I remember when I was 5 years old, the Terminator movies were at the top of the action movies. For good reason too, as they were different, and a really good blend of action with a little bit of creepy horror elements. Terminator 2 - Judgement Day was amazing back in the day. The T - 1000 was one of the most BA movie villains around. So of course I assumed that playing the roll of the model T - 800 and battling the liquid metal menace would be amazing. Being that I was about 6 years old when I played this game, I thought it was the best thing ever. Oh, the naive mind of children. Being able to play this as an adult and able to separate my mind from the movie, I have a very different look at this. Unfortunately, this is one of those times where memories from your childhood do not remotely live up to what the game truly is. Let's begin.

Graphics: 4/10
Alrighty. At first, the graphics of this game look really cool. The title screen showing young Arnold Schwarzenegger where one half is human and the other half fades into his titanium endoskeleton looks amazing. The colors and shading are nothing short of astounding for NES capabilities. The cutscene slides were done just as well. This made you have pretty high expectations for the game from the get go. However, those are false hopes, my friends. First, I will start with the background and environmental elements. Granted, the levels are done well enough that you can pretty much tell without straining yourself what the levels are. You can tell you are in a truck stop, an underpass gutter, hospital, etc. It isn't hard to tell, so props there. However, the colors themselves tend to be a bit weird. Not so much on the first level, but everything after that. For example, the second level is ALL black and grey except for you and the garbage truck pursuing you (both are a weird greenish brown). The steel mill was all different shades of blue. I don't know. If the colors of the decent backgrounds were as accurate as the first level, this rating would have been a lot higher. but regardless, the sprites were pretty bad. I don't think the developers have ever heard of proportions. All the characters (including our terminator) look like they all had anvils fall on their heads, just squishing their bodies down, making them look like stubby dwarfs (no offense to anyone with dwarfism ). It didn't even look like they tried with the T-1000. He was just a barely recognizable figure that was either almost all blue or all grey. The sprites overall were pathetic. 

Sound- 4/10
Once again, the introduction sequence gives you some false hopes. The music during the title screen and the opening cut scene was dark, creepy, and appropriately robotic. Once the game started, they had a robotic feel, which was good. But that was where the good pretty much stopped. I have ran into games where the music was very overdone to the point where it overpowered the sound effects. In this case, the music was barely even noticeable. If you pay attention to it, it is fairly cool. But it is both so quiet and just not enough to it to really even contribute to the game play experience. It saddened me. Some good music would have been good to help with the less than engaging sound effects. Throughout the entire game, there are about 5 sound effects overall. One weird thing is that there was no difference between punching someone and punching air. That might be nit picky, but when the sound effects are already so little, things like that just stand out more. The only thing done well with sound effects is that they didn't make them annoying. Usually when a game has very few sounds, they make them so loud or weird that they are super irritating to hear through the whole game. Like the music, they made them more subtle, making it more bearable. 

Story- 3/10
One thing that bothers me about this game is that they have so much material from the movie to help develop the story in this game. Now, they tried to do most of this with the super short slide style cut scenes. But even then, it just kind of jumps from level to level sporadically. You don't really know why you have to beat the boss in the first level. You don't really know why you have to rescue Sara from the hospital. You don't know why you have to destroy the lab. I get that people typically wouldn't pick this game up unless they have seen the movie, so I get that they are assuming you know the story. But I feel that is just no excuse to be lazy with story development. This is a common thing with retro games made from movies. Never just assume things if you want your game to be great. People play the game to play through their favorite movie stories, so try to give them that full movie story experience.

Depth- 3/10
The game itself really does not have much to it. For example, there are 6 levels to sum up an entire blockbuster movie. In levels 1, 3, and 4, there are 2 types of enemies. They look different, sure. But they do the same thing and you have the same strategy for them. You should also look at this and see if you agree. The first level, the enemies not carrying the lead pipes just look like one of the enemies from River City Ransom. Maybe its just me. On level 2, it is more just shoot at a truck and avoid boxes. The 4th level doesn't even have enemies except for the T-1000 at the very end. The story is very undeveloped. Overall, it just is not a very engaging game.

Difficulty- 3/10
This game has almost no difficulty whatsoever. Now, it might be a little work to figure out the strategy of punching down the enemies in level one without getting hit back. But once you figure that out, it is completely smooth sailing from there. As long as you know how to shoot left and right at the OCCASIONAL enemy in level 3 and 4, you are good. As I said, the strategy will never change.  You kind of have an insane amount of health considering the enemies don't shoot much and they go down with one shot. The only difficult part of this game is level 2, and that is because getting hit by the truck or running into a wall without shooting the gate open is instant death. The level goes pretty dang fast, so that adds onto it. But when you master that level, nothing can stop you. The T-1000 is an absolute joke. Once you figure our he falls back wards every time you jump on him, it takes all of 5 seconds to push him in that molten steel to finish the game (oh come on. Can you really consider that a spoiler?).

Addictiveness- 2/10
If there is one thing I can say about the gameplay, it would be repetitive. seriously, it just is the same thing over and over. Now, the first level is a little different in that you have no gun. But that level alone is repetitive. This first level is kind of a side scrolling beat em' up. But the repetitive part is that there are really only 2 types of fight-able enemies, and there is virtually no difference in how you beat them. After that, almost all the levels are walk around and shoot (and you can only shoot left and right). All the enemies are found the same way. I would at least like some differentiation. But no. The only different level is level 2, which is on a motorcycle. But even that one is just too short to really matter much. On top of it all, the game is super easy once you figure it out, and you can beat the whole game in less than 10 minutes (4 levels in all). Not one I can really play over and over again.

Overall- 3.1/10
To sum this up, this game is not really worth your time. I mean, if you want to just have a nostalgic experience and don't have the movie at hand, go ahead and play it. It will only take a few minutes. I guess the shortness of the game makes it maybe worth playing through once. but don't expect much. What you can expect is toddler level difficulty, scrunched up looking sprites, not even mediocre sound and music, weird background colors, an undeveloped story line, super repetitive game play, a pathetic boss fight, and a level with absolutely no enemies except for said pathetic boss. I mean, the game isn't 100% crap by any means. It just comes fairly close to a waste of time. This is probably the lowest rating a game has gotten from me in a review so far, and it is for good reason. This game basically reaches out its hand and says "Come with me if you want to be bored".

rcarter2 : Great review. I really don't have much to say but this review was well written. Keep up the good work. Have a nice day.

supercool22 : Not trying to be offensive, but this review has literally been up for not even a full minute and a half before you posted that. I don't think you actually could have possibly read the whole thing unless you have near record breaking reading speed and comprehension.

rcarter2 : I kind of skipped some lines because its was long. But its a great review.

Hah hah, i remember that game and you're absolutely right. I don't think I finished it. I can't remember, which right there probably tells you something!

Great review, well written and amusing. Good job!

Great Review. Your points were well detailed and justified! Enjoyed reading it.

supercool22 : Yeah we all know I hold that record.

Great review, man. At first I saw the title and I thought it was an " I'm leaving vizzed" thread. You had me worried!

Sephirothxxxxxxxxxxx : Haha. I didn't even think about the title making people think that

rcarter2 : Lol I wouldn't have expected it, either.