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Name: Terminator Salvation

In something of an odd move by developers GRIN, Terminator: Salvation isn't based upon the movie with the same name, instead it serves as a bridge between the third film in the series, Terminator: Rise of The Machines, and the film upon which it borrows its name, Terminator: Salvation. Halycon Company, who are responsible for bringing us the film, set up Halycon Games in order to have control over the game and the way it would be developed, so work began on the title before the film even began filming, but as they know what the film is going to be about in advance then it should fit in perfectly. It's set in 2016, two years before the film and borrows the landscape of Los Angeles as its backdrop, many of the characters in the film aren't in the game however but there are some familiar faces along the way.

On the off chance you're not familiar with the Terminator franchise then to give it to you briefly, you join the action after an artificial intelligence, Skynet, has become self aware. Now it's thinking for itself the very first thing it works out is that the human race is its own enemy and should be eliminated, as quickly as possible, and thus a war of man vs. machine takes place. The machines invent various methods of terminating the human race and hence they gain the nickname of 'Terminators'. The events of the game jump into the action after most of the human race has been annihilated and before the machines have had the chance to build there most fearsome series of Terminators, the T-800.

The plot follows John Connor in his formative years as part of the resistance, we join the action as John and his team as they make their way to an extraction point, only there are no helicopters coming to extract them and they need to rethink their plans. Helicopters are arranged to collect the team, but they need to move to a new position, cue lots of fighting with machines. As they make their way and battle against all the odds they receive an SOS call from a bunch of humans who need help, John insists that the team move to rescue them but is denied by his commanding officer. Defying orders, John makes his move and sets off with the help of Blair to rescue the survivors; this makes up the bulk of the action as the team battle their way through several enemy ambushes and traps.

The action takes place from a third-person perspective and uses a duck and cover system, not that dissimilar to those used in Gears of War and numerous other titles, this is how you'll control John throughout the game, from small gun battles to vehicle action with machine guns and rocket launchers. The cover system actually works quite well as a mechanic, once your in cover you can pop your head up and shoot, blind fire, or make your way to more cover by highlighting nearby places to get behind. It feels good to do and it does work really well compared to other cover systems you might have come across. That, unfortunately, is where most of the good stuff stops since it isn't backed up by some basic principles, one of which is the ability to jump, over walls to be exact, even ones at ankle height.

The main characters and the environments are a let down all the way, it doesn't particularly look like any love has gone into either, even the stone wall textures look dated, and that's got to be hard to do. John Connor looks nothing like any of the previous iterations we've seen of him on the silver screen, his actions are stilted and it doesn't look like he's had any more work done to him than with the characters that inhabit the game world. Some of the animations however show some glimmer of hope, he does convincingly slide into cover, but this just makes the rest of the animation stand out for its apparent lack of ingenuity. Other annoyances can be found in the way that the ammunition in your gun is used, as an action game aficionado might expect there is the option to manually reload your gun, but doing so takes away what ever ammo you have left in there, the shotgun can hold 8 bullets at a time for instance and if you choose to reload after two shots then you'll lose the remaining six bullets.

There are other flaws as well; in one section you're pinned down by two Terminators who fire in a crisscross pattern, making it almost impossible for you to grab the explosives you need to destroy them, this is particularly annoying when backed up with the ropey encouragement from your team to grab the explosives when they can quite clearly take more damage than you can. Not only that, if you do somehow manage to destroy one of the Terminators then a door will open and another one will come through, common sense dictates to run through this door, but, the rest of your team won't, the Terminator doesn't fire upon them and instead waits for your return before shooting at you.

Considering that Skynet is some form of ultra artificial intelligence then, you should expect some pretty advanced tactics being employed to thwart your efforts in stopping the extinction of mankind, unfortunately not. To be fair, the enemy AI does do its job well sometimes, you'll quite often find yourself pinned down wondering what to do next as the enemy seems to be on your every move. The Aerostats that attack can be pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel sometimes, but the T-600's and the Spiders can be quite adept at keeping you pinned down and really make you work to get their weak points. But these highlights are fairly short lived when ultimately the game does become a repetitive chore in most places. The enemies you come across aren't that varied and you'll nearly always use the same strategy, see, take cover, shoot, continue. You do occasionally get the odd escort mission to break things up a bit, but these are few and far between and aren't really much of a challenge, or a distraction.

It's not just the action that has its faults either, the voice acting is often bereft of any real feeling and feels pieced together, there are flaws in the incidental vocabulary as well such as your partner issuing commands of encouragement to a team when there is just the two of you. It isn't surprising to find that the lead actor in Salvation didn't want to lend his voice to the title, however, both Barnes and Clair Williams did. Apart from the voice work the music is also a little sparse, when in battle you to do get the infamous Terminator theme to play along to which swells when the action is thick, it's a nice touch, but a little obvious to use and even a die hard Terminator fan will find it tough going after so many battles.

This title is exactly the reason why video game film tie-ins get such a bad name; it's a waste of a perfectly good license and is perhaps more surprising due to the direct involvement of the company making the film, you'd think they would want to make the best job they could instead of releasing a game that so obviously doesn't make the grade, it's hard to imagine anyone being happy with this game on their CV. With no no real reason to play the game again, that's if you make it through, other than perhaps a quick spout on the offline cooperative campaign, it's nigh on impossible to find a reason to suggest you part with your hard earned cash on this title, even if you're a die hard Terminator fan. If you really have to know the story of what happens between the movies then either rent it or borrow it off someone unlucky enough to have purchased it.