If Arnie realized what kind of game Atari and Black Ops developers created, probably he would terminate them.
It was supposed to give more explanations about the movie, actually it creates more confusion.
Since from the beginning it’s clear the game is not very smart: on the screen, if you’ve already saved a previous profile, you are asked if you want to load that game, and default option is NO… so that this way you can’t go on!
An auto-loading process should have been programmed, as in every other game.
T3RotM locations are basically:
1) Tech-Com base (in the future);
2) L.A. and its suburbs (in the future);
3) Skynet labs (in the future);
4) L.A., the mausoleum and downton (in the present);
5) CRS headquarters (in the present).
Levels are too short, on average you can complete them in ten minutes; the game itself can be “terminated” in three evenings, it’s totally about 6-7 hours on normal difficulty.
T3RotM is basically a fps divided into 22 levels; at the end of some of them you’ll encounter the boss, and the game is no longer a fps but begins a 3D beat’em up.
As fps, T3RotM is quite disappointing, because player’s point of view is not easy and good to manage.
Moving the terminator is frustrating, the calibration of crosshair is not well balanced: it moves too quickly or too slowly.
Luckily it’s possible to auto-aiming a target by pressing the L1 button, and it’s nearly necessary to use this possibility, but this way the game is not funny because I think the main characteristic in a fps is aiming the target.
As a beat’em up it’s even worse: combos are repetitive and parrying is useless because too slow to be effective.
So boss fights are the most boring part of the game.
Graphics are simple and very little detailed; colours are few and monotonous; fires and explosions made me smile for pity.
All the characters, human and cyborgs as well, move in a ridiculous and not spontaneous way.
Textures are tacky, polygons are extremely few and, in spite of that, sometimes graphic engine slows down and proceeds with jerks!!!
Environments, both external and internal, are a bit more detailed, and some of them, for instance post-apocalyptic L.A, are quite evocative.
The best feature is “geo-mod”, already seen in other games (Red Faction), that allows you to destroy walls, columns, glasses.
As a terminator we can choose the point of view of the cyborg: this, in totally red coloured screen, provides many information about environments, objects distances, foes’ weak points and stamina.
A good point of the game is weaponry: we are equipped with guns both from the future and of the present, they are different each other and they are very effective.
It’s funny to shoot with all these various chain-gun and rocket launcher.
Reloading is a pretty realistic action as well.
But on the other hand a serious lack during game is when you change weapons, because it takes too time to select the one you want to use: this could originate many troubles, if you are not equipped with the most suitable gun, you’ll have to find a shelter before.
During all the game Arnold’s voice will be your soundtrack, with exclamations and comments like “locked and loaded”, “fantastic”, “excellent” and so on.
By going on with the game you can unlock a lot of extra stuff, such as images, cut off scenes from the movie, behind the scenes, graphic art and designs.
There is a playable level from Terminator Redemption too, just a bit better than T3RotM.
In the extra features Arnold says he wanted a videogame similar to the movie, and the terminator of the videogame had to look like himself: I wonder if he realized the bad work made by Atari…
As extra stuff it’s possible to unlock two prehistoric Atari coin-ups, “Centepide” and “Missile Command”: just a way to revise history of videogames.
T3RotM looks in fact, as I said before, a pure commercial operation, to make some money taking advantage of the movie.
I feel to advice someone to play this game only if:
1) you are a Terminator series fan;
2) you love fps;
3) you’ve already completed better fps (and almost all are better…);
4) you can buy it at a cheap price (I paid € 19,90 for a used copy, and I still repent of it).