Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines – PS2 – Review

A Terminator film without
James Cameron sounded about as appealing as a cartoon starring Jar-Jar Binks.
No one wanted to see it happen.  Arnold had faith in the project and was
determined to make it work.  Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was just the
thing to satisfy the craving for guns and explosions this summer.  The story
couldn’t hold a candle to James Cameron’s superior prequels, but the action
was excellent.

Before the movie’s release game developers began working on a PlayStation 2
adaptation of the film.  The arcade version of Terminator 2 greatly impressed
audiences in the early 90s.  T3 has a different developer and a different
publisher, but seeing how well other movies have been converted to games gave
me hope for this title.  The light-gun is out, but Terminator is still a
shooting game, this time a first-person shooter. 

A war is going on, robots
are everywhere, and it’s up to the Terminator himself to eliminate the
threat.  From the first-person view players should be able to see all the
action unfold.  Rise of the Machines is a bit claustrophobic though (problem
#1).  There’s a lot of destruction going on at first, but it’s not very easy
to see.  This is compounded by the camera (problem #2).  Console shooters use
the two analog sticks to simulate mouse and keyboard control.  If a PC gamer
were to play Terminator 3 he or she would never want to play another console
shooter again.  Player movement is slower and less responsive than most of the
below-average shooters on the market.  Not much can be achieved when you dread
having to reposition the camera to take another shot.  An auto-aim feature
could have improved the player’s ability to aim, but it wouldn’t have made the
experience anymore enjoyable.

Rise of the Machines’
weapon selection is decent in amount but disappointing in quality (problem
#3).  The weapons sound much cooler than they really are.  In the present
Terminator 3 offers weapons like a 9mm pistol and a pump shotgun.  The T1
mini-gun is here, as is the rocket propelled grenade launcher.  The rest are
more or less variations of machine guns and other FPS staples.  In the future
T3’s weapons are almost worst.  We’ve seen too many lasers and plasma rifles
to get excited about their presence in a Terminator game.  Their secondary
functions (a grenade or a more powerful laser shot) are generic at best.

Problem #2 centered on
the camera, but the player movement was briefly mentioned.  That leads us to
problem #4.  While most shooters have borrowed the smooth Halo feel that
Bungie created, Terminator 3 goes way back to the days of the SNES.  I can
only remember one first-person shooter released on that system: Doom.  By
today’s standards Doom would seem clunky and very difficult to control.  It
would be looked down upon and wouldn’t seem worth playing.  Terminator 3 has
those same qualities.  This is inexcusable.  I know they could have done
better than this.  The developers must have had less time (or less funds) than
most.

Problem #5 has to do with
the game’s graphics.  Where are they?  All I see are bland backgrounds,
inferior explosions, cartoony weapon effects, and ugly robots with little
detail.

Terminator 3: Rise of the
Machines is the reason why gamers are afraid to see publishers pick up a movie
license.  A lot of good can be done with it – The Lord of the Rings: The
Return of the King proved that.  But a lot of bad can be done with it as
well.  If a no-name game stinks, it’ll be forgotten quickly.  But a
movie-based game has a lot attached to it, especially if the film is
successful. 

Reviewer’s Scoring Details

Gameplay: 4
A ho-hum shooter
for a high-quality-expecting audience.  Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine is
TOA – Terminated on Arrival.  It’s so slow and mundane that you won’t even
feel like you’re playing a game that’s based on the movie.

The
weaponry is about as weak as they come.  They’re effective in killing the
robotic opponents, but in terms of power or coolness they stink.  It might
sound crazy to pick on the laser beams, but compare this to virtually any new
FPS available.  There are certain subtle elements that game developers have
added to the genre that are only noticeable when they are absent.

T3’s
camera and player movement are horrendous.  Thank your lucky stars that the
enemies are easy to kill, because if they weren’t the camera would stop you in
your tracks.  It makes it nearly impossible to line up a good shot and fire.
If you’re playing a game that’s all about shooting, and the game prevents
skilled players from aiming properly, it comes to a point when you wonder if
the game is worth playing.  I hate to say it – and I rarely do, even when a
game is filled with flaws – but this is a must-avoid.

Graphics: 3
PlayStation 2
this is not.  It says PlayStation 2 on the box, but the game does not feature
any of the graphical qualities of a PS2 title.  Slow and sluggish gameplay is
sometimes caused by a low frame rate, but I’m not sure that’s the problem
here.  Nothing good can be seen – the textures and explosions are far below
the industry’s minimum standards.  The FPS genre was created to put the player
inside of the game, but T3 does no such thing.

Sound: 6

Difficulty: Easy

Concept: 3
Terminator 3:
Rise of the Machines is a below-average FPS with the characters from the film.

Overall: 4
I’ve got the
movie, California’s got a new governor, and gamers have a new game to check
out.  It’s not worth the check that you’d sign to pay for it, but it
will stay out of your system for all eternity.  I suppose that having
this game would be better than nothing if you were stranded on a desert
island.  But in North America – the land of first-person shooters – you have
dozens of superior options.  You could get a used copy of Perfect Dark for
under ten bucks.  Halo, Quake III, Unreal Tournament, Half-Life and countless
first-person shooters retail for $20 or less.  The old age of these titles has
no bearing – they’re still more fun to play than Terminator 3: Rise of the
Machines.  The only thing that would make this game worth taking home is if it
were free.  But if that were the case you’d play it till you got sick of it
and toss it out the window.  (Time elapsed before defenestration: ten
minutes.)