He's Back
The game ties into the recently released film for story, though it adds a few extra scenes you didn't see in the movie. John Connor has been living "off the radar" for the past few years following the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems, and the apparent halt of Judgment Day. What he doesn't realize is that his efforts and the efforts of his mother Sarah Connor and the T-800 that he sent back in time to protect himself were in vain, as Judgment Day was not prevented from happening, merely postponed. Skynet has sent back another terminator, the T-X, to kill John and prevent the rise of the human resistance, but once again, the resistance has sent out their own unit, a newer T-850. Once again, much terror and destruction is caused before the film is over, and now we get to experience the entire story again in a lacklustre videogame, as opposed to a decent movie.
Rise of the Machines' chosen genre is that of the first person shooter, though some sequences take place in a 3rd person view. The Terminator series has been down this path before in Bethesda Softworks' Terminator 2029, Terminator: Future Shock, and Terminator: Skynet, all of which were quite decent games. Unfortunately, Black Ops (and their associates) could not capture the quality gameplay or polish that was apparent in these titles, and has released a game that is sloppy, bug ridden and feels unfinished. Gameplay in Rise of the Machines is downright monotonous. The game is broken into two sections, the future and the present, each with their own respective types of weapons and enemies. These levels are filled with meaningless objectives and enemies lacking in anything that could remotely be described as AI. Missions are occasionally interrupted by CG and live action movie sequences - apparently there is about 5 or so minutes of live action footage not featured in the film. These sequences strike us as both ridiculous and unnecessary. Atari claim that this is the first time that Arnold Schwarzenegger has lent his likeness to a game, but we would like to remind them of a little title called Terminator 2: The Arcade Game.
The sloppy, monotonous gameplay of Rise of the Machines is hampered furthermore by its horribly broken control method. Terminators are rather bulky machines, so you can't expect them to move with great speed, but the movement speed in the game is just ridiculous. Movement is constantly interrupted by your character getting stuck on the environment, which leads to frustration. Trying to aim the weapons manually is a chore, but the inclusion of a lock on button cheapens the experience. A more subtle auto aiming system could have gone a long way. The weapons that are provided in the game are nothing out of the ordinary - plasma weapons for the future, and various machine guns and shotguns for the present. Changing weapons is really slow, and the hit zones on the enemies are completely screwed. It's almost inconceivable that a game could be this broken.
If you manage to persevere through the game's busted play mechanics, you'll find that there are 22 highly repetitive and often duplicated missions. There is no multiplayer mode to speak of either. A variety of extras have been included in the game for those willing to unlock them, but all of these features are provided on the DVD release of the movie. Arguably the best thing on the disc is a demo of the upcoming game from Paradigm Entertainment entitled Terminator 3: Redemption. While Redemption isn't a great game, it's still miles ahead of Rise of the Machines, and should be a decent experience when it is released in 2004. Perhaps Atari should have ditched this game, and just focused on Redemption.
Glass Eyes
In a lot of reviews across the Internet, you'll see many wild claims that games look like Nintendo 64 or Playstation games. If you took away a lot of the colour from Rise of the Machines, these claims wouldn't be unfounded. Rise of the Machines looks as if it fell out of the Ugly Tree, hit every branch on the way down, had an angry mob pummel it with baseball bats made from Ugly Tree wood, before the Ugly Tree finally fell down on top of it. Textures are blurry, the character models are ugly and misshapen with a distinct lack of detail, and their animation is poor, erratic and disjointed. The game also attempts to utilise the Terminator's infrared view mode, but rather than using nice lighting techniques to capture this effect, this view simply turns everything red, making it near impossible to see. Rise of the Machines also reintroduces an old friend - the poor PAL conversion, as the game features massive borders at the top and bottom of the screen. To add insult to injury, the game is constantly running at below 20 frames per second.
Sound is probably the highlight of Rise of the Machines, though it is still pretty lacking. Arnold Schwarzenegger provides his own voice work, delivering painfully cheesy dialog without a hitch. The game unsuccessfully attempts to use music from the Terminator 2: Judgment Day soundtrack. Sound effects are generic, but bolstered by DTS support.
Terminated
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is easily the worst game that has been released this year. It contains all of the elements that made games based on movies licenses notorious during the 1990's - bad graphics, sloppy game mechanics and feeling like the game is unfinished - rushed out for Christmas. The lack of quality is amazing, considering half a dozen talented development teams worked on the game. Send a message to Atari, and don't even so much as pick up the game's box to look at the pictures on the back of it. Don't forget to pray to your religion's resident deity in order to avoid receiving this game as a gift from family this Christmas (or Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Whatever holiday your religion celebrates).
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