We leave the cinema and go straight to the new game based on the saga, a ‘guilty pleasure’ in every rule.
"… The Terminator would never stop, never leave him and never hurt him …", Sarah Connor
Absolute icon of science fiction, Terminator is one of the sagas with more prestige and tradition in the genre, and whose influence on the Sci Fi works of these last 35 years is palpable and undeniable. But, unfortunately, the greatness of the IP remains anchored to its first two deliveries, because all its sequels, although with good elements, have not been at the height of the torrent that is T-2: Judgment Day, absolute zenith of the genre and unsurpassed film work. The final 10 minutes of Terminator 3 or the Salvation prologue did seem to be borne by James Cameron, but it is at the same time curious and sad that, with all the elements on the board, nobody after T-2 has managed to follow the steps of the series instead of redoing its scheme.
And although the recently released Dark Fate has great notes (the female triplet, the return of a very beautiful twilight Sarah Connor and wise) and can be considered the best of the post-Terminator 2 sequels, it is not the work we were still waiting for. The same goes for videogames in the series, except for those that came out in the 90s taking advantage of the phenomenon that was T-2 (the Bethesda Terminators like Future Shock or Skynet, the Mega CD Terminator), the games released since Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines have been mediocre, improvable or directly bad titles – except perhaps Redemption and its direct arcade style, beautifully dubbed by Constantino Romero.
This very busy month of November there is a new installment, a Terminator: Resistance not based on Dark Fate or the other movies, but on the universe. Is it worth it, or should it be marked for extermination? Well, it depends on how fan you are from the franchise.
Judgment Day +30 years
First things first, and it should be noted that Resistance is signed by Teyon and Reef Entertainment, which in 2014 wanted to take advantage of another franchise such as Rambo and deliver something fun like a 3D shooter at times on rails. And what they got was, plain and simple, a garbage like a cathedral, delirious, very bad and insurmountable. But everyone can be wrong. That is why it is noted that in the study they tried that with this Terminator the thing was not repeated. And, frankly, although you already see the note, it is obligatory to say that it shows that you have felt like it, but perhaps too many given the budget they have handled.
Set in the first decades post-Judgment Day, in Terminator: Resistance you play a Resistance soldier against machines. It is true that following the chronology of the Terminator franchise can be chaotic, but in this case you play in the era of the leader John Connor of the Resistance. Your mission is to find one of the factions of the Resistance and deliver a message, but along the way you are marked for extermination by Skynet and also end up getting intimate with a group of survivors who just want to live.
Surprisingly, here there is more chicha than we expected. Because Terminator Resistance – whose tone has reminded us of Insomniac's Resistance 3, by the way – has a script worked with a story that, shortly after you feel like it – or be a fan of the saga -, it will hook you for the duration . The Campaign mode, the only one that brings on the other hand, lasts between 8-10 hours, depends on your game speed, and is divided into a series of main missions on more or less open maps and a series of sidequests to complete or not .
Controlled freedom
The interesting thing is that we do not talk about a mission that is chained after a cinematic and point, but we have a central hub in the form of a refuge and a series of characters with whom we are establishing ties. Well-worked characters with a complex background – brutal in the case of the doctor who worked in the Skynet concentration camps – and who will be the ones in charge of the sidequests if we choose the right dialogue option -spoiler: neither is it precisely difficult to get it right . Of course we can refuse and go to the core, but the game encourages you to develop relationships with them.
As for the gameplay, each level is presented as a map to discover at every step full of things to investigate. Of course the development is quite linear, but framed within a scenario that allows you to explore it a bit if you do not want to go directly to the objectives that the map tells you. Therefore, a level can last for the best 45 minutes if you go to bag, or it may be almost 2 hours complying with the accepted sidequests. The objectives are simple and even topical – look for such a character / investigate such a site / sabotage such an installation – although sometimes interrupted by more scripted and infinitely fun moments.
"My mission is to protect you"
With a Gunplay as the central axis, here we have a Call of Duty base gameplay in terms of direct action, change of weapons and coverages. The problem is that the low budget is noted in this section, and the gunplay is simply compliant, decent, approved, something that falls short of the intentions of the game and in this current era of colossus FPS. Fortunately, Teyon looks directly at one of the plot lines of the film Terminator Salvation – that of the young Kyle Reese in a 'scavenger' plan – and proposes a sort of alternative 'stealth' approach to avoid some confrontations, or not to go body to body.
To do this, Resistance implements a crafting mechanic that has us constantly looking for scrap pieces, Skynet chips, fabrics and others, of the ground or the defeated enemies, which through some points of the map allows us to use the loot to build things like medicine cabinets, ammunition, explosives, boost plasma weapons or make picks. And if there is anything left we can trade with the survivors and exchange bullets for chips.
In addition, we have ultravision glasses: called Detective Mode, basically they are X-rays that allow you to see through the walls to see if there are enemies. But to avoid abuse, during this mode you move slower. Combining all this, the gameplay allows you a different approach to the objectives. And health requires first aid kits to cure it.
Marked for Extermination
The combat tries to have variety, and we can manufacture sound decoys to boost stealth or create ambushes, items that will slow down time, temporary resistance or speed enhancers, laser traps, adhesive bombs or the most flip-flop of all, the Finishing Knife, which It allows us to attack a Terminator in the back and load it with a pit – but it requires a lot of technological elements. We have a minigame to open doors with picks that is challenging, because if you don't get it right you load the hook – and you will make many, we assure you; We can hack enemy turrets. Even the character is earning points to develop which RPG and learning new skills to improve resistance, have better aim, load more things or force locks more effectively.
Therefore, we have a gameplay that seeks to be more complex than a Call of Duty and looks more at the Far Cry saga, which is much appreciated. The bad thing is that at the moment of truth, everything is implemented in a very basic way. You have to put it in a high difficulty so that there is challenge, there are several places to save the game manually next to an automatic checkpoint system, many ammunition tables and first aid kits, and the Terminators are generally worse off than the bad ones of the Team- A or the Stormtroopers – although smaller enemies like spiders can fuck you well if you neglect -, and it seems that (almost) there are always elements of the stage that conveniently make BOOM! when we run into enemies like tank spiders.
Therefore, unless you forget to heal yourself, if you already have a few SPF in your body it will not cost you to make your way through Resistance. If even the T-101 fall fast and are not the frightening enemies that Reese fought in the flashbacks of Terminator 1 and 2. Although yes, the game shows that the studio did its part to do more than a barrack of futuristic shots. There are desires and intentions here, but not supported by the necessary budget. And there are moments achieved, the truth, because the feeling of being in the middle of the Terminator universe is full, and even bets on moments of suspense / terror in some sections.
"Say it at hand"
Graphically, Resistance is not as terrible as Rambo the Videogame, but clearly it is mediocre at least. There are some models of characters that stand out, but as soon as they start talking they denote stunted animations. Textures are poor, and performance sometimes suffers. You can choose if you want the frame rate to be fixed at 30 or leave it free, but even blocking it sometimes yields the flow. A pity, because the artistic direction is great, and the sensation when walking through a large-scale destroyed city, or the pure Skynet moments of night ambushes lit with fire, plasma shots and the spotlights of the Terminator ships are great.
The thing is better: the English dubbing voices are good – although sometimes not very dramatic given the terrible stories they tell – the sound effects thunder in the shootings, and the priceless feeling of hearing the famous notes of the TA saga SO SO TATAN when we face a T-101 shoot the fanservice. The BSO mixes Brad Fiedel songs with its own score, and it is a success to have included cuts like the T-2 Desert Suite for the most human parts of the game.
CONCLUSION
With many good, interesting and ambitious things put on the development table, Teyon and Reef have tried not only to improve after Rambo, but to do something above the usual average. They wanted to take advantage of the Terminator license by proposing a game that makes you feel like a member of the Resistance in the post-Judgment Day universe. And he does it, hell, he does it. Because Resistance has a good atmosphere, interesting characters and engaging history. And look for a gameplay full of options that is not just PIM PAM PUM. But in the end, everything is unbalanced by trying to raise a Triple A SPF with an indie budget. The graphics suffer, the gunplay suffers and everything stays in good intentions, good times and a title that is another playable Terminator with low note, although with very Terminator things and fanservice, which is already appreciated
THE BEST
- The setting and the characters, certainly worked
- The development of sidequests, through conversations
- The use of Brad Fiedel's BSO
- The Terminator pure moments of tension and spectacle, and the commitment to infiltration at times
- The clear effort of the team to do something complex in the saga …
WORST
- … But impossible to achieve with the low budget
- The gameplay tries to cover a lot, but barely meets
- Loading times if you die and try to load a game or start at a checkpoint
- Graphically it has performance problems and areas with poor quality textures
Improvable
It may have acceptable elements and entertain, but in general it is an experience that will leave no trace.
