Now that I’ve finally managed to get to see the film it’s time to look at GameLoft’s Terminator Salvation iPhone game.

Terminator Salvation for iPhone captures the spirit of a desperate struggle against that machines pretty well for a hand held game. The textures are pretty good, some of the best I’ve seen on the iPhone and really give the sense of realism to the post-apocalytic scenes which are bolstered by decent cut scenes.

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You take charge of John Connor in a third-person shooter that follows the events of the film it’s based off. Unfortunately you don’t get to be verbally abused by the Welsh actor, but the overall presentation of the game makes the lack of vocal talent a minor point.

The control scheme is pretty good, giving you a few options to play with depending on your preferences. Aiming by dragging across the screen with the aiming reticule slightly above your finger negates the problem of stubby fingers blotting out the action. The cover system used throughout the game can get a little annoying with you simply walk up against the wall to snap to it. When it works it’s pretty effective but there is the odd time when it just won’t snap. If I’m honest I’ve come across this problem in PSP games and the alike where the lack of two thumb sticks makes it difficult to get the right angle, so I think on the iPhone this can be somewhat forgiven. Another annoying aspect can also be the whole switching weapon task, which can only be completed when stationary. This means that there’s no dashing about switching weapons ready to blast the next T-600 to smithereens. However there aren’t that many really fast paced areas of the game that require the kind of instant reactions that you might expect from a console shooter, so it’s not that much of an issue.

The story is also a little scattered, sticking with elements from the film battling your way against SkyNet, blasting the heads off T-600s but the story jumps from place to place and switches characters from JC to Marus Wright with little explanation. This can be a little confusing at times but to be honest the game is only about an hour or so long and that’s not really enough time to develop a co-herent story.

Luckily Terminator Salvation is all about the action and here’s where it delivers in droves. T-600s can put up a fair fight, especially when there’s quite a few of them, but when you get to take on the massive HK-Tank or flee from the Harvester you really get drawn into the action. There is one mini-game where a little bit of hacking is required, takes the form of a marble maze a little like those ‘hacking’ mini-games found in Ratchet & Clank if anyone’s familiar with the series. The down-side to hacking is that it forces you to play with the iPhone parallel to the ground without the option to calibrate the flat level. The mini-game doesn’t last long so it’s not that much of an issue and provides a nice little break from blasting should you want it.

Overall Terminator Salvation is definitely an impressive game to have on your iPhone or iPod touch, but like the film may be a little lacking in longevity. After your first play-through, which as I’ve said before can be done in about an hour, you get to play as a Terminator with a harder difficulty. There’s also additional artwork pickups available in the form of microchips picked up from dead SkyNet machines, but overall there isn’t much replay value. A multiplayer would have been awesome, or some more levels might have bulked the game out a bit but for the current price of $4.99 (£2.99) the impressive graphics and decent action carry the game through.

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Tags: Gameloft, iPhone and Apps, iphone games, terminator