Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Game Boy Advance)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.0 stars Mediocre
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 4.8 (2.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Alex Navarro
• Reviewed on: 12/18/2003
• Released on: 11/18/2003
• Originally published on GameSpot: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Game Boy Advance) Review

Atari hasn't had much luck up to this point with its license for Terminator 3, the last installment in the Terminator film franchise, starring longtime action hero and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox was a substandard first-person shooter, riddled with bugs and distinctly low on production value. On the PC, Terminator 3: War of the Machines was a team-based online shooter that had absolutely no dedicated server support, a practically nonexistent offline single-player mode, and even more bugs than its console-based brethren. The last of Atari's 2003 lineup for the T3 franchise is Rise of the Machines for the Game Boy Advance. The GBA version of Rise of the Machines is a third-person shooter, played with an isometric camera view. Of all the T3 games released this year, Rise of the Machines for the GBA is easily the best one; but once you get beyond comparisons to the rest of the motley Terminator 3 bunch, the game doesn't hold up on its own merits.

In Rise of the Machines, you once again take on the role of Arnold Schwarzenegger's model 101 T-800 series Terminator. Your basic controls as the Terminator give you two distinct weapon abilities--one for shooting your current weapon and the other for throwing and planting explosive devices and for punching when you have no explosives equipped. Using the left trigger button, you can also make the Terminator walk, run, or strafe, and the select button puts him into a scan mode that turns the screen red and helps you detect otherwise hidden people and objects.

There's a nice variety of weapons in the game, each with multiple degrees of firepower. However, some of them feel a little too overpowered for the level of challenge the game generally puts forth. This is especially notable with the punching function, which does more damage than more than half your guns and explosives. The only real difficulty with shooting comes from the game's isometric camera view, which can make it a bit difficult to line up your target properly. This isn't much of a factor when you have a gun with a wider firing range, but when you're using weaker guns, it can be rather frustrating.

The game loosely follows the same type of story arc that the console versions did. You start off in the movie's bleak, postapocalyptic future, where the human resistance sends you back in time to help protect John Connor, the leader of the resistance, from an evil female terminator who is programmed to kill him before he can lead the human uprising against the machines. The game's 12 missions are split up half and half between the future and the present, though ultimately, the difference in time period is really the only difference you'll notice between any of them.

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