Preamble, T1 and T2

I am a hardcore Terminator fan and this rant has been a long time coming.

The original was one of the very first movies I ever saw as a kid of about 6, complete with all the violence and swearing and even the sex scene – none of which made any sense to my child mind, of course. Along with the Conan films which my parents also enjoyed, I suppose it’s fair to say that I was born into being a Schwarzenegger fan, although only in hindsight do I realise that I was actually born into being a James Cameron fan. I was terrified by the dark vision of the future in the film, by how hard it was to destroy just that one Terminator, and how when 1991 came round all the kids raved on about how awesome the sequel was and how the T-1000 in particular was one of the scariest film villains ever, even surpassing the Arnie T-800. T2 lost a lot of its dark edge and replaced it with a more hopeful tale of the value of humanity achieving victory through their inner strength, and it was also the cementing of Schwarzenegger as a true Hollywood icon. But the real star was Cameron, the creator, writer, and director. He had raised his credibility with Aliens (as well as the tremendously underrated The Abyss) in between the two Terminator films, with a vision of exactly what he wanted his story to say. And he chose to end it with just T1 and 2, even shooting an alternate ending to T2 with an old Sarah Connor sitting in a park post-August 29th 1997 but opted instead for a black highway ending which was, looking back, a huge mistake.

Because of this ambiguous ending, talk of the third movie was always rumoured in the mid to late 90s. All of it was entirely hypothetical, as Cameron had, with the first two movies, melded an extremely tight and consistent storyline taking into account, as best he could, the paradoxes of time travel. The use of this device in any medium is bound to be confusing and often inevitably contained within an infinitely recurring loop (e.g. 12 Monkeys), especially in Terminator given that Kyle Reese was sent back to 1984 and is John Connor’s father, and that if there was no Judgment Day and no Terminators, he would never be sent back and therefore John could never exist. However the second T-800 sent back to protect him had succeeded in its mission, and then in destroying itself ensured that Judgment Day would never occur. Would John Connor just vanish at that moment? According to Cameron and without entering the realms of discussing alternate dimensions, no, and I agree with that. The infinite loop was broken, and that’s it, game over man, game over.

In T1 the T-800 was a cold, heartless killing machine. In T2, John Connor trained it to be “more human, and not such a dork all the time”. The same goes for Sarah Connor, a character who had evolved from a vulnerable girl who got stood up on Friday night dates to the completely unrecognisable and trained warrior in the gap between the two movies – a strong female personality which was quite rare in films at the time with traits borrowed heavily from the Ellen Ripley character in Cameron’s Aliens. By the end of T2, both these characters, the Terminator and Sarah, “had learnt the value of human life”, so what more was there to do to progress their arcs any further? The only thing that could have happened was that they would go backwards, and sure enough that’s what we got with T3.

T3

So, fast forward to 2003 when the hypothetical third film became a brutal actuality with no James Cameron and, crucially, no Linda Hamilton. The studios had practically decided, “You know, forget about what Cameron thought, let’s add in some cool stuff and bring home the cash. No Sarah Connor? No Problem!”. But there were problems as to how they would go about coming up with a script for another sequel; so many of them. Judgment Day had already been averted. Cyberdyne Systems, and therefore Skynet, the Terminator AI, had been blown up. It was impossible for the Terminators to ever be created, and hence the “unknown future” Sarah Connor had spoken of would roll along and she and John would live their lives as any other ordinary mother and son. Not according to John Brancato and Michael Ferris though, two “writers” you can rely on if ever you want your favourite series to be completely ruined.

And ruin it they most definitely did. Judgment Day was inevitable, apparently. Destroying the Cyberdyne building only served to delay it, and Skynet was now a program run by the military. What? But wouldn’t the T-800 in T2, from the future, already know this? And if it was inevitable, why didn’t Arnie do what the Edward Furlong John Connor suggested and stay with the Connors until Judgment Day did eventually happen, still pretending to be “Uncle Bob”. What a waste! The biggest insults from T3 were, from least insulting to most:

3. It deemed the events of T2 as completely irrelevant. Completely.

2. The T-800 referred to itself as a T-101. WRONG. It is and always has been a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, T-800. You cannot simply merge the two nomenclatures and expect people not to notice, not least those people who grew up with the movies. Harsh, nerdy bastards like me. The least the screenwriters could do was get their facts right by, just as a suggestion, actually watching T1 and T2.

1. No Linda Hamilton after she refused to reprise her role as Sarah Connor, stating that the script was “soulless,” which is a nicer word than what I would call it. THE Sarah Connor, the legend. The most human character in a series about machines wiping out humanity, suddenly gone, killed off-screen and written out with one word: Leukaemia. The first two movies were never about the special effects, even if T2 was the first film to rely completely on its believability: it was about the human aspect and character development. It wasn’t about the one-liners either; “I’ll be back” and “Hasta La Vista, Baby” just naturally attained pop culture quotable status without ever trying, as in any memorable film. It wasn’t even about Schwarzenegger, whose career post-T2 never hit the same heights. It was all about Sarah Connor.

So what were we left with? A film resembling Terminator only in name and nothing else, not least personalities. Gone was the key character, along with Brad Fiedel’s theme music. John Connor was a pathetic nobody played by an equally pathetic Nick Stahl, spending his time getting high off Vet clinic drugs. The T-800 (hold on no, T-101) was a parody of the Terminator we had known, reduced to a ridiculous joke machine who somehow knew what style of sunglasses were “in” at the time. Instead of strong female leads, all we got were Clare Dane’s pointless Kate Brewster and Kristanna Loken’s female “Terminatrix” with inflatable breasts, a result of primary schoolchild imaginings and “Oh wow imagine if there was a chick Terminator!” nonsense turning into a 100 million dollar movie production.

In fact, it makes me sick just thinking about T3 and the guns in Sarah Connor’s coffin and the disgusting image of Arnie holding that coffin up on one arm with an assault rifle in the other and the “advanced” anti-Terminator Terminatrix that no one in the future ever knew about with an inbuilt hair-styling program that I’m just going to stop it here. As for the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show with another female “hot chick” cyborg who presumably helped teen John Connor pass his final exams and enter college even if it knew he was going to fail them anyway, just…no. 

Terminator Salvation, aka Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, aka Terminator 4

McG directing was not a good sign. In fact, given his resume, it was about on par with news that Uwe Boll was taking the helm. McG claimed to be a Terminator fan and wanted to right all that was wrong with T3, even if he was depending on a script penned again by Brancato and Ferris. Plus, after doing the Charlie’s Angels movies, his reputation was hardly sterling. But when Christian Bale signed on, it raised questions. Would Bale, now a bona fide “major actor”, agree to a rubbish film? Would he be doing it because it was, actually, seriously, good? Or was he just doing it for the money? When Linda Hamilton signed on late in post-production a few months before the film’s release, it raised the very same questions. She had turned down T3 but now, surely, Sarah Connor herself would make the right choice. The trailers looked great too and, maybe, just maybe, I could forget about the last movie and just go along with the fourth.

After seeing the film this past weekend, I now know the answers: They took the cash and ran.

30 minutes in, I was intrigued. Going in with the lowest possible expectations, already hating it and hoping it’d impress me on some minor and purely aesthetic degree, it actually had me for a little while. “Could this actually be good?” I wondered. Anton Yelchin’s portrayal of a young Kyle Reese was brilliant. Bale’s John Connor rising through the ranks, the story of how he became that “great military leader”, was quite promising. Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright had, again, great potential, although his character would have definitely benefited if it not for the fact that his real identity was openly proclaimed in all the trailers, ridding the film of any great suspense or shock (but to be fair, T2 was guilty of the same thing with the “good guy T-800″). But then came the moment. The moment that spelled the downfall: the stealth giant Terminator/Transformer people harvester that could sneak up behind you without a sound, stocked with motorcycle mini-Terminators in its legs whose sole purpose of existence in this film was so that Connor could ride one later. From then on it was all style with zero substance, zero heart. Cold and calculating, like a machine, with no clue as to what made the first two movies great. All the references were there: The human slaves supervised by machines that Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese made mention to in T1, the rubber skin T-600s, the creation of the superior T-800s, but not once did it feel at all like the dark and frightening vision of the future shown in glimpses in the first two films. The absence of Sarah Connor in this future of whom Kyle Reese in T1 spoke of as the legend who trained John Connor into the man he became, who in William Wisher’s novelisation of T2 lived until an old age before finally dying in battle, hurts this film immensely. How would Kyle ever know about Sarah Connor, and hence fall in love with her before volunteering to be sent back in time? Through hearsay? Through Bale’s muffled incoherent Batman voice shouting all his lines as if his life depended on it?

But the worst thing about T4? Even worse than the dialogue (memorably, a foiled rapist saying the words “killing me won’t win this war”)? The logic. The logic that Skynet would capture Kyle Reese knowing he is “important” but not kill him the moment they got him is just ludicrous. As is a special computer terminal made specifically for Marcus Wright to conveniently wander into on his way back to “Skynet City” (which was Skynet’s plan all along, taking into account Marcus happening to run into and befriending Kyle Reese and also meeting John Connor and getting rescued by a resistance woman who falls in love with him who helps him escape from capture so that he could return to Skynet with all of this knowledge) and finding out the truth of his existence via an awful drawn-out exposition scene with a computerised Helena Bonham Carter; would a computer be so dumb as to give away its sinister intentions before the mission had been completed and therefore sway the opinion and motives of their most advanced creation? Are we still in the old ages of filmmaking where bad-guy characters have long moustaches they can twirl and accompany with an evil laugh and all-revealing monologue; when a Bond villain captures James Bond and tells him his plans when he should be busy getting to the point and killing Bond. And since when (when?!) was a Terminator immune to the melting effects of molten lava? 

Plenty of style with plenty of references and quotes from the core storyline but they were all for show, as if to say “yes, we are hardcore fans ourselves because we’ve got that same Guns’N'Roses track and ‘I’ll be back’ and we’ve got a CGI Schwarzenegger and we also show you how John Connor got that scar we saw in T2″, whilst managing to completely miss the point. With Sarah Connor now long gone, there still remained the chance to turn a fledgling John Connor character into the great leader he was destined to become, but in the end he was only promoted to that position because the existing resistance bigwigs got wiped out. As for the ending? If they were going for the same emotional “I know now why you cry” response as at the end of T2, then they failed spectacularly: having a woman fall in love with Marcus and kiss him, along with a mute little girl whose only reason for being in the film was to hold his metal hand at the end, does not equal emotion. In other words, if you give a child an assignment to write about a giraffe, the kid will make mention of a long neck. If you give a child the Terminator license, they will come up with T3 and T4. If a true prequel to T1 was going to be made and set in the future (yes, time travel is confusing), then that film should end with the 1984 T-800 being sent back in time followed shortly after by an adult Kyle Reese who has mulled for years over that photo of Sarah Connor and “memorised every line, every curve”. But no, if we want to see that film then we’ll have to wait until Terminator 5 comes out, which in all likelihood will be made in a couple of years. For fuck’s sake.

I was really hoping Terminator Salvation would be a personal salvation, restoring my hope in Hollywood and in the series, but then again I was never going to be satisfied: the irreversible damage had already been done with T3. It’s a shame because there was some potential here for T4 to act as a solid prequel to T1, but ultimately it tried to be too many things at once. It tried to be faithful to hardcore fans, fix the horrible errors of T3, as well as appeal to the mainstream audience, ultimately ending up with none of those: the final result a mere special effects-filled turn-off-your-brain “summer movie” under the presumption that the first two films were successful only because of the action. The action was brilliant yes – and much of the current opinion surrounding Salvation is that it works as an entertaining action movie, but the key point of the Terminator series was that it was the story of a diner waitress-turned-warrior single-mother and her knowledge of the truth, and of a young boy overwhelmed by his destiny: human aspects that appealed to fans on many different levels. Terminator was always about the path of humans discovering themselves, their innate and unrealised potential, and how machines could never quite emulate nor understand that spirit which brought the resistance their victory in the end. Terminator was all James Cameron and Sarah Connor and without the both of them, along with there being no substitute for a human connection in parts 3 and 4, this series has been well and truly Terminated (sorry).

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

It’s the Arnie movie that had everything: over the top violence, hilarious one-liners, outrageous ‘boss’ characters, Jesse Ventura, a Latino chick, satire on society and television, Yaphet Kotto of Alien fame, a distinct future influence on video games, and Schwarzenegger in possibly his finest form. It’s The Running Man (cue dodgy 80s echo sound effects)!!!

Set in an Orwellian 2017 where free speech is illegal, the story begins with futuristic policeman Ben Richards (Arnie) being set up by the totalitarian government for the massacre of civilians and sent to jail (where he sports a cool-looking beard). He escapes of course, but not without someone having his head blown off first (thanks to futuristic head-exploding collars which, to be honest, really had nothing at all to do with the story apart from the gore factor), but is soon caught and forced to take part in the biggest game show around: The Running Man. Hosted by a bloke named Killian (played by a real TV show host at the time), convicts are sent into the game zone via a funky aerodynamic cart down a high-speed tube dressed in Matt Shirvington-style crotch-accentuating tights where they are relentlessly hunted by a ridiculous team of ’stalkers’ as society watches on in awe. None of this would mean anything though if there wasn’t an introductory choreographed group dance by lycra-clad ladies with permed hair. Gripped to the max and brainwashed, the show is a hit…but not for a group of rebels who are intent on a revolution and bringing an end to the propaganda.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Yaphet Kotto: about as 80’s a partnership as you can get

The Stalkers, how Arnie kills them, and the post-death one-liners

(I mean, what better time to crack a joke than when you’ve just vanquished your enemy?)

Subzero:

A huge Japanese Ice Hockey player with a razor sharp stick and explosive pucks. Strangled to death by barbed wire. “Here’s Subzero…now…plain zero!” (possibly the best movie line of all time)

Buzzsaw:

A Redneck bikie with a chainsaw. Enough said really. Sawn in half with his own weapon from the crotch up. “He had to split!”

Dynamo:

An opera singing electricity-shooting fat guy in a costume decorated with lights. Not killed by Arnie actually, but by a water sprinkler. Hence no witty line unfortunately.

Fireball:

Played by former NFL star Jim Brown, Fireball wields a flamethrower and flies around in a jetpack. Not over the top at all, no way. He is blown up with a dynamite stick when Arnie unplugs his gas cable. Bonus double pre and post-kill lines: “Need a light?” and “What a hothead!”

Captain Freedom:

Played by the big Austrian’s Predator and future political buddy Jesse Ventura, it is a slight disappointment that they don’t get to fight each other. Well not really: the final battle in a spiked cage is ‘digitized’ (you’ll understand when you watch it), and WHAT a crazily violent fake battle scene it is! Sadly, again, no Arnie kill and no line.

Impact and influence

In terms of 80s action, Schwarzenegger’s other hits Predator, Terminator, and Commando tend to steal the limelight: I must admit that even I had forgotten about this gem until a fellow movie freak friend of mine reminded me of it, and I’d go as far as saying The Running Man is right up there with Arnie’s best. Citizen Kane it is most definitely not, but hey masterpiece theatre wasn’t the reason why we loved him so much. This film is also, once you strip away the superficial layer of 80’s cheese and typical Arnie trademarks, a very clever take on the impact of reality game shows, which is not entirely surprising given the fact that it was based on a novel by Stephen King under the alias of ‘Richard Bachman’. Although it differed greatly from the book (I think it’d be safe to say that there was no “plain zero” line in there) the themes present make it well ahead of its time – despite how utterly 80’s the future was presented in the movie: the final scene where Richards kisses the girl and the unmistakable sound of synthesizer rock swelling in the background is pretty, surely deliberately, cringe-worthy.

The film’s influence on gaming should also not be discounted either, with the icy character of Subzero and the spiked battle zone being clear influences on Mortal Kombat. A game was released on the early Commodore 64-era consoles which were, suffice it to say, rubbish, and Smash TV on Genesis and the SNES were quite similar in plot and ideas (which led to that minigame in GTA Liberty City Stories). I want a game remake!! On that note I wouldn’t be surprised either if one of these days a film remake gets the go-ahead, although it will of course be nowhere near the insane value of the original and will probably star Ralph Fiennes in yet another role where he has a serious crying scene.

Overall, a truly spectacular example of what 80’s action was all about, filled with gruesomely graphic violence and a bit of Che Guevara thrown in for good measure. Plus given the reality TV overload seen today, the words of Damon Killian have never been truer: “This is television, that’s all it is. It has nothing to do with people, it’s to do with ratings! For fifty years, we’ve told them what to eat, what to drink, what to wear… Americans love television! They wean their kids on it. Listen. They love game shows, they love wrestling, they love sports and violence. So what do we do? We give ‘em what they want! We’re number one, Ben, that’s all that counts, believe me.” *

*Cue the final kill as Richards sends Killian down the speed tunnel to an explosive death which doesn’t make any sense at all. “Well that hit the spot!”

Following my last blog on Schwarzenegger- related arcade games and because several people mentioned it, this new article will be on the classic Alien vs Predator arcade game. No not the rubbish movie, or the Jaguar first-person shooter, or even the recent AvP FPS. This Final Fight-like title was released in 1994 by Capcom and featured fantastic 4-player co-op like the Simpsons and TMNT games back then. It was later ported to the Neo-Geo I think, but honestly how many of us owned one of those?

Story: Pretty predictable – Earth is invaded by the Aliens and four heroes are summoned to save it. Yes, ONLY four. Never mind the armies around the world or anything. And two of them are Predators (it is not explained why the Predators are helping the humans instead of hunting and killing them, but it was really cool to use those guys).

Playable Characters: Major Dutch Schaefer (who apparently is now a cyborg) had a cybernetic arm that doubled as a smart-gun. Unfortunately no Arnie dialogue was recorded for the game – it would’ve been cool to hear him shout “Run, go, get to da chopper!” and so on.

Predator Hunter was ‘young’ and fought with a cool-looking spear and was super quick.

Predator Warrior I guess then was the ‘old and experienced’ one with a not-so-cool-looking spear, was slower than his little bro but more powerful. [Both Predators could throw their sharp-frisbee thing from Predator 2 as well as blast xenomorph suckas with their shoulder-mounted laser cannon which would frustratingly overheat too quickly (advanced technology and yet the damn thing overheats every 3 seconds??)].

Lieutenant Linn Kurosawa, a snazzy looking Japanese chick (and also a cyborg – what’s with the cyborgs Capcom?) who was decked-out in breast-contoured body armour, knee-pads (just in case, you know, she fell over and scraped herself) and a long long ponytail. Her character design is like Ibuki from SF3 and she made cameos in a couple of backgrounds in SF3 and SFA2. But where is Ripley? It would’ve been great if she was in it, but never mind.

Extras: Apart from the typical genre-specific wooden boxes that you broke to get health pick-ups and throwable pipes (always the pipes), the game also featured the cool Marine APC from the Aliens film and an almighty boss battle against the Queen. There was also this Power-Up-Special-Move-Shoryuken thing you could do that wiped out enemies around you at the cost of lowering your health. Ive lost count of the number of times I did that and got killed straight after (I’ve also lost count of the number of times I heard someone yell out “Slut!” when Chun-Li whipped their arses in Street Fighter 2, but that’s another story). Like Elevator Action Returns, I never finished this game either because it had quite an unfairly high difficulty level, but it was a real classic nonetheless and so so so much better than that crappy Paul W S Anderson movie.

Overall score: 8/10, Nostalgia Score: 9/10

Edit: According to Wikipedia, “the game was based on an early draft script for the movie adaptation of the series and was intended to have been a tie-in to the movie”!