A Rinky-dink Battle for the Future

Around the same time that Virgin was developing iterations of The Terminator for Sega consoles, Bethesda was licensing out their own access to the property for home console releases. The company sub-licensed the property to publisher Mindscape and developer Radical Entertainment so they could create a version of The Terminator for the NES and, in fairness, the companies did, in fact, create an NES game. It also just so happens to be one of the worst games ever made based on that first movie.

No one was going to accuse the NES of being a powerhouse console. It was originally released in 1983 as the Famicom in Japan, and while the exterior of the console was renovated for American audiences, turning it into the grey box we all know, the internals remained largely the same throughout the years. That means that by the time Radical came around to make a game for the console in 1992, it was also nine years old. Its successor, the SNES, had been out on the market for over a year. The time of the NES was behind it and companies were already moving on.

Even with that said, the NES version of The Terminator is a real dog. Because the console had been out for nine years, people knew how to develop for it and make good games. 1992 saw the release of some absolutely phenomenal games, including Wizards and Warriors III, Darkwing Duck, and Mega Man 5. Considering what could be done, there was no excuse for a game to be released in an absolutely mediocre state in 1992, especially not when it was based on such a big property (bearing in mind that 1992 also saw the release of Summer Blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day). And yet, this game is absolute trash.

The game itself follows the same formula that we saw from both the Genesis and Sega CD version of the property. Kyle Reese starts off in the past and has to venture his way across the wastes, through various Skynet facilities, until he makes it to the building where the time machine awaits to send him back to the past. He’s going to go save Sarah Connor, who soon enough, in 1984, will be pursued by a terminator sent to kill her and wipe out her future, unborn son, John Conner, leader of the resistance.

So Kyle takes to the streets to find Sarah. He heads to the nightclub where she’s hanging out, and they flee just as the terminator arrives. They end up getting chased, and then arrested, and while in jail the terminator shows up looking for Sarah. Kyle escapes, and then finds Sarah again so they can flee. The terminator pursues, and they end up at the Cyberdyne factory where Kyle makes his last stand, taking down the terminator once and for all in a factory press machine. The terminator is dead, and Sarah is safe, ensuring the future for the survivors of the war with Skynet.

The basic plot is the same as we’ve seen before, but considering this game was developed by Radical and not anyone Virgin contracted, it should come as no surprise that the games play very differently. While this game is technically a run and gun shooter, it’s more accurate to say it’s a platformer with occasional shooting elements. The stages are set out in straightforward, linear designs, and you (as Kyle) have to run and jump your way around these levels. You’ll dodge hazards, avoid traps, try not to fall in bottomless pits, and only occasionally bust out your gun (or in later stages, just your fist) to take out the enemies in front of you.

Many of those enemies are terminators, yes, but more often you’re fighting punks, cops, and dogs. I know there were three punks that showed up in a very short scene in the original movie, but I really don’t understand why they’re always major foes in these Terminator games. Cops and even dogs I get (even if, in the movies, the dogs are used to track terminators and not Kyle), but continuing to use punks in every version, from every developer, feels like a really weird step to take. Clearly the designers all struggled to come up with good threats, and didn’t want Kyle killing endless rows of cops.

I honestly found myself struggling more with the platforming than the action sequences. Kayle doesn’t control very well, having their weirdly precise, floaty jump. I found myself, more often than not, missing the mark on a jump, landing where I didn’t want to go, or even in pits. The movement is frustrating solely because the controls don’t feel very well tuned or tested. If you’re going to make a platformer you have to make sure that a player can actually control their hero reasonably well. This game doesn’t care if you control Kyle in any fashion. You already bought the game, its job is done.

To break up the action between these absolutely awful platforming sections there are equally terrible driving sections. There are actually three driving sections in the game. One is in the future, where Kyle drives in a side-scrolling section, avoiding the blasts from various, massive Skynet machines. Then, in between to platforming levels in the present, Kyle takes to the streets. These top down sections are the worst, featuring you getting pursued by the terminator as he works to knock you off the road. The first street sequence is bad enough, with poorly tuned controls and hazards that come out of nowhere, but the second is even worse. This one has twisty, winding roads that send you careening around like a golf ball on a put-put course. Just getting through these driving sections without losing a life is a lesson in futility.

And speaking of lives, I have no clue how you’re supposed to get more of them. Health and weapon drops are infrequent at best, but I never once saw a 1-up anywhere in the game. That means that if you die the three lives you’re given, it’s back to the start to experience this whole painful game all over again. It’s annoying when a game is specifically tuned to be unforgiving all so it can send you back to start over and over again, but that’s exactly what this game does and I really did hate it.

But then, if the game didn’t send you back to start regularly, you’d find it was way too easy to get to the end of this very short game. Even with the driving sections added in, this game barely clocks over 15 minutes for a full play through, and that includes going out of the way to pick up power-ups. Speedrunners have beaten this game in less than eight minutes before, showing just how slight and inconsequential this whole experience can be. Why bother fighting or collecting anything when you can just cruise right to the end in less time than it takes to warm up a can of soup. It’s just pathetic.

And on top of all that, this is an ugly game top to bottom. The character graphics don’t look anything like the characters from the games, and in fact barely resemble humans at all. Everything is cartoony, and blocky and very hard to look at. The stages are just as bad, without any detail or style to them. And this is all topped off by a repetitive, plinky soundtrack composed entirely of five second sound loops and barely anything that even sounds like the music from the movie. Someone just slapped some random music code in this cart and called it a day.

The NES version of The Terminator is a bad game, through and through. I wouldn’t just call it the worst game based on The Terminator; I go so far as to call it one of the worst of the NES, period. I suffered through this game so I can say, conclusively, do not play this NES title. You won’t enjoy it at all.