Years ago, back in 1993 I played the best game of all time. It was a FPS set in the future war of The Terminator movie. You played a soldier fighting for the resistance under John Conner, undertaking various missions (it was one of the only truly mission based games I've every played) in truly huge (for the time) open air areas of devastated Los Angeles. It was made by Bethesda Softworks and called Terminator: Future Shock. Since then I've dreamed of the day they would remake it or another Terminator game would come along that was just as good. With the hype that came prior to Salvation, I'd hoped this game might be it. Imagine my crushing, crushing disappointment.
First of all it's short. I think it's probably the shortest, least value for money game I've ever played and could be easily completed in an evening or two.
The game is constantly interrupted by cutscenes, one after another. You play for a few minutes, then there's a cutscene (usually followed by the load screen), then another bit of action, then another cutscene and so on and so on. This was annoying, but it at least helped give you a feel for the characters and what they were trying to accomplish.
The levels are very small, linear and uninspired, and the battles are incredibly repetitive, with the same two or three types of robots attacking you over and over, requiring the same move-from-cover-to-flank-them maneuver over and over.
It uses a Gears of War style cover system which is essential to staying alive and a big part of the game. It works fine but personally I get distracted by the big green letter A and the words “TAKE COVER” at the bottom of the screen. I would prefer to be able to simply duck behind cover. There's an annoying green highlight around gun and ammo pickups, a red highlight around enemies when you have them in your sights, and a white highlight around NPCs when they speak. All of which combines to detract from immersion.
It uses the checkpoint save system, which is never welcome but is no surprise on a console game, and a health system where you automatically and completely heal after every battle. That's just stupid in my opinion and I can't tell you how much I hate things like that in games.
It's cool that you can only carry two weapons at a time, and ammunition is quite limited so you have to be careful, and switch weapons often. But it was stupid how a lot of the time weapons were liberally scattered around the place in completely illogical locations, like a Skynet compound where John Conner actually makes the comment “We're probably the first humans ever to set foot in this place.” Which begs the question why are all these guns laying around on the floor. Where did they come from?
The few good things I can say about the game is some of the robots are quite cool and look really good, like the T-7-T spider bot that you have to outflank to fire at it's unarmoured rear, and the aerial HKs. And of course the future war setting. I love this aspect of the The Terminator movies and think it's a perfect place to set a game. But this game doesn't really do it justice.
The graphics are ok and there's some nice lighting, and I like the drab, dirty, weathered look of the characters. But all in all it's a disappointing, shallow, uninspired game and is definitely NOT worth full price.
It should also be noted, just to make it suck that tiny bit more, that you can't turn vibration off in the game. So if you don't like vibration make sure you turn it off in your console preferences.