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Terminator 3: The Redemption Review - PS2

The Terminator movies are some of the most popular and well-known movies ever made, remembered mostly for their main character, Terminator, played by the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's no surprise, then, that a number of developers have bought into the franchise, releasing games based on the movies that unfortunately only put the name Terminator to shame. The latest developer to tackle the muscle-bound machine is Paradigm Entertainment, recently releasing Terminator 3: The Redemption. Though it's been a while since the release of the movie that it's based on, Terminator 3: The Redemption is the best Terminator game yet.

Terminator 3: The Redemption follows the journey of Terminator as he attempts to track down the new model of himself - which is more powerful and bears the appearance of a female human - and John Connor and Katherine Brewster. Thankfully, Paradigm Entertainment have done an excellent job of replicating the movie's explosive and action-packed nature.

Gameplay

During the game you play as Terminator - and you'll actually feel like it, too; he moves sluggishly, acts calm yet dangerous as he does in the movies, can handle more than a few enemies at a time and, of course, looks exactly like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Feel that he's losing his authenticity - for any reason? Tap the L2 button and your mind will be put to ease as a monotonic yet famous line is issued from the robotic mouth of Terminator, such as 'piece of cake'.

Terminator 3: The Redemption, as I mentioned earlier, is truly action-packed, just like its movie counterpart. During just about every mission of the game you're guaranteed to see at least one explosion every few seconds, while bullets and debris constantly whiz past Terminator's hulking body. Even the missions themselves are geared towards this theme; in addition to the standard third-person wandering, fighting and shooting you'll become engaged in fast, explosive car chases and devastating helicopter-mounted machine gun rail-shooter segments. Unfortunately, though, because the screen is constantly filled with explosions and enemy lasers and bullets, you take hits every second. Terminator may be able to endure a beating, but his metal frame doesn't last forever, and at times the game gets frustratingly hard. This is not only because you'll die or fail a mission often, but also because the long missions have absolutely no checkpoints or save points, meaning even if you die right before the end of a mission you have restart the whole thing. A bit of difficulty is nice here and there in any game, but when it's to this extent it only gets you frustrated.

The game in general feels quite a lot like an arcade game; the mission's objectives are basic, usually requiring you to blow stuff up, there's a strong feeling of linearity and most missions are made up of one outdoor area. I believe the game could've been better if it was developed with a more sophisticated style of gameplay in mind. For example, there should be (continued next page)