you have a couple heavy mounted machine guns, some RPGs, and a few grenades to fight off a wave of T-70s and T-600s. It was worth the price of the game for that mission alone!

The game is really quite short. It might be worth just renting because you can easily beat it over a weekend with a buddy. I got it for $20 at Wal-mart and for that price I'm keeping it. It's TERMINATOR for crying out loud!