Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a platformer developed by Software Creations, based on the film of the same name. Terminator 2 is filled with exciting set pieces, so it feels like a no-brainer to turn into a game. This game is a major improvement over Radical Entertainment's adaptation of the first film, but still doesn't quite hit the mark for many reasons.
Like the majority of movie-based games, Terminator 2 is a platformer, but not a particularly good one. You play as the T-800 and the first level consists of beating up bikers at the bar from the beginning of the film. You have to defeat every single enemy on screen to progress, but the game will let you move beyond where the enemies are, meaning you'll often just be wandering around thinking you can advance but be missing one or two enemies. The T-800 has these tiny arms which can barely reach anyone without being directly in front of him and this can lead to enemies ganging up on you. Level two depicts the motorcycle canal scene and it's frustrating as hell. You have to avoid fast-moving obstacles that you are barely given enough time to react to, while also shooting the T-1000's oncoming truck by mashing the button over and over before he leaves. It's frustrating and took way too many attempts to complete. Level three has you explore the Pescadero hospital in pursuit of Sarah Connor, avoiding security guards and the T-1000. This level isn't too bad, actually, and I can see it being part of a better game, but it's too repetitive. Most of the rooms have nothing in them and they're all the same thing so it's just a matter of chance whether you find what you're looking for or not. You're also supposed to only shoot the guards in the kneecaps, like in the film, but to my knowledge, there isn't any punishment for just killing them. From what I played of the next few levels, they're mostly the same, so I just dropped the game as I wasn't having fun. The game also gives you only four lives and zero continues, so if you die, it's back to the first level. Sure, you can collect extra lives, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. It's a below-average platformer that, while not intolerable, doesn't do anything to stand out from an already flooded market of platformers on NES.
The presentation is somewhat mixed. The visuals aren't too bad but they're fairly average as far as the NES goes, and this late into the console's lifespan I expect a little more. Mega Man 5 was released the same year and looks miles more detailed and expressive in its sprite work and backgrounds. Granted, one is going for relative realism and the other stylization, but on the NES the difference isn't as large as with other platforms. The T-800 himself doesn't resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger at all and looks pretty small and wimpy, with many enemies being larger than him for some reason. I do like how the game actually tries to fill the player in on the film's story if they hadn't seen it before, but I do think the traced character portraits look a little bit off-model. If there's any bright spot though, it would be the soundtrack composed by Geoff Follin, which is very experimental and sounds more like something from a Commodore 64 game than the NES. He channels some musical elements from Brad Fidel's film score, such as the emphasis on repetitive percussion, it's atmospheric and kicks up exactly when it needs to. It's a surprisingly solid score for a relatively bad game.
Terminator 2 on NES isn't an awful game by any means but it's not good either. It's below-average, oftentimes bad, and while there are some interesting elements in isolation, none of them form a cohesive whole. Not recommended to anyone really, even if it improves heavily on the first game.
Like the majority of movie-based games, Terminator 2 is a platformer, but not a particularly good one. You play as the T-800 and the first level consists of beating up bikers at the bar from the beginning of the film. You have to defeat every single enemy on screen to progress, but the game will let you move beyond where the enemies are, meaning you'll often just be wandering around thinking you can advance but be missing one or two enemies. The T-800 has these tiny arms which can barely reach anyone without being directly in front of him and this can lead to enemies ganging up on you. Level two depicts the motorcycle canal scene and it's frustrating as hell. You have to avoid fast-moving obstacles that you are barely given enough time to react to, while also shooting the T-1000's oncoming truck by mashing the button over and over before he leaves. It's frustrating and took way too many attempts to complete. Level three has you explore the Pescadero hospital in pursuit of Sarah Connor, avoiding security guards and the T-1000. This level isn't too bad, actually, and I can see it being part of a better game, but it's too repetitive. Most of the rooms have nothing in them and they're all the same thing so it's just a matter of chance whether you find what you're looking for or not. You're also supposed to only shoot the guards in the kneecaps, like in the film, but to my knowledge, there isn't any punishment for just killing them. From what I played of the next few levels, they're mostly the same, so I just dropped the game as I wasn't having fun. The game also gives you only four lives and zero continues, so if you die, it's back to the first level. Sure, you can collect extra lives, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. It's a below-average platformer that, while not intolerable, doesn't do anything to stand out from an already flooded market of platformers on NES.
The presentation is somewhat mixed. The visuals aren't too bad but they're fairly average as far as the NES goes, and this late into the console's lifespan I expect a little more. Mega Man 5 was released the same year and looks miles more detailed and expressive in its sprite work and backgrounds. Granted, one is going for relative realism and the other stylization, but on the NES the difference isn't as large as with other platforms. The T-800 himself doesn't resemble Arnold Schwarzenegger at all and looks pretty small and wimpy, with many enemies being larger than him for some reason. I do like how the game actually tries to fill the player in on the film's story if they hadn't seen it before, but I do think the traced character portraits look a little bit off-model. If there's any bright spot though, it would be the soundtrack composed by Geoff Follin, which is very experimental and sounds more like something from a Commodore 64 game than the NES. He channels some musical elements from Brad Fidel's film score, such as the emphasis on repetitive percussion, it's atmospheric and kicks up exactly when it needs to. It's a surprisingly solid score for a relatively bad game.
Terminator 2 on NES isn't an awful game by any means but it's not good either. It's below-average, oftentimes bad, and while there are some interesting elements in isolation, none of them form a cohesive whole. Not recommended to anyone really, even if it improves heavily on the first game.