Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

"Not the worst licensed game, but not the best either..."

Licensed games have a habit of being screwed during development to coincide with the release of a major movie or for fanboys of a particular book or TV show. Atari made four games to coincide with Arnie's new movie ''Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'', including this GBA version, which ain't all that bad. Of course, it ain't all that great either.

First off, unlike the other games for other consoles which were FPS shooters, this is a 3rd person isometric shooter made by developer Taniko, and has a very arcadey feel. Most levels entail you running around performing some meek task whilst killing all the robots and (later on) SWAT cops in your way. The robots are all signature enemies from the movies, such as an F/K, T-800 exoskeletons and T1 robots. The killing segments very much remind of ''Serious Sam'' and in a way they are fun, so points given there.

Then there are the timed segments and vehicle segments. The timed segments give you WAY too much time on the clock, making them too easy. And you can also control the F/K kites if you find a computer to hack through. Unfortunately the F/Ks are weak as hell and the blaster cannon provided is just pathetic. Worst of all are the timed driving segments. You get 3 minutes on the clock to do a chicken run with a blaster cannon mounted ATV. Of course, enemies will be attacking you all the way. The ATV is not only weak, but slow too. The blaster cannon is lame, and the rocket launcher provided is useless because of the firing mode (unless you're right in the enemy's face, your rocket will circle your opponent and explode randomly doing minimal splash damage). Through these driving segments, a better idea would be to run all the way.

There are 10 missions. 5 are in the future and the other 5 take place in the present day, reliving the movie. While it is fun to relive the classic Graveyard scene, the gameplay could be improved. I'd also like the difficulty settings to be more balanced. In lower difficulty settings the game is pretty much easy... hell I got through 3/4ths of the game in about 2 hours! ... But in higher difficulty settings the game is unforgivingly brutal!!!!!!! Besides the killing, there is a ludicrous scoring system which sees you earning lives. Lives are given to you every 1000 points. When you die, you lose a life and spawn back with all weapons and points at the EXACT SPOT you died, but if you lose all lives, you just continued at the beginning of the last room/segment you started with basic ammo for all your weapons, but you lose your score and all your explosives.

The weapons are okay, being standard shooting game fare. You start off with a unlimited ammo handgun and you make your way up to an assortment of laser and plasma guns, SMGs and assault rifles and shotguns, and even a minigun! The only gripe I have with the weapons is the launcher and the secondary weapons. First of all the rocket launcher concept has got to be the worst I've heard of: unless you're right in front of an opponent the rocket circles around and explodes randomly with minimal splash damage (much like the ATV rocket launcher). Secondly, the grenades and flashbangs have no difference. They do the same thing. They just look different. And lastly, the melee attack the Terminator has is just as powerful as half your weapons!!! What's up with that??

Pickups are standard fare also, being either health, weapons (see above paragraph) or energy boosts. Now this is something interesting. Energy boosts fill up your energy meter, which is like an armor shield and will run out before your health. Another little quirk is that the cool as hell red-screen Terminator vision comes with the game and also uses Energy. The Terminator vision is cool, but it wears down your energy SOOOOOO FAST!! And another thing... what's up with the amount of pickups there are????? You're virtually bombarded with useless pickups when they're not needed and when they ARE NEEDED THE MOST they're NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!!!! At least 20 times in the game I died only the find health pickups JUST BEYOND the area I died in!!!

The save system and save score system though, are the parts that definitely scream RUSH JOB!!!!''. The save system is a password save, with the 5-letter passwords only varying between the first letter with the rest the same. At first, you'll think ''Oh, password save... not that unusual'' and you'll go with it, but after a while though, you'll begin to see why they should have included a cartridge save. And don't get me started on the saving scores system. They let you save scores if you racked up a high number and then died. The big thing though is, that when you save your score and then turn off your Gameboy, when you turn it back on: YOUR SAVED SCORE IS GONE!!

T3 also suffers from false advertising on Atari's part. The box claims: ''Live the WHOLE Terminator experience. Fight as Tech-Com against machines and as CRS Skynet to defeat the human resistance.'' Lie! You only fight machines, and whenever you fight humans it's to PROTECT John Connor, who's the leader of the resistance. Evidence #2: ''Multiplayer requires separate game Link Cable.'' So I ended up thinking, ''Hey cool you only need one cartridge to multiplay.'' Then I opened up the manual and it read: ''Multiplayer needs more than 1 cartridge''! I thought it was standard to say on the box whether you needed more than one cartridge a la other games!!! BUT... the biggest thing of all... MAKING AN INVINCIBLE END BOSS!!! For those who saw the movie, they'd know that the main antagonist, the T-X, is virtually unstoppable, but... c'mon! It's pretty much impossible to kill her! And unlike all the other enemies, she doesn't have a health indicator to let you know you've actually dealt some damage to her!!!!

Terminator 3 had all the makings of a great game. If only it wasn't rushed to coincide with the movie release. You'll enjoy it if you're a big fan of the movies. If you ignore all the annoying little things (it's hard but possible) and just repeatedly mash the fire buttons, you'll have a great time.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/04, Updated 03/21/04