The Terminator (1992)

I played the Sega CD version of this game. That version is different from all the other versions and is essentially its own game.

This game is awesome! You play as Kyle Reese and shoot down tons of terminators, machines, and random punks from the street. It follows the plot of the movie pretty well and includes (horrible) FMV cutscenes that are essentially shots from the movie. You need to go back in time and save Sarah Conner from the terminator

The gameplay is really tight and the action is fast paced. There are often a ton of enemies on the screen at once, but it is fun and not too challenging to take them all out. The game is actually pretty easy for the time period and is very generous with checkpoints and health packs even into the final stretch. I've always thought that games from the 8/16 bit era were a little unforgiving so this is nice.

Combat consists of shooting your gun, lobbing grenades, and dodging bullets. The main gun starts off being manual fire and is bad, but you get upgrades throughout the game and it becomes automatic and really strong. The grenades are great and you should definitely use them liberally because they mow through some of the more difficult enemies here.

If I had to have one major complaint it would be that the enemies felt slightly unfair at times. For the first half of the game, most enemies can be avoided by ducking or positioning yourself smartly, but enemies in the late game shoot bullets sporadically and it is very difficult to dodge sometimes.

The bosses in this game are cool, but they do not last very long. You will often be able to take down the bosses with a few well placed grenades. I do wish that the bosses lasted longer... but it wasn't that much of a problem.

THE SOUNDTRACK IN THIS GAME IS SO GOOD! Each level is literally banger after banger and it really gets use out of the disk based audio quality! I think they did a great job with the soundtrack!

Overall, this game is a must own for the Sega CD. It is an awesome run and gun shooter that won't kill you more than it really needs to. The soundtrack is fantastic and the gameplay is really good. This is about as high as I could give a 4 star game. It only misses out on being 5 stars because it includes some TERRIBLE FMV cutscenes, can be slightly unfair at times, and there is too much platforming in the last level or two. It is an expensive title... but you really need it if you are a Sega CD gamer.

Beat. I was impressed with the 1st level; simple run and gun shooting with a little bit of platforming. It was fun, but the character was too close to the edge of the screen, making it that much more difficult to spot enemies with enough time to react. Seriously, why is there more screen behind than in front?! I took it slow and steady. I did not like how you could not shoot downward or straight up, nor how shooting diagonally up uses the movement buttons, meaning it is impossible to shoot up without also moving. I used grenades to kill some of the suicide bombers, and saved rockets for the boss. The truck gunner sequence was good, making use of vertical aiming. 2nd level was not as much fun because it seriously ramped up the platforming with tricky jumps and instant death falls. I died a lot and had to save state scum, especially with those tiny platforms and hitting his head. I did not like how the helicopters prevent you from moving, making them impossible to defeat without taking damage, and there were way too many of them. Unless it was the same 1 coming back over and over, but the flames and explosions imply each was shot down. The 3rd level was a mess and I used up all of my lives before figuring out what to do. It was easy once I figured it out but still annoying how the game just throws completely different gameplay at you out of the blue. I got stuck at the 4th level because I had no ammo. How the hell are you supposed to get past this by only punching and jumping past enemies? Why is there no ammo and why can't I get ammo from enemies? Had to check a walkthrough to find out you can open doors to find ammo. Game never told me that, any why is ammo suddenly a thing this level? Was not hard at all with bullets. The 5th level was another car chase, and was trivial since I knew what to do. I fail to see the point of including it in the game. Final level took a couple tries and was anticlimactic due to using a pipe instead of guns.

If the entire game was like the 1st level it would have been a better game. Instead it seems like the developers were restricted by following the plot of the movie.

6.7/10

I've only played the Sega-CD version. After playing Cool Spot I put it on my playlist after reading the wikipedia about the games that Tommy Tallarico worked on. I played this specifically to hear some redbook audio goodness.

At a glance, all ports of this game are similar and are platform shooters with the NES looking the most different. This is a short game that isn't too difficult. although it does get harder and the final level has this annoying jumping puzzle. I don't have pictures of this game because I was actually playing it at a friends house. But it has really good looking smooth animated sprites and strong color contrast, particularly on the first level (which i think is probably the highlight of the whole game) Maybe its just because I knew in advance but I found that the style of the whole thing does remind me of Journey to Silius (a sunsoft platform shooter that was slated to be Terminator but they didn't want to pay licensing fees or something)

One nice thing (it's kinda cheesy) is levels don't have particular themes to them (that i can recall) so you can just press start and listen to the soundtrack play. It will progress throughout each of the tracks and you got a nice frozen image with the game paused. That makes this a rather good game to play with a drink in your hand (and that's how i did it) :P

It's a very good rock/electronica soundtrack that appeals to my Klepacki sensibilities but its nothing amazing. It works but geez is it strange to have a melodic and chill soundtrack for a game like this.

While the game itself is no big deal either, the smooth animation and audio of Sega-CD does manage to make the platform shooting based on movie game feel like something of a Cadillac, but in the end its just another short ride, really.

The game has these very grainy and awful FMV cutscenes in between stages lifted from the movie. The volume is low and they look bad but it does enhance the game by telling story in a way that is more engaging than mere text.

All levels and even some gameplay aspects are inspired by the movie, such as upgrading your weapon (for more dakka) and shooting at the terminator when he chases you at certain parts (such as the police station) and 'getting away' (many other games in this franchise have used that concept as well)

Typically, games based on movies are crap I find, but this one is quite true to the movie and makes many references and nods and doesn't do anything wrong. So go ahead and check it if you're a fan of Terminator, Tallarico, or the MEGA-CD!