Some unfortunate bugs and glitches keep Terminator Salvation from being a fun second-rate Gears of War spin-off.
GAMEPLAY - I mentioned this in the title of the review, but this game is a third-person shooter that almost feels like a less-intensive version of Gears of War. For many there will be no comparison here, but I still found it to be mildly entertaining. I played through on hard my first time so I could get an easy platinum, and despite the occasional deaths (some are very cheap, especially during the vehicle chase sequences), it was a relatively easy feat to master. You're only going to be really dealing with a handful of different enemy types here, and all of which have their own strategy for taking down, which keeps things interesting. Still, your allies' AI is very poor, and the enemy AI ranges randomly from being very intelligent to very stupid. Sometimes you'll come up against a T-600 (humanoid machines) that will continuously fire at you, despite if you hide behind cover. They'll just keep firing until you pop up and until you die. There are a lot of things about this game that feel very cheap, and sometimes you'd swear that the game wants you to die just once to reinforce its superiority or something. On top of that there are tons of bugs and glitches I've experienced from not being able to pick up items, friendly units not helping at all, falling through a ceiling to my death, and the game freezing, just to name a few. It's really too bad, because aside from the AI problems and bugs, this game is actually pretty fun in its own right. - 6/10
STORY - This game takes place between the Rise of the Machines movie and the Salvation movie this game is based on. Basically it chronicles how John Conner goes from being a lowly soldier in the resistance to being one of the revolutionaries of the war. It's very similar to the movie in that there's a lot of running to escape the machines and trying to rescue the survivors along the way. There is a central destination the characters are trying to reach also. A lot of people bash this game for its story, but I found it to be pretty decent. - 7.5/10
GRAPHICS - The graphics are in many ways good and bad. There are some aspects to the game, such as the T-600s, that look absolutely great. For the most part, however, this game looks like it belongs on the PS2. This game looks like it was supposed to come out 2 or 3 years ago. - 5.5/10
SOUND - The music in this game is very Terminator-esque. If you've seen the movies you'll probably recognize some of the same tones and things from them here. The voice-acting, although pretty solid, has some really poor dialogue at times, and more often than not the subtitles and what people say are different. This game delivers decently in this area, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. - 5.5/10
LENGTH/REPLAY VALUE - This game took me a matter of hours on hard difficulty on my first playthrough to beat, so the game isn't very long at all. Not to mention it's really not that difficult either. The most unfortunate thing about this game, which could have really saved it in my opinion, is the lack of extras to do outside of the main story. I think it would have been awesome to have a Left For Dead sort of multiplayer implemented here. People could play as the machines or the survivors. Sadly, however, this game is limited to its very short single player campaign, that can either be completed by yourself or with a friend. Either way, there's not much else worth mentioning here. - 4/10
BOTTOM LINE - I don't usually do this, but this game gets the recommendation for the perfect rental from me. It's not anything you're going to want to keep in your collection due to the lack of anything to do and the glitches that come along with it, but it's an easy platinum and you can beat the game in an afternoon if you work at it. I may not give this game the highest ranking in the world, but it really is a good game if you can look past all the downsides about it that stick out. I highly recommend not buying this game, but if you're a renter and haven't tried this one, I would definitely recommend it. Being that it's a game based on a movie, it's really not that bad at all. I think this was just one of those cases where the game was rushed out to coincide with the movie's release, which is unfortunate considering what this game could have been... - 5.5/10