Terminator 2 - Arcade Game

Does exactly what is says on the tin.

There's hard light gun games and then there's HARD light gun games (Not hard-light, this isn't a Red Dwarf invention), in that the games flood you with too many obstacles at once or the truly hard games where there's no chance in hell you'll survive the level without your lovely friend, another-credit. Sadly, Terminator 2 is one of those 'impossible' light gun games.

I don't remember this be so well armed in the films...

Following the story and idea behind Terminator 2, thankfully we get to do more than just Robert Patrick in the face, we get to travel around the future and shoot other robots and giant killing machines to our cybernetic heart's content. Yep, it's another "Let's set it in the future" Terminator Game because the usual time period is dull as dishwater for the most part. So what we'll get for the first few levels are some post-apocalyptic levels which are surprisingly detailed in their bleakness with the healthy mixture of over-the-top difficult bosses and special events that require being a pure master of the game to qualify for them, which in this case is the "good" ending.

That's it? Hardly an award-winning defence system.

Two players, two meaty machineguns and rocket/shotgun buttons which translate to doing a large amount of damage to the surrounding point of impact while you steadily scroll through levels and shoot a mix of Terminators, HKs, Goliath Tanks (Forming several bosses), Rocket cars, SWAT guys, scientists, helicopters and trucks before a duel to the death with the T-1000 itself.

Variety, or just different shaped enemies that still onslaught you with attacks.

While on the surface this all sounds well and good but you can expect to lose a credit to the first fight or even before getting to the first main fight in the first level of Terminator 2. Terminators will pop up in front of you at nary a seconds notice and shoot you in the face for a huge drain on your damage while all its mates are doing the same at the same time, oddly the one in front takes the most amount of damage while the ones in the background drop like flies to a few shots. The bosses in Terminator 2, tend to be bullet sponges of epic proportions and need to be fully dismantled before they'll actually fall to the wayside and usually give no indication that the boss is destructible in a specific order until a part of piece actually falls and then you realise you should have been shooting THAT part for far less time than you've actually wasted on everything else. Hardly fair and a tactic that Midway uses in a few light gun games (Revolution X... I'm gunning for you here).

One of the most annoying parts of the game, keeping the truck alive.

You're not entirely alone, you get a healthy load of rockets or shotgun rounds to blow stuff up. You also get refills on your gun to stop it over heating, or just an instant fresh pack of ammo and other items ranging from Smart Bombs, to bonus items, to health (VERY RARE), to Plasma/Miniguns that give more damage instantly, shields, points and more. But it all pales into insignificance when you consider that certain levels are designed to be purely unfair. In particular the vehicle escort missions, firstly with old John Connor in a pick-up truck being chased by Flying HKs, and later young John Connor in a van being chased by a chopper and truck in that order.

Whoo! Bad Arnie!

The trouble with Terminator 2 is that unless you're very quick or know it's coming, a single HK can take out the pick-up truck in a single strafing run and kill you outright before you realise you're dead. While the chopper in the later level can nip in and destroy the truck (and itself admittedly but you're trying to protect the truck) even despite being shot repeatedly. The last stint of the game is a simple you vs. T-1000 trying to kill it before it reaches John Connor and then being rewarded with a nice video (poorly rendered resolution) of the T-1000 dying just like when you saw the film.

It's back once again.

The audio for Terminator 2 is an interesting mix of some kind of background music that nobody really can hear but the key point to notice is the pseudo Arnie sound effects and speech samples (some him, some of someone that sounds like him) and a large amount of explosions. Otherwise it's not worth really writing about and graphically everything looks like some crappy attempt at rotoscoping someone into the game with a bit of a Terminator feel to them, especially the SWAT team and T-800's (they look like human Arnies).

By this point, you'll wonder where all the money went.

It's not worth the time and cash to play this, but perhaps put in a single credit and see how quickly it disappears into the ether, you may think it quick but you'll realise that was nothing compared to how badly the game can punish you, avoid.