Terminator 2: Judgment Day for the Super Nintendo (SNES)

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Introduction

Today we take a scathing look at yet another retro release by the tyrannical giants of poor video game development, LJN. This time around we grudgingly study the 1993 release of Terminator 2: Judgement Day for the Super Nintendo, a game that we had desperately hoped would hold the same aspect of intrigue, suspense and drama as it's movie-based namesake.

As can be imagined, we were desperately disappointed, underwhelmed and deflated during our time with Terminator 2 for the SNES, something we believe to be commended, especially considering you're taking control of a futuristic killing machine with a near indestructible chassis and the ability to kill absolutely anything that breathes in nearly any way imaginable.

How could it possibly be that this incredible scenario was squandered into an experience as enjoyable as chewing on hornets, you ask? Well, let us regale you...

Fighting For A Better Future

We'll start our analysis from the top with the main menu. The eerie skeletal face of a T-800 staring deeply into your eyes while the apparent world burns around it allows for quite a dramatic and promising start to this game, though we can't help but feel that the creative direction of going for a 'funk cover' of Terminator 2's theme track for the main menu music feels, at best, an odd decision... 

We will add that the game itself follows the plot and sequence of the movie very closely, which is something we were very happy to discover and therefore, in typical fashion, we are teleported from the future into the parking lot of a bar, somewhere in the U.S.A, stark bollock naked and expected to seek out the saviour of mankind and his mother in an attempt to stop a future that propels humanity close to the brink of extinction by way of murderous robotic skeletons...

Getting back to the game itself, we were deeply impressed with how they animated the opening sequence in every possible manner to avoid our eyes from glancing at Arnie's Terminator...

The gameplay revolves around a common sequential pattern. Enter location, kill people who either are, or are not, apparently hostile, find artifacts of the future, progress to the end of the stage, drive to a new location, all while hopefully picking up the boy-king of the future apocalypse and breaking his psychotic mother out of a mental institution. Pretty straightforward stuff really when you boil it down and all allowing for a potentially fun little side-scroller!

It cannot be said that real effort was made to make this game a fun and enjoyable one, sadly. The controls are muddy and lack fluidity, the levels, although interlinked and not without depth, are torturously cut and paste and without real soul. The sound design is challenging at best, with shotgun blasts sounding like a muffled fart and the level music, more often than not, sounding more suitable for a 90's montage of a teenager learning to skateboard rather than the deathly onslaught of a futuristic killing machine.

The top-down driving sections of the game, that are used to link levels as a sort of interactive glue, are akin to a bad first time experience of Class-A drugs. A frantic aura seems to propel life into a time-warp of frenzied dilation of sensory chaos where everything around you moves in slow motion while yourself, meanwhile, is capable of great feats of speed and maneuverability. Eventually, after what feels an eternity, this frenzied chaos ends, suddenly and abruptly. You turn to look at the clock and suddenly it dawns on you that you just experienced the most intense, and confusing, 42 seconds of your life. 

Minor niggles, on top of these considerably larger gripes, are that the police seem about as effective as a house made of jelly and, perhaps more noticeably, we can't help but think that rather than playing as the T-800 modelled on Arnold Schwarzenegger, we appear to be more akin to Hank Hill strolling about in a leather jacket recklessly murdering those who confront us. 

Realising There Isn't A Better Future

Considering the premise of Terminator 2 and the shear weight of potential at LJN's fingertips in terms of source material it seems a truly monumental achievement to be able to create something so bland! Terminator 2 for the SNES is the gaming equivalent of being handed, truffles, gold leaf and prime cuts of venison and ending up with a ham sandwich!

In short, the game is hollow and underwhelming... Which, by this point, is one of the greatest compliments we've ever paid a game developed by LJN.

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Tom - Cash Grab