🤖 Terminator: Resistance Enhanced | PS5 | Review | 7/10 | "Saviour of humanity or just another game to be terminated?" 🤖 @Reef_Games #GameDev #IndieGames

I really love the Terminator franchise and by that I mean I really love the first two films, the rest of the franchise consists of a lot of lows but those first two films are such highs. This game sums up the franchise well, as it has great highs and low lows.

The game is set in the year 2028/2029 and by that information alone, if you are familiar with the franchise, you pretty much know the plot.

Judgement day has happened and now the world is run by Skynet. The world has become a post-apocalyptic hell, buildings destroyed, society has crumbled and now only a handful of survivors are left to mount a resistance to Skynet. The game sensibly ignores any film continuity after T2. 

You play as resistance member Jacob Rivers who has lost communication with the resistance, you are led by a stranger over the radio and soon meet up with a band of survivors. The survivors are all the usual handful of characters; one's kind-hearted, another gruff and distant, a sweet kid etc.

Now, the character models do feel dated and the acting is a slight notch above wooden but surprisingly, I really enjoyed hearing their backstories and they painted a real picture of this bleak dystopia and the heartless nature of Skynet. The survivors give you side quests through the missions that are the typical fetch quests but were usually not too far from the main objective and I often felt well-rewarded for completing them.

Missions are portioned out into reasonably sized areas big enough to explore but never feel daunting in scope. You can scavenge through areas, searching for bullets, resources and other items that have trade value. It’s something I always enjoy in games - rooting through cupboards, desperately trying to find a few shotgun shells and an out-of-date tin of peaches. 

In the first few hours of the game, you face tiny spider robots, turrets and drones which you can defeat using the weapons you have acquired such as handguns and machineguns.

Surprisingly, the Terminators are only seen in brief cutscenes and you find out these weapons do nothing against them. I enjoyed the holding-back of the Terminators as it built their aura and made them seem a real threat which you have no chance against and when you finally engage with them, you have to creep past them and rely on stealth.

I normally hate stealth sections as I'm bad at them and find them deeply frustrating but here I felt it thrilling that these iconic machines were so intimidating and deadly, it’s exactly what I want out of the Terminator.

Sadly, about three hours in you are given a plasma rifle that can now defeat them and it took a slight edge out of the Terminators. They are still difficult as they take a few clips and can do some real damage but I had lost some of the fear I once had for them.

The combat becomes a mix of run-and-gun and stealth which does feel well balanced, but the set-piece sections just didn’t do much for me.

I found that I preferred the smaller, toned-down sections where I could explore areas and take my time.

This enhanced edition also features a new ‘Infiltrator Mode’, wherein you play as a T-800 hunting down resistance members and it’s a very fun addition. I spent the whole 45 minutes with a grin on my face.

The Terminators red vision, the fact you find a weapons cache with an Uzi 9mm and the .45 longslide with laser sighting - his iconic weapons in the first film - it just filled me with joy. It’s a nice little mode for the lovers of The Terminator. I mean, who doesn’t want to play as an unstoppable killing machine?

The game runs 60fps in 4K and I had no issues performance-wise. I didn’t see any major slowdown or screen-tearing and is the first game I got through on the system that didn’t crash my PS5. The cutscenes though, are jarring and feel like they are in slow motion when compared to the gameplay. 

The game’s biggest success is the use of the license. From the atmosphere, music and hidden easter eggs, you can tell that Reef Entertainment have paid attention and tried to deliver an authentic Terminator experience.

I felt like I was in Skynet’s brutal, apocalyptic world with little hope and a slim chance of survival.  

Developer – Reef Entertainment

Review by Transvaal