I am, not for the first time in my life, currently going through a phase of perpetual Arnie hypnosis after that last blog on The Running Man and the hilarity of Youtube (click for Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 – “trust me”), so here is an entry on the other movie-games he was in! Isn’t it funny how, as a politician, he is now trying to get similar games banned when he himself used to be the master of the gory death/witty one liner…let off some steam Governor.

The Terminator

There are, incredibly, over 20 games based on The Terminator, T2 and T3 (not counting crappy mobile phone games but including the pinball machines for each instalment of the movie series). Over twenty! Not every one allowed you to play as Arnie, not that it made much difference: pretty much ALL of them were rubbish, and there was even a Terminator Chess Wars. Honestly.

The Terminator (DOS, NES, Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis)

Out of all the games based on the original Terminator, I owned the one on the Master System where you play as Kyle Reese however I was never able to even get past the first level because of there being way too many Terminators and the limited ability to defend oneself by lobbing useless grenades that arced completely off target. I later amended this by finishing it on an emulator and cheating vigorously with the use of save states, and I must say it wasn’t all that bad (unlimited shotgun ammo in the later stages – awesome!) Unfortunately I can’t say the same about the DOS one, judging by that screenshot above.

RoboCop versus The Terminator (SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis)

An ill-advised combo licensing deal (which was still admittedly really cool-sounding as a kid), this game only let you control Robocop where you went round ‘administering justice’ against, again, way too many assorted Terminators and human enemies who are shooting at you for no reason. Not much attention was paid to a coherent storyline, that’s for sure, nor the gameplay either it must be said.

T2: The Arcade Game (Amiga, DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, SNES)

Everyone remembers this right? The FPS where Arnie provided his voice which was SO much better at the arcades with the two massive light guns than all the painful ports it mustered (especially the Game Boy one – why even bother?). I can still clearly recall the stage at the Cyberdyne building where digitised John and Sarah Connor occasionally ran around in front of you Virtua Cop-innocent-bystander-casualty-style as you were busy taking down SWAT team members. On the consoles though, you had to use the D-pad to move the cursor around and the graphics were of course nowhere near the original’s. These days seeing the arcade machine around is a rarity, and sadly the graphics have not aged well at all but it sure was great back then in 1991, even for 3 bucks a pop.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES, NES, Game Gear, Master System)

The side scrolling T2 game must be one of the worst I have ever played. It was one of those titles where as soon as you pick up the controller you just knew it was a bad game: Arnie was only able to move one clunky block at a time, and even turning around took forever whilst all these redneck bikies at the Corral Bar pumped lead into you from both sides: meaning you died within a minute of your young self rushing home from the shop and expecting something great. Of course I never got past the first level, but unlike the T1 Master System game I just couldn’t be arsed to use emulator save states for another play-through. Forget that. Interestingly the back of the box screenshots for this game only ever had pictures from that first level: I’m guessing that not even the developers could get past it, never mind be bothered to bug-test the rest of the damned thing.

Then there were the other obscure Terminator games like The Terminator 2029, The Terminator 2029: Operation Scour, The Terminator: Rampage (a bad Doom clone), the aforementioned Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Chess Wars, The Terminator: Future Shock, SkyNET, and The Terminator: Dawn of Fate. Imaginative titles yes but “da hell wiv it” I’m not going to waste any more of your or my time attempting to describe those.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (PS2, Xbox, GBA) Terminator 3: The Redemption (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube) Terminator 3: War of the Machines (PC)

As a purist Terminator/Arnie/James Cameron fan, T3 was a massive disappointment for many reasons: no James Cameron, they wrote off Sarah Connor, there was a character named “Kate Brewster” played by Clare Danes, they even got the Terminator’s model number wrong (it’s T-800, not T-101! He was Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, a T-800, you can’t just combine the two!). Hence I never played the games, not that I was missing out on much. Despite coming out on the powerful PS2 and Xbox, T3 Rise of the Machines was a terrible flop, as was the PC title War of the Machines, an online FPS which no one ever played online (and apparently you couldn’t do so even if you tried). All of these titles were so bad that T3 Redemption even came out to right these wrongs by signing on Arnie for his likeness and voice, but failed again miserably anyway.

Predator

Predator (Acorn Electron, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum…what funny names consoles had back then) Predator: Soon The Hunt Will Begin (MSX, Famicom, NES)

It is a real blight on the gaming industry two decades ago that a license like Predator was wasted in the manner that it was. Sure the technology back then wasn’t very impressive, but the film itself was and still is an action classic, and with a team of elite soldiers (a mention must go here to Jesse Ventura’s minigun) and possibly the coolest ever alien creature equipped with a shoulder laser, thermal vision and dreadlocks it is unbelievable that none of these ideas were used for the original game. Instead we just got two variations: a simple side-scroller dressed up accordingly almost as an afterthought and a platformer bearing a suspiciously-close resemblance to Double Dragon, right down to Dutch Schaefer’s blue jumpsuit. Oh how this game needs to be remade.

The left pic actually looks like a decent 8-bit representation of thermal vision. Shame then that these were the actual graphics. Jumping over floating eyeballs, I remember that from the movie oh yeah.

As Predator 2 had Danny Glover instead of Arnie, it was automatically not a very good movie and needless to say the game was as bad (or worse – at least Bill Paxton and Gary Busey were in the movie). And so so hard! Not that many people bought it anyway and just as well. There were other Predator games like Concrete Jungle and those Alien vs Predator ones of course, but as there was no Arnie I’m not including them. That and the fact that they were, not counting those decent AvP FPSs and the The arcade version, terrible (can you see a pattern emerging? Past those trees? I see you).

Total Recall

Total Recall (Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, NES)

The Paul Verhoeven movie was a great ultra-violent film based on a Philip K Dick sci fi story (the same guy who inspired Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly and the classic Blade Runner) which examined the concept of identity and the unconscious mind within a futuristic setting. Just as well then the game had you controlling Douglas Quaid with two moves: a crappy punch and a ridiculous jump. Who needs weapons when you can attack midgets with a 2-inch fist and jump on their heads, upon which you die? And that’s all I will say about one of the worst games ever: the screenshots should tell you the rest.

Last Action Hero

Last Action Hero (NES, SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis) The film was a flop and possibly marked the beginning of the end for Arnie as an action icon. Despite it’s interesting idea, it was unfortunately about an hour too long and, once AGAIN, the game was terrible. I had the Game Boy version of it and apart from holding down punch for a 5 hit combo (which was easily interrupted when your enemies attacked you with much more effective moves) and jumping over holes and gaps (and falling to your death), I have since blocked the rest of this frustrating waste of time from my consciousness. Hardly the worst Arnie game, but nonetheless stay away.

True Lies

True Lies (Game Boy, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES)

Finally, finally, a good Arnie movie game. The film itself was a smash hit which isn’t surprising as the Schwarzenegger/James Cameron combo is pretty much guaranteed to be great (plus the bonus of how hotness-incarnate herself, Tia Carrere, was in it), and the game was a fantastic tie-in if a little on the difficult side. Actually it was really hard, but once again emulators put paid to that. It featured cartoonish character designs with big heads that worked surprisingly well, a load of weapons to choose from, levels that corresponded to scenes in the movie, and with its violence being a bit too over the top this game is a real classic. I absolutely recommend getting the rom plus an emulator if you haven’t already tried it out. Do it c’mon! Download it it’s here c’mon do it do it nooowww!!

SNES Emulator

True Lies Rom