Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Super NES, 1993)

 

It's August 29th, you know what that means.

AVGN said that "any sane human being would shut this game off after the first stage"

Welp.

LJ Fuckin' N! Prepare your loins!

Speaking of, the game starts with the T-800 walking around in the nood while strategically-placed objects block his bits.

This comical intro is easily the most entertaining thing about this game. ...then the game starts.

This is a weird game, where you're given missions to do in every stage and no real clue how to carry them out. Nothing's straightforward in this one.

The most annoying mission parameter, which shows up in almost every level, is to find "future objects". They're these odd boxes hidden around the levels. What are they? Don't know. What do they do? Don't know.

The actual gameplay...starts with you having to punch it out with a bunch of guys armed with guns. Of course! They can never start you with a gun in these T2 games can they?

Also, you'd think there'd be some music from the movie. Nope, it's all this generic "rock music" that drones on and on and never changes from level to level. It's so dull and lifeless that I'm not even pulling it up to link it.

You've got one life meter, one life, and no continues. Yeah it's one of those games. You gotta get through the whole thing on one life. Just this alone completely ruins the game. At least you have a ton of health, unlike the other Terminator games, and get healed every so often.

Another thing this game is infamous for is the T-800's jumping, which is this short stiff hop. This is your quickest way to get around so you're basically hopping around for the entire game, looking like some sort of marionette.

Here's one of those "Future Objects" that I'm supposed to collect. These mostly only exist to force you to run back and forth over the whole level and kill time.

Oh yeah, BTW, the enemies respawn. Constantly. If you're going to be running on such limited health, the least they could do is not have the enemies CONSTANTLY RESPAWN. Like they're back on screen within 5 seconds of you taking them out. Factor in that they're also damage-sponges for your dinky punches, and this is one of the worst first levels ever. Unfortunately it's all most players are gonna see.

This is what they gave kids who liked T2 in 1993. A punching simulator in a biker bar parking lot. This is downright shameful.

Inside the bar, Arnold PUNCHES OUT THE WAITRESS. I thought she'd just blend in with the background and not be attackable, but nope, punches land on her and she goes flying. Why'd they even include that?

Speaking of inexplicable inclusions, we now arrive at... The Overworld. My God. So between levels you get to drive around this maze of streets, trying to avoid crazy drivers that are zipping all over the place trying to ram you. The controls for this part are abysmal, and more like tank controls than anything that would actually make sense. The game would be a lot better off without forcing these road trips on you between levels.

Here's a map of the maze, to see how ridiculous it is:

You have to do the levels in order, so good luck finding your way to the right level to do next without the help of maps. I mean, damn. Look at this catastrophe.

The next level is...John Connor's house, where you face the T-1000 for the first time. Seen here shooting Arnold in the butt-tocks.

More road trip, as our hero looks for The Galleria while dodging drunk drivers.

The Galleria involves capping lots of security guards in the knees. While the NES T2 was a short five levels, this one really gets mileage out of every part of the movie. Even parts that didn't exist.

Next up is Pescadero Hospital, where you get Sarah and John as party members and can tell them to follow or stay put. The T-1000 is also in pursuit during all of this and functions as the main antagonist. You can blast him but it'll just stall him for a few seconds.

You know, these driving sections are REALLY obnoxious, and ruin the game. It'd be bad enough with only the side-scrolling levels, but this is worse. So much worse.

The Salceda Ranch is an actual level, where you fight off the T-1000. This didn't happen in the movie. Couple notes about this:

A) They sure are using all parts of the T2, like the Native Americans with the buffalo.

B) This might actually be a reference to the screenplay, where in one of the cut scenes the T-1000 does indeed find his way to the Salceda Ranch. However there's no encounter with our heroes there, he just presumably wipes out the Mexican family that lives there. So that sucks, no wonder they left that out of the movie. Same goes for the T-1000 taking out John Connor's dog.

Miles Dyson's house is an entire level, with more of the lame Future Objects to find. But wait! When you find Miles, you just flat-out gun him down! That isn't how the movie went! What the hell, game?

"Killing Dyson may prevent the war" says the terminator while he shoots cops all over Cyberdyne.

Yeah, they really went off the reservation with this game.

The game's coolest moment follows, as we see Cyberdyne blowing up. I mean this is legitimately the only pleasantly surprising visual effect in this entire game. The bar is on the floor.

The final level actually has good music, as it switches over to a remix of the main theme of the movie. Why'd they wait until now to do this? 95% of the game has the same generic rock theme, while they had this track in their pocket?

This level has roaming T-800s. They weren't in the movie! The minigun makes short work of them. Who needs plasma beams?

Finally, you push the T-1000 off a platform to his doom. But wait! Surprisingly, this isn't the end.

There's one more final boss fight...with the T-1000 as it thrashes about and fires lava blasts everywhere. Gotta say, they got creative with this last level and it's actually kind of a decent level. If only the rest of the game were like this.

Now that I've finished looking at these four atrocious games, that's a couple hours I'll never get back. Could be worse, I could have missed out on the last 27 years.

This is something else late at night on weed.