Terminator 3: War of the Machines

"This game deserves to be the worst game of 2003"

It is rather difficult for me to rate any game 1/10, but this game deserves nothing more than it. The name Terminator always attracts attention, and has been doing well in box office. However, what seems good in the theatre may not seem good on your monitor. This game will piss anyone off, be it if you are a terminator fan or not.

Graphic 2/10
The graphic is bad, though not entirely horrible. Simple polygons, bad texture and unrealistic animation makes you think if the developers have put in any effort at all. The worst is the character animation. When you shoot an enemy, the enemy has no animation respond (yes, totally none) and act as if the shot is oblivion and does not matter much. In fact, some of the shots seem to pass through the enemy’s body!!! How would anyone enjoy such game?? The death animation is ridiculous as well and it looks fake. It feels like the enemies are taking a nap. If you are playing the skynet side, the whole screen will turn red giving you a rather irritating feel. All the time, I have to turn the color to normal setting in option settings. If the developers are thinking that a red screen is innovative and clever, then they are dead wrong. It only adds to your frustration and increases your myopia.

Sound 5/10
Nothing interesting here. The music, is bland and most of the time you will not notice it in the background. The gunshots and laser shots are just some of the familiar sounds you will hear in other games or even on tv shows.

Gameplay 1/10
This is essentially a multiplayer game, although you are able to play in single player mode with computer AI. Many people said this is a clone of battlefield1942, but then this comparison is not fair to the once great game. Battlefield is a success but WOTM is a failure. Unlike games such as unreal tournament which has the option of deathmatch, capture the flag, etc, WOTM only allow you to play in one mode, i.e. to capture the enemy base. And also you are only able to choose 2 sides, skynet and the humans. And it is evident to see that these 2 sides are not balanced out, the skynet robot seems to be much stronger and able to dispatch more enemies than the humans. The human with rocket launcher does provide a decent degree of offensive, but if you are playing as a human with an assault rifle, then you are on your way to doom. Although you are able to play as Arnold Schwarzenegger on the side of human, this only degrades the gamers as to treating them as little kids who will get excited to see a celebrity in a game. If you are playing the single player mode (most of the time you cant find a decent server to play in), you will laugh at the computer AI. Your enemies will chase and shoot you 100% of the time no matter what the odds is. I call this suicide attempt, without any technical movement or strategy. Team work is virtually ZERO in computer AI. The developers could put in some effort by studying some of the AI of unreal tournament and this game will be much better. The AI does not know how to avoid obstacle too. I have seen many times where a skynet robot got stuck in some area and does not know how to move backwards to steer clear the obstacle. There is a problem with replenishment of the ammo too. Once your ammo is depleted, I never get the chance to replenish it again. Although people told me to I can get some ammo from the ammo boxes lying around certain parts, I never get to see them. So as long as your ammo is depleted, it is also time for you to die.

Multiplayer 0/10
You hardly get to see a good server online. In fact, there aren’t many servers online, most of time I would say less than 10. If you do get to see a good server with decent number of people on it, that server may happen to have bad ping from your ISP. And the fact that Artari does not provide any servers at all show their level of commitment to this game. And this is sad as WOTM is meant to be an online game, solely for multiplayer online gameplay.

Overall 1/10
Do not buy this, don’t even rent it. You have better things to do with your money. Even if you are a terminator fan or a gamer who loves battlefield 1942, do stay away from this game. WOTM deserves to be in the top 10 worst games produced in 2003. Trust me, there are much better things to do with your money, like folding a two dollar note into an airplane and see how far it can fly when you throw it into the sea.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/04