There's nothing more satisfying than that end sequence scrolling up the screen accompanied by a raft of achievement points.

I'd spent the last few nights controlling John Connor in a bid to rid an apocalyptic world of evil robots. Despite the extremely mixed reviews, I thoroughly enjoyed my Terminator Salvation experience.

Don't get me wrong, it's by no means a classic but it was fun while it lasted. Critics have blasted it for being a typical film tie-in; a run of the mill shooter with okay graphics, mediocre gameplay and a difficulty level that flatters to deceive. I'd have to agree with them - but that doesn't make it an bad game.
I'd decided to ramp it up to the hardest difficulty setting, thinking it would last me at least a week's worth of action. Ultimately it fell a few days short of that but I still had a blast nonetheless - and managed to save the world in the process.

Not having seen the film I can't say how closely the game resembles the script but it seemed a pretty typical yarn - beleaguered resistance fighters making their way past numerous robotic killers in a bid to scupper Skynet and rescue lost comrades.The Terminator models were limited. There were the wasp-like flying robots (easily dispatched with a shotgun), spider versions (with an Achilles heel on their backs), biker machines (speedy but easily taken out) and the infamous Schwarzenegger types (who needed a few hits with a rocket launcher or several magazines of machine gun fire to the breast plate!). For most confrontations, a simple flanking manoeuvre proved effective and added a bit of variety.

Level design, however, was otherwise linear with no chance of exploration and the range of weaponry was minimal - but it was still a great laugh. I particularly liked the pace of the whole thing...some stages were lengthy, others strangely short...some involved shoot outs with a cover system vaguely reminiscent of Gears of War, others were timed sections where you had to protect your colleagues or take out some armaments.

Saying that though, the balance of the level difficulty was a little uneven: for some reason, the sixth level was hugely frustrating and I died many a time trying to protect someone while he planted a few bombs - whereas the final stage with was an absolute breeze!

Certainly if I'd forked out £40 for this I'd be mightily disappointed. After only around 4-5 hours gameplay, even on the harshest difficulty setting, I didn't feel I'd worked too hard for my achievement points. As a rental, however, it's well worth a punt!




(Video credit: playrhqtermintor)