Terminator: Resistance review

Better than Rambo, but not good enough for Terminator ...

In 1984, James Cameron released the first film about the war of the future, in which machines, seeing a threat in man, began genocide. Since then, several more films have been released at certain intervals, and this year the franchise was restarted: Terminator: Dark Fate became the final part of the trilogy, continuing the story of the original and sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

At the same time, games about the rise of artificial intelligence, time travel and John Connor are few. And this is not surprising: after all, the peak of the popularity of the "Terminator" falls on the 80-90s. the last century, and at that time the gaming industry was not so developed. The shooter from the little-known Polish studio Teyon is timed to coincide with the release of the new part of the film and tells about the events that preceded the first part of the trilogy. We played Terminator: Resistance and prepared a detailed review on it.

As canon, Terminator: Resistance takes place in the distant future, when humans are attacked by robots controlled by an out-of-control AI. At the beginning of the game, our hero, one of the survivors, is running away from the T-800 squad - the best terminators in the Skynet army. And even the weapons found after some time will not help in the fight against them.

Soon we find a group of survivors, with whom we will go a long way almost to the very end. It is worth noting that the game is built on linear levels in which the user has to solve several tasks: kill the required number of enemies, find a key item and stuff like that. All locations change through the "shelter", in which, by the way, you can craft yourself ammo, explosives and other ammunition. Fortunately, everything is fine with the resources in the game: loot is guaranteed to drop out of each destroyed piece of iron. But creating a lot of useful things will not work: apart from the above ammunition and master keys, there is nothing more to craft in the game.

As noted above, this is a "corridor" shooter with little freedom of action: each time we get to a semi-open location, where we need to complete several main and side missions. At such levels, you can search for items for sale, resources, notes and locked rooms with valuable loot, but still the game will not allow you to inspect the vast majority of buildings and structures. Studying the sights, you involuntarily get the impression that you are an ordinary actor, and everything around is a huge model of a ruined city with various decorations. As you progress through the story, you will have to explore the same levels several times. In this case, previously open passages are closed, but other paths are opened. At the same time, the location itself remains painfully familiar.

In addition to constant shootings, you can find and read notes (and the game does not have Russian localization), break open locked doors and terminals. This is where the list of interesting mechanics ends. Since we have touched on the topic of localization, let's start with the fact that the Russian language is completely absent in the game. Even in subtitles. Thus, the Teyon studio simply "scored" on the Russian-speaking fans of the series. As for lock picking, the gameplay allows the player to pick doors, thereby opening up access to rooms that can contain good loot. But thisthe mechanics cannot be called original: the exact same system is used in games from Bethesda (in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series).

The visual component could be called atmospheric, since the entire gameplay (with the exception of a few missions) you will see on your screen gray and dark blue tones that fit well with the post-apocalyptic theme. Still, the graphics part is far from perfect: the game is based on the latest version of Unreal Engine, but at the same time, even at the maximum graphics settings, the picture outside the cut-scenes can hardly be called suitable. Unnatural facial animation and blurry textures are just minor issues that are present in the visual component. But in videos on the engine, things are much better: good cinematic effects and good sound allow you to feel the atmosphere of what is happening.

Attention! The next section is full of spoilers!

The game found a place for several erotic scenes. On these scenex, and everything that is connected with them in the plot, we would like to stop. The fact is that the ending in Resistance is multipolar: it directly depends on your choice in several key tasks. But in the game there is not the slightest hint of this, because in order to get a good ending, you need to do not good, but evil deeds. It's kind of illogical, isn't it?

Well, since we have touched on the love affairs of the protagonist, here is one example: almost at the very end, the player is faced with a choice - to persuade the girl he likes to stay, or to say that she must leave the “shelter”. Although there were no moments in the plot that would make you empathize even with the main character, we still chose the first option. This answer opened up access to the bed scene, which we also did not refuse. As a result, this led to the fact that in the penultimate chapter, Skynet captured the "shelter", and Jenny (that was the name of the young lady we asked to stay) with her brother were shot. I wonder on what principle we were supposed to understand that this would happen? And exactly the same story happens with all the heroes that you can save or doom to death.

At first, Terminator: Resistance looks good, but towards the middle of the passage you begin to realize that the game completely lacks the atmosphere of a post-apocalypse. Available game mechanics can hardly be called interesting: there are too few of them and they are repeated at each subsequent level. You will not see any innovation, except for the successive guns, until the very end.

Previously, Teyon worked on a game adaptation of the popular film franchise Rambo (Rambo: The Video Game). And if you compare Resistance with that game, then the developers have taken a huge step forward. However, this was not enough. As a result, the poor development of the plot, gameplay and dull atmosphere led to low ratings from critics and the gaming community. However, the Poles should not give up: they need to carefully analyze their mistakes and move forward.