Terminator Resistance feels like a spot-on adaptation of the film. Unfortunately, the film in question is Terminator Salvation.
The surprise announcement of a first-person Terminator game set in the Skynet-controlled future was well…surprising, even with a new film arriving, but all the same, it was sort of welcome, after all, it’s been a while since we got a half-decent Terminator game.
Fittingly, the last game release was, in fact, a tie-in for Terminator Salvation, a game that was somehow clunkier in plot delivery than the film it was peeled off the back of, and twice as nasty. It was clearly made on the cheap, but it still could have had at least a bit of passion towards the franchise.
Terminator Resistance does at least try to capture something about the world it’s inspired by. There’s definitely an atmosphere in close proximity to that of the scuzzy 80s vision of a Skynet apocalypse. Everything is murky and war-torn, with the only illumination coming from the raging fires and the searchlights of patrolling Skynet war machines.
We begin by seeing our pal (who we’ve personally known for all of six seconds) decimated by a T-800, and it looks like we’re next on the list. Luckily for us, a stranger distracts the gleaming death hulk long enough to allow for an escape which will now serve as a dreary excuse for a tutorial.
Tutorials are a necessity, even if it’s a game like this where you could have guessed most of the buttons ahead of time. The trick is to tie the tutorial into a fun, enthralling, and unobtrusive way. Terminator Resistance pieces together each prompt in an alarmingly basic manner, taking far too long to throw you in the deep end and do something exciting with it. On its own, this wouldn’t be a massive issue, but it’s padding, plain and simple here. It also serves as a first warning that you’re going to be taking a trip back to gaming past despite the future setting.
Terminator Resistance positions itself as an action RPG along the lines of Fallout 3, giving you things to loot, stats to upgrade, and choice-based conversations. Yet it’s all done with little ambition or desire for refinement. Everything about the game screams bare minimum or less, which produces a strange chimera that releases at the end of this decade, but could easily have come from the end of the previous one and still been underwhelming in its by-the-numbers approach.
This would have made for a passable rental back then. Nothing spectacular, yet enough to scratch a Terminator itch. Now it just comes across as laughably poor. On a PS4 Pro you’d be forgiven for thinking the game was being streamed on PS Now on a choppy connection. Being murky and muddy-looking works for the brand’s particular flavor of future doom and destruction, it doesn’t mean it should extend to every texture, character model, and effect. If you recall the horror that was Heavy Rain‘s fumbling sex scene, then you’ll be pleased/terrified to hear that Terminator Resistance has two of them that, partially thanks to the ropey character models, are far more awkward and horrific, especially as they occur in first-person and are initiated by wince-inducing dialog choices.
The dialog having choices is about as interesting as it gets as the rest of the story is a paint-by-numbers snorefest. If not for the odd bit of fan service, it’d be fortunate to be remembered at all. Not that the game is particularly engaging elsewhere.
There’s inconsistent and largely useless stealth that hasn’t taken into account any of the refinements made to such mechanics in the last 15 years. It would be more effective if the Terminators and various other death-dealing chrome buckets posed the kind of threat that James Cameron’s movies have suggested they do. Instead, they have reskinned AI goons from 2006, showing no signs of the notorious hunting abilities and smarts found in the films. During the tutorial, one walks within inches of your poorly-chosen cover and doesn’t so much as get an inkling you’re there. You have a tool that lets you see Terminators through walls and other obstructions, but the superior machine race can’t spot a man half-hidden behind a junked car.
Shooting is handled with a light touch, lacking the kind of meaty, thudding impact that would most benefit it most. Binary Domain, a game that came out in 2013 and is criminally forgotten too often, did Terminator-esque combat miles better, allowing limbs to be torn off its metal monstrosities and still have them come at you. There’s nothing quite like that here. Enemies just fall down, possibly out of boredom or gunshots tot he chassis, it’s hard to know for sure. Again, the T-800s and friends are the product of a super-smart robo revolution, but have the gumption and enthusiasm of an office worker 5 years too far into a bottom-rung position. Why send anyone back to prevent the war? If humanity was stupid enough to be overthrown by this lot, then it deserves to be vaporized.
Expectations were never going to be too high for Terminator Resistance. Alarm bells always go off when something like this pops out of the shadow of a movie release with little fanfare, but it’s remarkable how backward this game manages to be. It elicits no real emotional impact of any kind beyond maybe surprise when you find out this isn’t a HD remaster of some forgotten Xbox 360 title, but a brand new 2019 release. The low budget can be forgiven for some shortcomings, but this clearly didn’t get the time it needed to compliment said budget’s restrictions.
With Terminator Resistance, the robot apocalypse is here again, and it comes not with a bang, but a whimper.
Terminator Resistance review code provided by the publisher for PS4.
Terminator Resistance is out now on PS4, PC, and Xbox One.
