Terminator Salvation – The Videogame is the tie-in homonymous film after 25 years since the first film renews one of the most famous brand of all time.
The player takes the role of John Connor in spite of the lack of a license to use the likeness of Christian Bale, star of the film, maintains the role of Leader of the Resistance, in the near future where Skynet is almost won the World War against humans.
The correct historical
Knowing the timing of the new movie and then on the Tie-in in the timeline of the saga is essential to understand some of the events you see on the screen. The John Connor played by Christian Bale in the new film is still a young resistance fighter, who has yet to live the day he will send the Sergeant Kylie Reese (Michael Biehn, Terminator) to conceive of himself with his mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton, Terminator 1 and 2). That event, in fact, is the time in which it instructs Connor Reese go back in time to protect Sarah celebrated the arrival of the first Terminator film. Clear, no?
The space / time scene of Terminator Salvation then see Skynet, the self-aware artificial intelligence that seeks to eliminate the human race, already in the advanced stages of his campaign of extermination, but not yet technologically advanced exoskeletons to create resistant T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator 1, 2 and 3), TX (Kristiana Loken, Terminator 3), or alloy-polymetallic camouflage T-1000 (Robert Patrick, Terminator 2), and then forced to produce a series of models made of heavy duty steel but otherwise damaged. All this justifies the scale war between machines and humans, although that may not make use of laser or plasma weapons, as no widespread military, able to keep up with the robots through the anonymous ballistic weapons.
Waiting to get technological developments needed to start production of its best models, Skynet will spare anyway to send against all the cyborg-robots-machines and everything else available.
The supremacy of Skynet in doubt
The main focus around which the concept of the game is the need to manage their movements to embarrass the robots that, once sighted players, will continue to trace their presence and shot him relentlessly. It therefore becomes necessary to know how to use this shell to exit their visuals, and enable the team is constantly at the side of Connor, to attract the attention of mechanical monsters to be able to attack from behind, where for almost all models enemies is present The main weakness. The displacement between the protection is due to the use of a particular crescent divided into seven segments, each of which is illuminated in the presence of coverage in the corresponding direction. Highlighted the path ahead will be the way the automatic shift by pressing a single button. The system works and can move quickly, even if sometimes you feel a strong sensation of excessive contextuality, aggravated by that visibly covers seem achievable, but not unexpected given the crescent, forcing to come out and ride in the race in rivers of bullets .
The move quickly from one cover to another, however, it becomes essential for survival, since the weapons collected are often equipped with a small quantity of ammunition, deliberately contrasts with the extensive presence of rifles, machine guns and missile launchers scattered around the field. These instruments of death can even be glimpsed through the transparent walls, precisely in order to quickly noticing the position and run to collect one, favoring a high rate of game, where few seconds stand still tantamount to certain death, especially at the level of greatest difficulty. Staying on the theme of difficulty, note that compared to what we saw during the preview, now is no longer available on Easy difficulty level, and now are selectable both normal and difficult. The promise from the developers of a very challenging difficulty in Hard Mode has not been fully maintained, the advice is indeed to tackle the game at its highest difficulty, since the normal worries not much more than the average player skill, except in certain phases of shooting from stationary turrets, where speed and accuracy are essential to avoid excessive deaths.
Come with me if you want to live
The best combination of gameplay you get playing the highest difficulty, working with a friend, but unfortunately this is possible only locally and not online. In this case, the screen is split horizontally, allowing the pair of players to face the machine divides the tasks: the biggest challenge requires players to manage every action, with one of the two that attracts the attention of the enemy in turn, so that the companion hit you from behind. The contribution of this mode of entertainment is definitely high, managing to overcome that feeling of repetition that takes the single player after a few minutes of play.
The repetitiveness risk of being one of the major flaws of this title, since the player will find yourself face to face with the same 5 or 6 models of enemies throughout the adventure, each of which tactics to deal with practically identical. In this sense, it is worth noting that the best modus operandi for their slaughter is outlined already in the early stages of the game: if it is true that collaboration with the team and stick behind them remain important, the best way to eliminate the Terminator , is now to shop around to check for explosives to be collected, always present in good quantity, and using these off the armor of their opponents, then shoot the weaknesses detected without the need for bypass.
Fortunately, a little ‘variety is brought on board by the presence of phases of different media, although in principle these are resolved to shoot at any moving object on the screen. In these phases is appreciable destructibility elements on screen, indeed limited to abandoned vehicles, which still give a good sense of devastation. Validates the decision to divide these phases in different lengths, each of which serves as the checkpoint in order to avoid long periods to repeat again in case of death.
Are not robots, cybernetic organisms are
As for the technical sector, there is a strong contrast between the environment and technical quality in general. If the scenario to better reproduce the visual style films for different environments and the chromatic scale, reaching sometimes to be even engaging in phases board and giant, the other detail is generally quite low, both in terms of the textures for the polygonal models, with characters totally inexpressive and movements obviously very fluid. In this context not saved course details such as shadows, which look very aliased, and especially the explosions, fire effects with very little credibility and an almost two-dimensional. Moreover, the poverty of particle effects eventually remove stress elimination of enemies, since the clashes are resolved in a little blue blaze which is falling apart the robot turn, pieces that are immediately absorbed by the soil.
The fund does not sound lifts that much about the quality of the product if it is true that the famous Main Theme of the series is present with all its grandeur, it is also true that this is repeated in virtually every phase of play, only to another tune not particularly inspired. Dubbing in English for the version we tested, is of sufficient quality, although because of the lack of facial expressions of the characters, items alone can not convey the most of the emphasis of the dialogues.
Despite a good first impression during the preview, we noted that even artificial intelligence amaze particularly enemies often will stop a few inches from the player’s position, firing against the cover behind which hides this, instead of making little progress and force him to flee. This allows the player to hide behind a shelter, feeling relatively quiet, except for rare cases where the opponent’s attack occurs at 360 °, the only times when you will really need to change to continuous coverage, except for situations in which remain without supply shocks and forced to move.
In imagining making levels too many times without repeating the same scenes, the completion of the adventure will not need more than six or seven hours, which would also affect the longevity factor, already embarrassed by the complete lack of online multiplayer.
TERMINATOR SALVATION – The Videogame is actually a funny title, thanks to mechanical forcing the player to intelligently deal with every fight and not simply throwing his head down against the enemies. Unfortunately, given the involvement of this factor and reinforced by the good transposition stylistic film-to-video game, is vitiated by a technical sector under the current standards, a repetitive gameplay and lack of additional modes as deep as a good online multiplayer challenges or alternatives elements which, joined together, make up the framework of the classic tie-in discreet suitable only to fans of the brand, classification to which only a few titles so far have managed to escape.
System requirements
Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz, 2 GB RAM, graphic card 512 MB (GeForce 8800 or better), 7 GB HDD, Windows XP SP2/Vista/7
