I think I understand the future now.
I’m willing to admit that I am three days late and four dollars short on this one. Every so often I will purposely 100% complete a game so I can come on here and tell you all about how profoundly great or stupid it is. I call those articles the Hundred Percenter Club and if you haven’t noticed those don’t show up all too often.
Terminator: Resistance is one of those games you probably scoffed at and subsequently ignored right up until the reviews started coming out saying it was actually a really good game. Seriously, who expected that a Terminator game with no actual movie tie-in and developed by Teyon would be any good? Seriously, Teyon. The folks that made DSiWare games, and Rambo: The Video Game. I still cry in my sleep sometimes because PS3 Rambo haunts my nightmares.
But when was the last good Terminator game? If you want to look at games that received generally positive reviews you’ll need to go back to Skynet which was made by Bethesda and released in 1996. Alright, only more than twenty three years ago. Enough time to put out four new movies in this increasingly convoluted timeline.
Like everything good in the Terminator world, Resistance follows the plot of Terminator 1 and 2 while ignoring basically everything else in the canon. You play as Jacob Rivers, a soldier in John Connor’s resistance. You’ve been targeted for special termination by Skynet itself and after your crew is wiped out you go to meet up with the Tech-Com unit led by Commander Jessica Baron and help out by playing scout and figuring out where Skynet’s “annihilation line” is headed to and how to help humanity win the war once and for all. You know, kid stuff.
Terminator: Resistance is going to hold a special place in the hearts of gamers who remember the era where budget title meant $30-40 game where you could see the cracks and the developers made up for the lack of funds with a whole lot of heart as opposed to a $1-5 terrible Unity asset flip where Russian “developers” divert attention from their complete lack of talent or interest in creating something of quality by piling on memes and stolen anime girl models. You know who I’m talking about.
Resistance has content on content on content. A trust system where certain NPCs will talk to you, give you missions, and tell you their backstory? Check. A crafting system that encourages exploration in non-linear environments? Absolutely. A mostly functional leveling system that lets you focus on a stealthy or badass commando approach? Definitely. The game might not be perfect, but everything feels like it was crafted with love and attention to detail. As much as the budget would allow at least.
Lockpicking is in the game and it is a clone of Bethesda’s Fallout/Elder Scrolls system. You gain the ability to hack Skynet computers and turrets and the mini-game you play is literally Frogger. Who knew that Frogger would be essential to the war on machines? There’s also a method of upgrading certain weapons that involves matching three chips that alter aspects like damage, magazine size, and fire rate.
Terminator: Resistance forces you to use stealth early on because while your puny human weapons are fine against lower tier robots they are useless against Terminators. Like in the movies. You obtain Skynet plasma weapons pretty early on that give you a fighting chance albeit a very small one. Enemies have weak points that can be exploited but you are a squishy sack of meat that even with upgrades can be cut down in short order by Skynet’s machines.
Resistance’s music was composed by this guy Brad Fiedel who according to IMDB has had unaccredited roles in the Terminator theme songs since the beginning which explains why the game’s soundtrack feels like it oozes Terminator and was created by someone who has decades worth of passion built for the property. Just listen to this absolute masterwork.
Resistance has not one but two really awkward sex scenes that you can unlock by chatting with the only two young female characters enough between missions. That’s how relationships work, right? You just need to chat with a person enough and eventually they’ll have sex with you. I don’t like sex in video games. The scenes are awkward and not at all sexy and I’m not saying I could do any better given the opportunity. It’s a few scenes separated by fade to black of grunting and panting and Jacob awkwardly grabbing handfuls of boob.
Actually it’s probably not far off from how stressed, underfed resistance fighters running on no sleep and the constant fear of death would bone down to momentarily forget that the world has ended around them. I do imagine that the slow guitar Terminator cover the plays overhead can actually be heard by the characters in this scene.
Terminator: Resistance wraps itself up in a nice bow that doesn’t sequel-bait. Assuming we ever get another Terminator title I’m hoping Teyon is given development rights again and maybe supplied with a bigger budget. Even so this is the kind of AA game that should be embraced and dare I say encouraged.
Pick up Terminator: Resistance. Or Skynet wins.
MMO Fallout 