The Terminator: Dawn of Fate

I am one of the crazyist fans of Terminator. When i first bought a ps2, i wished that they would make a terminator game. and so they did. when i first played the game i thought the gameplay would be something like kyle reese going back in time and protecting sarah conner from the t800 infiltrator. but the gameplay was completely in the future with john conner and the tech-com soldiers. there were only a few cg movies, but they were made excellently. the graphics in the gameplay were fairly ok at first until you turn on the adrenaline where everything goes into high graphic mode. 10 levels of play was a reasonable amount to complete. they could have added more levels involving going outside, hiding amongst the ruble and taking out skynet's forces and even doing a mission involving cars like taking out an aerial hk. the variety of weapons were good ranging from plasma guns to rocket launchers. the level i liked most was level 8 (infiltration) where you had to destroy the t800 infiltrator. after the first 100 health points, it burns and loses its skin, then it crawls on the floor. the cheats section was quite good (infinite ammo, adrenaline, 10000 health points, lethal baton, all guns and character skins). the range of music was excellent. the only mager problem was the camera angles. every time you move 2 seconds later the camera switches. this is the only big problem that ruins the game. the other thing they could of done to improve it was to add a cg movie for each level.

You tend to get stuck, don't know where to go, where or how to complete the objectives you're given. There's health on the screen for characters that aren't even in the same place as you and it constantly runs down until you get a game over screen that says you let them die. Enemies visibly spawn in right in front of you... Just crap all over the place.

Nice that there's metal music in the background, though. And I like the effect when you enter doors and transition to other rooms.

I'm about the biggest Terminator fan you could ever hope find, so you have to understand that I was pretty forgiving with this game. I wanted to like it. Man, I SO wanted to like it.

When you pop it in your PS 2, things seem promising. The presentation is nothing short of amazing; everything has that distinctive dark Terminator "feel," more reminiscent of the first movie than the second. The classic Brad Fiedel music is there. The epic future battles lit up with blue plasma rifle fire are there. The terminators themselves are there. It's too bad that once you get past the amazing intro cutscene, you soon find the gameplay ISN'T there.

At its heart this is a mindless action game, a shooter/beat-em-up where you run around either blasting Skynet's metal monsters or beating the crap out of them with a "plasma baton." To sort of give the impression that there is some skill involved, you have to complete certain tasks as you progress, like escorting someone to a checkpoint, using a turret gun to defend a base or planting explosives.

While that doesn't sound very innovative, it wouldn't be so bad except for one critical flaw; the camera and controls. I can say sincerely, with no exaggeration, that this game has the worst interface I've ever seen in a video game. The control is directional, meaning that whichever direction you push the analog stick in, the character moves in that direction. Problem is, the camera is always - and I mean ALWAYS - changing position, and every time it does the directional control changes with it. It's hard to explain; play it and you'll find out what I'm talking about within about five minutes. The result is you never quite know where you are or what direction you're going in, and you end up fighting the controls more than the enemies coming at you.

Normally camera problems aren't enough to completely ruin a game, but what amazes me is that in Terminator: Dawn of Fate, the terrible camera ruins the entire experience. What we have here is the result of a creative decision in the design process that went for "style" over "practicality." So what if the constantly changing camera makes the game seem like a movie? It isn't a movie, it's a game, and it needs a decent, stable camera that follows the character.

It's hard for me to hate it being the die-hard fan I am, but this thing just isn't worth more than a rental. There are a ton of extra features and neat little easter eggs which I'm sure would be a fan's delight ... problem is, you have to play through the game to unlock them. I can only hope cheat codes will appear to force open the extra features, because they're the only reasons you'd ever bother with this game.