“No Fate” and sadly no future
Terminator Resistance is a game that will get some fans filled with rage, but still be a hoot for others to play. If you expect a game like the first 2 movies, this is not a game for you. However, if you do like Terminator: Salvation will this game give you more of that.
Once upon a time… In an alternative timeline?
Not to be confusing. This game is a “sequel” to at least the two first movies. However, it is hard to keep track when time travel is a thing in the Terminator lore.
Spoiler free – first 5 minutes
You are Private Rivers. A Resistance soldier from the Pacific Division. You are the only survivor from that Division. Your task is to find and report back Commander Baron, since the information is crucial for winning the war against the machines. As you are a private, things do not go so smooth right from the start. There is a lot of the world that you haven’t seen yet, and the unknown is therefore your biggest enemy.
Killing a Terminator? Oh…. A-an army them
As said the game keeps well track of the first two movies then it comes to story. That does NOT mean it does so when it comes to gameplay. Again, look at Terminator: Salvation. There will be a lot of terminators. Will they be easy to kill or bullet sponges? It depends.
First of all: TERMINATORS DIE SOMEWHAT EASILY and you know what? It is lore friendly. They have made them more killable, but if they didn’t many would have been angry about them being bullet sponges that did too much damage. More like boss rush, which would make the game much worse.
You get access to normal weapons from the start like 1911, M16A4 and a Remington shotgun. These weapons are used to kill scout bots and sentries, which is the starting enemies. Terminators does not show up until about an hour and a half in, depending on difficulty. When you first need to fight them, you are told that normal weapons will do absolute no damage. You are given Rifle from a Terminator. These weapons can kill a Terminator, but takes a good chunk of ammo. These can be upgraded to do more damage, bigger magazine, greater stability, and higher fire rate.
Later on you get access to a variety of Terminator issued weapons. Which I choose to ignore, since the Damage per second where nowhere near the damage of the free rifle you get. However, you we get second gen Terminator weapons (plasma weapons). Here I chose to buy all of them, since damage was almost doubled and with upgrades, they ended up being kind of overpowered.
At the end game, the Plasma railgun sniper, could one-shot the strongest humanoid terminator.
It is only in the end of the game I feel that combat was a bit too easy, but I am sure that difficulty will make the game a bit better. (I played on normal, which was way too easy)
The game has more to offer than just shooting. We also have a bit of looting. It has some RPG elements, such as crafting and skills.
NOTICE – IGN REVIEW LIES ABOUT THE GAME
Yeah, so the IGN review on this game bashes it for no reason and even lies! Most of the unlockable skills is great and you miss out on a lot of content if you do not unlock them. Some make you more resilient, other make you do more damage. You can craft better things for less resources or even disarm and steal explosives. The 2 most normal skills will lock a lot of loot and experience points if you do not invest in them is. Those are hacking and lockpicking.
Lockpicking is important because you can unlock a ton of doors and crates, which contain resources, weapons, and ammo.
Hacking is a little minigame. A simplistic version of Frogger. With it you get access to loot too, but without hacking you can’t get access to some Skynet camps, which gives you a good amount of experience points if you destroy them. Most have an alternative way in, but not all of them.
The only skill which is not that important on lower difficulties is the explosive skill. You can get a large amount of laserwire explosives with this skill, but those can be bought and crafted too. However, I can see how important it could be on Extreme difficulty.
Terminator Wiki
I am a Terminator T-800 unit programmed to terminate humans…. And this is my sister, my brother, my cousin, and my 3rd cousin on my father’s side…
There are a lot of different Terminators and Hunter-Killers. This part is mostly for fans who are afraid that they destroyed the lore and made some Weird Terminators. However, do not worry. It is not as bad as you might think. The have made branches of T-800’s, but they are almost identical.
I will only get around Machines from Terminator 1, 2 and Salvation, since this is the movies, the Developers have been inspired by.
Terminator model we meet in both movies and the game
The game does not have a huge collection of different machines. We have both some terminators and Hunter-Killers. The first is the T-800 and is the standard humanoid Terminator you meet in the game. It is the weakest model, but you will find out why. Then there is the T-850 Which is not exactly in the first 3 movies, but is part of the lore. T-850 is also known as infiltrators. The look human until you shoot them, and their skin gets ripped off. Next is the Hunter-Killers. Both the flying H-K and the H-K Tank is represented.
Terminators that aren’t really part of the lore
There are branches of the T-800, which is not showed in the movies, but is not lore breaking. We have T-808, T-820, T-825 and T-825V and the difference between them is their weapons and health points. All the T-800 models looks the same. There is a Terminator which isn’t showed in the movies in the game. It is the T-47, which look much like the giant Terminator from Salvation, that collect humans for slavery. The difference between them is that T-47 is only half the size and only have two arms.
Terminators we do not meet
There is a couple which we do not see, and I think that is a good thing. The T-1000 is not in here. It is impossible to kill unless you have molten metal, which is impossible to find when there is no society no more. Then there is the T-600, which was already an outdated model in 2018, so it makes sense we do not see it. However, a disabled unit could have been cool to spot. Lastly is the Moto Terminator. This is not an open world game and there is no need or space for them.
Am I a Terminator?
It is not an easy question to answer, is it? No, what I want to say is that you can easily get Terminator like powers in the game, and I wanted to share some tips:
— Only minor spoilers —
First of all DO NOT play on Easy or and perhaps not even normal since you will end up feeling as a T-1000 halfway through the game.
Your choices DO MATTER… Kind of. Your choices give you the opportunity to save your friends or get them killed. However, all choices about Baron doesn’t really matter. Your “reward” for getting on her good side is a “sex” scene. It not so much a sex scene as it is a closeup for her face and some moaning sounds. Side missions gives you experience points, loot, and make your friends like you more. If you avoid them, you will probably be a bit weak for the last mission, you are forced to have the bad ending and the game will become a bit harder, since you have fewer resources.
At last – The review is almost done.
Terminator: Resistance is not revolutionary in any way shape or form. It reminds me so much of The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct which came out in 2013 and it was only a mediocre game at best. I really like the game, but since I completed it in 6 hours my first time on Normal, I can’t say it is worth the price. I only paid about 27€ and while I don’t regret my purchase, I could see it being a no go for some. For many, a game is not something you just buy. Some have a tight budget.
As for Achievement hunters, you will only need one playthrough on any difficulty. There isn’t any for beating it on extreme, for collecting all notes, or for seeing each ending. However, just a tip. Many of the non-story achievements is possible to get in Pasadena the second time you are there.
So, It is a good game? YES! It is a good game and if you are a fan of the Terminator movies you will probably find this game good too. The acting is very 70’s/80’s as well, so it has that cheesy old school feeling too. This 80’s cheesy-ness helps the game feel more like the movies and kind of hides that it is from a small studio with a limited budget. It adds to the charm. Their next game is Robocop and I actually think if they use what they learned from this game that their next title will earn another thumbs up from me. They seem to understand 80’s action.
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