Head-to-Head Against a Harvester: Not Recommended
Well, today was the release of the game tie in for the upcoming Christian Bale movie Terminator: Salvation.
So let’s break it down by the numbers: I’m going to review it like I would if I were doing it on my community podcast, Single Player Campaign.
Follow me after the jump to find out my thoughts of the game!
Game DNA Compiler: I know my second podcast hasn’t dropped yet, but I came up with a quick way to tell you what games the game I’m reviewing is most like. It’s a down and dirty way for you to figure out which games it’s most like.
So Terminator Salvation is:
1 part Gears of War: third person/cover mechanic, rail shooting sections, and co-op campaign mode (although it looks like it might be local only!)
1 part Wanted: Weapons of Fate: ridiculously short single player campaign, cover/flank mechanic, and very little replayability.
Gameplay: Again, third person shooter, with the cover/flank mechanic. In the beginning of the game, you are very reliant on taking cover and using your teammates. Why? Because for the first time since Halo and your cheating ass hiding behind a crate until you get your energy back, they don’t allow you to do that!
In the middle of a fight, you do not get your health back. Only after all the machines are cleared out do you get your health back. Finally, someone was thinking.
So, in the beginning, you are very reliant on teammates. So, that being said, do yourself a favor and play this game with a human teammate. Because the teammate AI is painfully bad. Here are a few examples:
The major complaint for the AI is the T-70 “Spider” class Terminator. It looks remarkably similar to those rolling combat droids from the new Star Wars movies, and they can only be damaged from behind. So the idea is that one person gets it’s attention, while the player jinks around and takes it out from behind.
Good in theory, but god damn. I sat in a section watching the two AI helpers dodge back and forth in and out of the same piece of cover over and over again while I had two Skynet Spiders firmly locked onto my position. I was at no health, and had no explosives, so I was hoping one of my two idiot friends would take the opportunity to use the clear shots to the back of the bots, where they are weak and can be taken out. Nope.
Read on over the page for more on the stupid, stupid AI…
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820 gamerscore in a little over 4.5 hours? I think this game will be a (rental) smash hit! GameFly had better stock deep on this one!
I can’t wait for this to come in the mail tomorrow. I agree with Sean, GameFly better get their ass in gear. My expectations are too high because it is a movie tie in game after all, but from what I’ve seen and heard it’s not a total waste of time to play.
On the scale of movie tie in games, this ranks up there. They took a general carbon copy of a successful game (Gears) and put a different coat of paint on it. It was good fun, but abysmally short and not without it’s problems.
Again no stars… has this just faded away? Are we ever going to see them again? Not that I didn’t read the whole thing, but still…
=P
Wow… a terrible movie tie-in that’s good for nothing but Achievement-whoring?
Who would’ve guessed?
Its ridiculous. I was able to get the platinum in like 5 hours. The battles aren’t even hard. You just have to know where to stand and the baddies won’t advance past a certain point. I beat parts of the last level by just going behind cover, turning off the TV, and waiting 20 minutes, after which my dense AI was finally able to kill the T-600s, and were waiting for me to proceed.
@Jacob
I need to get this game =D