SNES

T2: The Arcade Game

How fun is T2? It's probably the only good excuse you have for getting a Super Scope. If you love shoot-em-ups, put T2: The Arcade Game on the list of games that you gotta have. Lethal Enforcers, move over. The SNES has a date with a cyborg.

All around, this is an amazing home port. I've only seen screens of the Amiga version, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is the best home version you can find. Obviously, this is a little different than tossing a few casual quarters into an arcade cabinet, so only Terminator fans need to bring this into their humble abodes. But regardless of how you feel about the film, it stays as close to its source material as its hardware can allow, and for doing so achieves the most you could ever ask from a port.

Graphics and sound are reproduced perfectly, the Terminators move smoothly and the gun FX sound real, but the gameplay fails to impress. I must admit I was looking forward to T2 - I'm a big fan of the coin-op - but I'm afraid it's not the same without the Uzi gun from the coin-op shaking all over the place! That said, this is still a worthy game if you own a Super Scope, but if you want my opinion Lethal Enforcers gets the edge, and I'd get that instead.

It is a pretty good translation, with good graphics, yet the game as a whole is just a tad on the difficult side.

The control pad is terribly clumsy and inexact, so I opted for the mouse instead. Actually, I was able to control the cursor fairly well, but the sorry gameplay made the whole experience feel like a pointless exercise. The first stage is excruciatingly long as you mow down endless waves of terminators loafing around on a post-apocalyptic battlefield. Human reinforcements are always in the way, and they "yelp" pathetically when you accidentally shoot them. The stages are very uneven both in terms of length and difficulty, and a few feature "golden" terminators that look more like a bunch of C3POs! In one unintentionally hilarious stage, they run like chickens alongside a moving truck. Even Arnold doesn't look like himself, leading me to believe a less-beefy, digitized imposter was used instead. The explosions are awfully weak, with hulking vessels that shatter like glass when hit. T2 The Arcade Game was clearly just a weak attempt to cash in on the success of the film.