The Terminator

The Good
This game is simply incredible. A landmark in 3D first person shooters before they really caught on. You play as either Reese or The Terminator. There's an entire map of LA to move around in (complete with a stadium, a cemetery, a huge parking lot, and more). You break into stores and get your supplies, and attract the attention of the police and the man (or cyborg) you're after. In all the years I owned this, I never completed the game objective. I'd just play as The Terminator and cause havoc, steal cars, and have as many police stand-offs as possible. It's all the nihilistic fun we'd later have with the Grand Theft Auto series. The totally unrealistic graphics (none of the faces have any features, the buildings aren't much better, etc.) just make it more enjoyable.

The Bad
Again, I couldn't finish it. I'd gun down Reese, but I could never find Sarah and finish her off. Wow, I feel more and more demented writing this. But even that just goes to show how awesome this game was - the primary goal didn't matter. Besides, when you lose as The Terminator, humanity wins, so it's still a happy ending. Playing as Reese is next to impossible, but I suppose that was the idea.

The Bottom Line
Grand Theft Auto III (or Vice City, or San Andreas) if it was made in 1990. A first person semi-3D shooter where you have an entire world to cause chaos in. And all of this was a couple years before Wolfenstein 3d took off.

The Good
The Terminator is a game based on the hit movie. Players can choose between being a ruthless killing cyborg known as Terminator or a human guardian, Reese. Players are put in modern day Los Angeles in a race to either kill or protect Sarah Conner, the mother of a future resistance leader who ends the war between man and machine.

The game is an open world with no set levels or events. You are put right in the middle of Los Angeles and you must collect weapons, money, and search for Sarah Conner. As the Terminator, the game ends once you kill Sarah Conner, and as Reese, the game ends once you destroy the Terminator.

One of the best things about this game is that it's built on an open world. This game is massive and you can enter various stores such as a bank, gun shop, or military complex to gather the necessary tools to complete your objective. You can drive cars, and the world is complete with civilians going about their daily lives. A comparison to another game would be like a primitive version of Grand Theft Auto 3.

Gun play is unique. You shoot in the game, and in the lower left hand corner, you see an animation of someone getting killed. It's quite good for its time and I remember being quite surprised when I first played so many years ago.

The driving is pretty good as well. You can pretty much drive anywhere you want and the game comes with a detailed map to plot your course around the city. You can look up phone books for addresses on gun shops, banks, and other places. The world is not randomly built: it is set and always remain constant. So if you notice a baseball stadium at one place, it will still be at that same place the next time you play. Very impressive in details and design.

The Bad
There are several things I don't like about this game and here's a list:

1) Game is very boring. You don't get to do anything else in the game. You must complete only one objective and that is to either kill or save Sarah Conner. Not much for replay though. You can rob a bank or steal guns, and get in a shootout with the police, but nothing else.

2) On the back of the box, they had a screen shot of the terminator in the factory. I have never seen this in the game and I was quite mad when I never got to see any other. Just the same animation you see when you either kill or save Sarah Conner.

3) It's easy to complete the game in like 1 minute. Simply open the map, fast travel from one end to the next, and the game stops when you confront the terminator or Sarah Conner and Reese.

The Bottom Line
Now, no, I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone. However, if we were living in 1991, I would be recommending this game left and right. Any Terminator fan will be pleased. Out of all the Terminator games Bethesda made, this is one of the best to offer. It isn't much, but it's quite fun for the first few times. Plus, I remember this game was like 10 dollars at the military NEX when I first bought it, so you really get your money worth at the time.

The Good
At the time this game was as good I had ever played. You could go anywhere in the entire city! There were even land marks from the real L.A. You could steal cars, guns, or supplies. The car chases were also bad-ass! This game had it all. Damn, some one should remake this same concept.

The Bad
The only thing I didn't like was that the game was hard as hell when you played against the Terminator. As the Terminator you could take out virtually anyone. But as Kyle, the cops or the Terminator could easily wipe you out.

The Bottom Line
This is the grand-daddy of 1st person shooters and GTA style games.