I ordered the full game, and all I got was this... this demo!
Game total: 60 out of 100
Graphics: 70 out of 100
The ruined, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles looks suitably ruined, especially when seen at sunset from a skyscraper, the cut-scenes could have used some more polishing, though.
Game-play: 60 out of 100
The On-foot combat is satisfying, if repetitive, and apart from some issues with the cover-mechanics works well enough. The rail-shooting sequences range from decent to annoying to frustrating.
Content Value: 50 out of 100
It's short. Too short. The storyline is barely existent and completely linear (and short). No extra content, no collectibles. No online MP and only off-line co-op. Just… short. On all aspects.
Sound: 60 out of 100
Sound FX and score are fine without being noticeable either way. The dialogs are okay, but Christian Bale is missing, so…
Lasting Appeal: 40 out of 100
It's an afternoon of limited, short-term fun and some frustration. You'll look back on it, thinking "this could've been decent, if only…" And then, it's gone.
Off-Line Co-Op: Yes, 2 Player Splitscreen
On-Line Multi-Player: No
Terminator Salvation. The Video Game. Well, to keep it short... it's short. Pre-order came in yesterday, and I finished it on Normal difficulty in under 5 hours (and I did die a lot, too), with about 4 hours of actual game play and the rest with way too many cut-scenes and loading screens. In my second play-through on HARD I was halfway through with 1.5 hours played (but less dying, so...) when I had to put it down.
Terminator Salvation is a 3rd-Person shooter with mild tactical elements and the by now familiar cover mechanic, interspersed with several different rail-shooting sequences. You play as John Connor, at this time (Los Angeles, 2016) just a lowly grunt in the human Resistance against the murderous AI Skynet and his robotic army. For those that are not familiar with the "Terminator"-background story, well, go rent a movie.
Okay, fine. It's the future. Skynet, a newly developed military AI, went to war against humanity and mostly won. Humans are nearly extinct. There is a Resistance, but as John Connor says: "We lose more than we win." Things look bleak. But John is here to save the day. In fact, he already has, but that's where things get complicated. Like I said, watch the movies. Well, the first two.
The game starts with you as John returning from some apparently failed mission, but instead of evacuating with the rest, you and your female partner decide to try and rescue three stranded survivors deep behind enemy lines. In nine chapters you then fight your way through the ruins of LA, the LA subway, up into the hills and finally into the heart of Skynet territory.
The game is basically a "Gears of War" clone - which seems to be a pretty popular approach to game-design at the moment, albeit not necessarily a bad one - with some additions and some things left out:
The on-foot combat revolves around cover based shooter game-play like GOW (you crouch or stand in cover, then pop-out to shoot), but with the added cover-to-cover move variety as seen in "Wanted: Weapons Of Fate" (which was also developed by GRIN studios). Unfortunately, the "Popping-out-of-Cover"-mechanic has been simplified, so that you cannot control how you pop out, i.e. you cannot determine if you will shoot above your cover or around the side of it; the game decides that depending on the cover and your position. They also left out sprint and roll capabilities, so your movement does seem a bit slow and is always in the same pace.
Mixed in with that are several rail-shooting sequences, that have you driving on trucks with different weaponry, the back of an old subway train and once a futuristic tank. Which all sounds good, if not great, but the game still feels like a demo rather than a complete game. Why? Because whenever you had enough time with something to start to like it, the game takes it away. It's like a teaser with no main course, just a sip of this, a taste of that, and it's all pretty good, but just when you think you have it, it's gone.
The game isn't just short: the individual parts are, too. The game play is consistently interrupted by cut-scenes, annoyingly so. After every second small fight, there's a cut-scene, after almost every second cut-scene there's a pretty long loading screen (even installing the game to the HDD doesn't help much). And that completely cuts up the game flow. It's like 5 minutes play (1 minute running around, 3-4 minutes fighting), 1 minute cut-scene, another 5 minutes play time, another 1 minute cut-scene, then a 1 minute loading screen. Or at least, that's how it feels.
The game play itself is engaging and fun for the most part, but once you start getting into any kind of rhythm - BAM! Cut-scene. Some parts are so short, it's ridiculous, and not in a good way. Sometimes, there are only seconds of "game play" between cut-scenes. I mean, come one. Seriously? One of my favorite parts, a rail-gun sequence where you and your partner man the guns on one truck each to protect a school bus full of survivors on their way through the ruins of LA and partly drive through the destroyed buildings always trying to cover one another is really well done, but it's barely two minutes long. If even that. It's so, SO frustrating.
The on-foot game-play is mostly running from one combat encounter to the next along predetermined paths. The combat is set up to be pretty much always about flanking the enemy, so most environments give you ample opportunity to do so. The plan: while one or more NPCs keep the enemy occupied, you tackle him from behind. It's what hyenas do when fighting a bigger predator, like a lion. It works in nature, and here it mostly does, too, with the enemy AI reacting to the different threats well and your AI controlled partner(s) mostly pulling their own weight.
Still, most encounters feel static, since your partners usually don't move that much, and once you get too far ahead of them, their support dwindles and stops. You cannot control their movement, so when they stop, you kind of have to, too. While teamwork seems to be necessary against the overwhelming odds and superior firepower (truth be told, it is rarely overwhelming at all until late in the game - most battles seem far too easy once you get the hang of it), your AI partners don't seem to have a problem taking unlimited punishment completely exposed in a hail of enemy gunfire. They don't get wounded. They don't die, unless it's scripted. Which kind of takes away a whole lot of the urgency in each encounter, since you really only have to watch out for yourself. Your own health is another thing entirely, it only takes a few hits to bring it low, and even though it does replenish, it only does so after a set number of current enemies are destroyed.
The fights themselves are fun, but again they seem too short, and are always set pieces with a certain number of enemies that have to be killed to get ahead. Oh, and when you do: Cut-Scene. There are some rudimentary sneak-possibilities when the enemies have not yet detected you, and by using cover you can get into a better attack position before taking them out, but mostly your AI partners will ruin any element of surprise.
The enemies also lack in variety: there are small flying robots called Aerostats or Wasps that hunt in flocks (what? they fly, don't they?), Spider-Bots that are only really vulnerable from the back (You'll hear John saying quite frequently: "Let's flank 'em. We gotta get behind these things, people." so that's pretty much what you do), and two versions of Endo-Skeletons with mini-guns (the Terminator walking robot dudes) which are the toughest enemies in the game. Three or four times you'll also fight an HK, Hunter Killer, a pretty big flying hovercraft with plasma and machine guns. And that's it. No really, that's it. No other enemies to come, except for some rail shooting missions where you are attacked by shooting robot-motorcycles.
On foot, to fight these few and mostly predictable enemies, you have five different weapons at your disposal: Light machine gun, heavy machine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher and rocket launcher, of which the shotgun is definitely the most effective against all enemies. Supplementing your arsenal are hand grenades and pipe bombs. Yes, the same kind of pipe bombs Kyle Reese used to blow up Arnie "T-800" in the first movie, but sadly there is only a small difference in effect, and seemingly no difference at all in the animation of throwing them, while tagging an enemy with the bomb is unfortunately not possible at all.
You can carry two weapons at once, and both types of thrown explosives, and you'll find ammo and other weapons on the ground throughout the game. Since weapons and grenades are outlined in green and visible even through walls, you'll rarely run out of violence to spread.
The rail-shooting sequences bring their own weaponry, from machine guns to grenade and rocket launchers to plasma cannons, with unlimited ammo and only an overheat gage to be concerned about. Which doesn't make them easy. No, not easy at all. In fact, some of the early rail-shooting missions seemed to be the most difficult and frustrating parts of the game, made even worse by poor checkpoint placement and the ubiquitous, often non-skip-able cut-scenes.
The fighting on foot is definitely the more satisfying, at least if the AI is up to it, but the rail-shooting sequences feature some of the game's most enjoyable moments. One of the most annoying things about the on-foot fight however, is the compromised cover-system. Even though it works well most of the times, John Connor seems to only be able to shoot and throw with his right arm. Thus, sometimes when popping out of cover, your bullets and even your grenades will get stuck on the cover, even though your weapon should be well clear of it. It's an annoying waste of ammo and can be pretty distracting, when you get blown up by your own pipe bomb because you threw it against your cover and it landed right beside you (then, of course, your own grenades or those of your partners don't hurt you or them - no friendly fire, not even with grenades). The "blocking-cover-problem" is something that has already been apparent in GRIN's "Wanted: Weapons Of Fate" game, and it returns here in all it's infamy.
In closing, despite some enjoyable moments and fights, the game is just way too short, with the game flow unnecessarily interrupted by way too many cut-scenes, loading times and frustratingly placed save-points. Visually it's well done, but apart from a sunlit vista of ruined Los Angeles, nothing impressive. The story components are negligible, the voice-acting is fine, but Christian Bale it ain't. Music and Sound-FX do their job. The single player campaign features an Off-Line split-screen Co-Op mode, which might help with the sometimes sketchy partner-AI and extend the game play a few hours, but the lack of a multi-player component (I had so hoped for machines-vs.-humans multi-player matches or something like the "Horde"-mode in GOW2), makes this game a rental at most.