Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

A technically sound game that exudes banality.

6 / 7 / 6 / 6 - 25 [Vol 788; 23 Jan 2004]

Its gameplay is well below today's standard for console FPS. Horribly clunky hand-to-hand fighting also rears its ugly head. [Jan 2004, p.135]

Playing T3 was a joyless experience, and only our loyalty to the Big Man kept us playing.

It's a short action shooter with more than a few missteps, but enough action to keep fans of the film happy. [Feb 2004, p.36]

But when the execution is this painful to experience… no. Just no. This is a great game to give to somebody you don't like.

Besides the fact that I should never be able to sit down and beat a game in my first sitting, there's absolutely nothing that makes me want to go back and play it again.

Terminated on Arrival. It's so slow and mundane that you won't even feel like you're playing a game that's based on the movie.

A few fighting scenes and some great cinema sequences don't do much to jazz up this tired shooter.

A crappy lock-on system snaps the Terminator's weapon right to a target, oftentimes one that's right underneath a grate and thus untouchable, all the while ignoring a more obvious threat.

If the game developers had improved the overall graphics, added multiplayer or online multiplayer game modes, AND rewrote the entire script, then I might suggest renting this game. Sadly though, I must tell you to avoid it at all costs.

Feels like a rushed hack-job of a game, with just barely enough cohesive action to keep it from completely falling apart at the seams.

Eclipsed "Fugitive Hunter" as the least enjoyable console shooter of the year.

T3's first-person shooting stages are plagued by poor controls, terrible level designs, brain-dead enemies, and just plain ugly graphics. [Feb 2004, p.106]

So much presentation and bulked up features, with nothing of substance underneath.

It is, thankfully, a roughly four-hour affair, but that time is probably better spent actually watching the two excellent (and one decent) Terminator movies. [Feb 2004, p.104]

A pretty perfect example of how licensed games can go horribly wrong.

Anemic character animation and poor modeling, which really don't get much worse in modern game design. [Jan 2004, p.66]

If you have a flagrant disregard for your sanity, your bank balance and enjoy the kind of masochistic self flagellation that true weirdos get up to in the privacy of their own home, then by all means pop down to your local gaming emporium and pick up Rise of the Machines and remind yourself how good all the other games in your collection are by comparison.