Terminator Salvation (PC Games, 2009)

For a movie series that’s about time travel and trying to get ready for a catastrophic deadline, GRIN, the developers of Terminator Salvation’s accompanying game, must have found the irony rather bitter. It’s clear that there was nowhere near enough time to produce a game on the grand scale of the action-packed movie, and considering that the film is stinking up reviews pages all over the world, there’s little to recommend this title to you.

Where Salvation lets us down most is in its storytelling and excitement level, which are lukewarm at best. You play the hero, John Connor: with the plot set two years before the movie, you’re out to retrieve some captured resistance comrades from Skynet. There’s no grand plot about saving the world or the future. There’s no furthering of the lore of the Terminator story. You’re simply out there to kick some robot butt and find your mates.

The cutscenes are lame and just don’t live up to the high drama of the movies at all. The upcoming movie doesn’t have much plot either, but at least there are a heck of a lot of explosions. Also missing from the game the movie’s star, Christian Bale, so there’s no real glamorous link to the celluloid world at all for those of you who like to play out your movie star fantasies.

The gameplay is workmanlike and mostly decent. A third-person actioner with plenty of guns, rocket launchers and grenades, you’ll use a simple but effective cover system to flank and outsmart your robot opponents, most of whom are pretty clever. Your own comrades are dim but occasionally useful.

You could get over the lack of a story for this fun gameplay, but before you know it, it’s all over. After just four or five hours of play, with no collectables or exploring to do, there’s no reason to go back for more. Less “Hasta la vista, baby" – more "vete con viento fresco" – good riddance.