Terminator Salvation Review

The fourth installment of the Terminator movie franchise, Terminator Salvation, has arrived this summer and is accompanied by the mandatory videogame adaptation.

The game is a side story that takes place before the events of the film in the dilapidated remains of a war torn Los Angeles. The year is 2016 and players take the role of resistance leader John Connor as they try to overthrow the rising tide of killer machines created by Skynet, a sentient computer bent on annihilating its primary threat, the human race. Connor's mission is to rescue his captured comrades and build his cast of supporting characters along the way.



Terminator Salvation suffers from several issues which range from its thin plot and short game length to its redundant gameplay. The average gamer can expect to beat this game within four hours, making your $60 dollar investment worth half its cost. Like most first-person shooters, Terminator Salvation implements the duck-and-cover system similar to Army of Two. Players are limited to carrying two weapons at a time, along with grenades and pipe bombs. The aiming can be awkward at times and the AI is rather slow and predictable. The AI enemies are limited to a few Spiderbots and a few T-600s. There are vehicle stages where the player can man a turret or blast enemies in a highway with rocket launchers. The one stand-out vehicle mission is the one where the player rides a giant terminator vehicle to plow and blast his way through the enemies.



Visually, the game feels dated due to its choppy animation and lackluster backgrounds. There is a cooperative mode that ads to the game's experience, but again, it is short lived due to the game's length. Online gameplay is not available for this title. Overall, Terminator Salvation feels like a rushed effort to meet the movie franchise's release date. One cannot justify shelling out $60 for a game that only lasts four hours. Terminator Salvation may be a bleak foreshadowing into the uninspired movie videogame tie-ins of the future.


Fun Factor: Very limited fun factor in a game genre that has been bombarded by superior first-person shooters. No online gameplay.

Game Length: Estimated four hours of gameplay

Difficulty: Mild level difficulty due to the predictable AI.

On the Negative Side: Choppy animation, no Christian Bale and the aiming system
and inventory can use some revising.

Bang for your Buck: Not worth the $60 price tag for a short game.