Reviewed: January 2, 2004
Reviewed by: Loki
Publisher
Atari
Developer
Taniko
Released: November 18, 2003
Genre: Action
Players: 4
ESRB: Teen
5
5
6
5
5.1
Supported Features:
The last time Arnold said, “I’ll be back…” he never finished his sentence. The editor conveniently clipped off “…in a lame game ported across all consoles”. Atari has had about as much success with T3 as the film studio did. Arguably, heralded the biggest flop of the trilogy by critics and fans alike, it was only a matter of time before Arnold’s trademark mug made its way into the game world. Now only if a terminator would travel back in time and destroy the concept for this game.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is not as bad as I might be making it out to be, at least on the GBA, which surprisingly manages to offer a slightly better experience than its PC and console cousins. At least with the GBA we expect and accept a bit less in quality, so while this version is the best of the bunch that’s still not saying a whole lot.
Rise of the Machines feature:
- A unique twist in the Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines story will also allow players to operate the Terminator before it was reprogrammed in the future to save John Connor. As a result, players will be able to test their terminating skills against battle-hardened Tech Com Special Forces from the future
- As the Terminator, players will face all comers in first-person action from the wastelands of the future to present-day Los Angeles.
- Military bases, laboratories and downtown Los Angeles are just a few of the more than 20 unique locations found in the game, which have been taken straight from the current Terminator timeline of events.
- More than 20 futuristic and modern-day weapons will be at the player's disposal for use in terminating any enemy in the most efficient manner possible, including the SkyNet Arc-Laser, Tech-Com Micro Rocket Launcher and the AR-15 Assault Rifle with M202 Grenade Launcher.
- Engage in true movie-like Terminator combat as they repeatedly face the ultimate killing machine, the T-X, throughout the single-player game. Smashing opponents into walls, massive two-handed chops and crushing kicks are just a few of the dozens of moves in the Terminator's arsenal.
You play as Arnold, or more specifically, the T-800 original Terminator as you recreate events from the movie. The game actually starts with events before the start of the movie, but some of those were shown as flashbacks in the film. You start in the future as a Terminator before the resistance captured and reprogrammed you to save John Conner. You’ll play about half the game in the future and the rest in present day.
As the Terminator you have impressive firepower at your disposal, both with shooting weapons and explosives that can be thrown or planted on parts of the level. If you are out of explosives or simply don’t have it selected your alternate attack becomes a punching melee attack. Oddly enough, punching seems to do more damage than most of your weapons – perhaps a subtle reward for having the courage to mix it up face to face.
Movement is pretty good with the D-pad and you can enhance this with the left trigger to make him strafe left or right, walk, or run. There can be some targeting issues when you start moving around and trying to line-up targets. Some weapons have a wider area of affect and other requires precise aiming. There is also a cool scanning mode that turns the screen red and highlights any targets and objects of interest.
While all the basic components are here for an interesting game the designers can’t seem to offer enough variety to keep me wanting to play. Pretty soon the levels all start to blur together and the “shoot everything that moves” gameplay becomes tiring. They may mix it up with a short escort mission but the game is quickly reduced to mindless and repetitive action.
To make matters worse, the game isn’t that long and it’s also an easy game to play thanks to plentiful weapons, ammo, and power-ups. You seldom even worry about dying unless you are totally careless. Even the boss battles are easy to win once you figure out their primitive attack patterns and exploit their weaknesses.
Visually, T3 is all over the place. There are some really cool effects like the red Terminator Vision screen and the explosions are very cool as are many of the robot designs. The levels are kind of muddy and blur together making it hard to find things (thus the use of infrared). The level design is linear but large enough that you can still get lost from time to time. There's really no visually distinction between the various levels except for when you go from the future back to the present.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is Arnold himself. The big hype on the console versions was that this was the first time Arnold had allowed himself to be digitally inserted into a game. The GBA doesn’t make any of those claims, but aside from the 6-8 black pixels that recreate the trademark “shades”, you’d have a hard time picking the Terminator out of any of the other humanoid characters on screen.
Animation is also a bit lacking, even for the GBA, and while you can explain some of it away by saying “Oh well, they’re robots”, Arnold would be quick to correct you. They are “cybernetic organisms with flesh over metal endoskeletons” and should at least move with reasonable fluidity.
The in-game music is pretty good even though the intimidating theme music from the movie never makes an appearance. The sound effects for the weapons are really nice and the explosions are great. Even the various Terminators have unique sounds that give the game a surprising range of diversity.
Average gamers will finish the single-player story in 2-3 hours of gaming. Multiplayer is offered for up to four players if you have a link cable and a friends with a GBA and another copy of the game. Two-player modes include a cooperative mission mode that let you and a fellow Terminator blast through a level killing everything in sight. This mode get boring pretty fast.
There is also a CTF (capture the flag) game that supports up to four Terminators looking for a flag hidden in the level. This was a surprising feature that I really didn’t expect in a GBA game but after trying it out it was rather disappointing. The CTF levels make use of warp points that have you bouncing around the levels making it hard to get your bearings. If you do manage to find the flag chances are you will get “terminated” by another player while trying to find your way back to your base.
If you are a huge fan of the Terminator movies and a GBA gamer then you might want to check this game out. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines isn’t the worst thing currently out there but there are better games to be sure.
I can’t help but think this was just another quick franchise spin-off to ride whatever momentum the film and recent DVD release still had going. If Arnold is destined to “be back…” let’s hope it’s in a better game the next time.
