Terminator 3: The Redemption (PS2)

This really isn’t easy. The first thing you’ll notice as you begin the game – apart from Atari’s adoration of often tedious full motion video – is how nut-achingly difficult Terminator 3: The Redemption is. It’s bloody hard.

You’re a T-800 (that’s Arnie to you and I), and you begin the game as you’re resurrected by one of John Connor’s troops in the future. He’s fixing your robot arse up, prepping you to head back in time to save John Conner in the past. If you’ve seen the film – and even if you haven’t – you’ll have no problems picking up what’s going on. The narrative is almost identical to that seen in the movie, with a few bonus cut scenes and missions to pad things out a bit.

Your first mission is to shoot down some sort of robotic flying thing with a machine gun. It’s the easiest the game will ever be, and you’d do well not to let the 30 seconds of potentially lackadaisical game-playing lull you in to a false sense of arse-kicking security. No, you should cherish that 30 seconds, because it’s pretty much the only time in the game when you won’t have three fingers on the control, simultaneously driving a car, aiming your weapon and sporadically turning on ‘scan vision’ (a feature that briefly gives you increased strength and lowers your vulnerability).

The has been designed in the classic Arcade mode, whereby you come out with guns blazing and let your fingers go nuts. The action doesn’t let up, apart from the occasional full motion video or DVD cut scene. You’ll drive a car and fight robots, shoot robots from a helicopter, drive a car in Los Angeles and shoot robots, and drive a hearse around a graveyard whilst occasionally shooting a robot (the irritatingly indestructible T-X). The scenes may change, but the action stays much the same.

And that’s the problem. The game has spunky graphics, with far smoother pixels than you could reasonably expect to see on the PS2, and there are brief moments of satisfaction when you finish a level. But ultimately, the game is driven far more by difficulty than story. There’s no motivation for finishing the game, unless you seriously love repeatedly shooting the goddamn shit out of robots. Again. And again. And again. The first serious level – after the aforementioned 30 seconds of easiness – takes at least ten goes to finish, and every one of them is as frustrating as the last. You can drive like a madman and shoot the hundreds of robots around you with pinpoint accuracy, but if you make one mistake, you’re back to the start again. There’s nothing wrong with a difficult game – it can really make for a satisfying experience – but there’s something wrong about letting a game live or die on how difficult it is for the player.

If you’re a real Terminator geek, or you love the satisfaction of learning an entire level over and over again so you can finish the fucker, you’ll no doubt adore Terminator 3: The Redemption. Atari have done well on the technical specs, and there are moments of genuine brilliance. Unfortunately, ultimately the game is intensely unsatisfying, just like the mediocre action-fest film it’s based on. For the few moments of achievement and gun-toting fun, there are hours of brutal repetition. The gameplay is initially exciting – driving and shooting at the same time is a decent novelty – but in the end, not even the multitude of arse-kicking robots can salvage what is ultimately a hollow experience which will disappoint the average gamer.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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