terminator Commodore 64 game

To many out there Terminator 2 was the best of the trilogy. To me, the jury is still out on that one. I think I prefer the brutal "Tech Noir" terminator of the first movie to the caring overly-sensitive incarnation of the second. Of course in 1991 the C64 scene was still fairly healthy and thus a game tie-in of T2 was inevitable.

It is fair to say there really are two versions of this game I could review; the multiload cassette format and the vastly superior T2 cartridge (released during the era of the ill-fated C64 console.) I will be objective in this review and simply speak about the game at hand as it stands to reason instantly loaded levels are always better than the dreaded multiloaded ones.

The game takes place over different stages that involve fighting, shooting and motorcycle riding that applies a overhead perspective. The graphics are big and colourful and animated reasonably well. The static display screen is well presented with some decent renditions of Arnie and the T1000. A good SID chip version of the Terminator theme plays at the intro screen with some effective SFX and jingles throughout the game.

Undoubtedly the biggest talking point of this game is its difficulty level. The fighting sections require some strenuous joystick manoeuvres and skill to succeed and the second level, that involves escaping on motorbike through the storm drains, requires almost jedi reflexes to avoid obstacles whilst navigating along the rapidly-scrolling screen. I can vividly recall many moments of joystick-hurling frustration at being cheated from progressing to the third level a matter of inches from the end of the storm drain. Persistence would eventually pay off to the more tenacious gamer but I wasn't one of them and with a few notable exceptions level three often ended my lofty ambitions of preventing Judgement Day.

In all T2 is a decent conversion that remains fairly faithful to the movie. It was released at a time of renewed optimism for the C64 platform in the face of the Sega/ Nintendo invasion and represented fairly well of what the trusty Commodore 64 was capable of. The cartridge was bundled with a basic C64 system at the time and I had plenty of fun borrowing my friend's and thus bypassing the multiload alternative of the cassette version. To this day I'm still scouting around Ebay to procure my own cartridge copy at reasonable price. Perhaps then I can take on the T1000 once and for all. Good luck and remember "I'll be back!"