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Video Game / Terminator Salvation (Arcade)

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Terminator Salvation is a Light Gun Game released in 2010. It is developed by Play Mechanix and published by Raw Thrills. It is an adaptation of the Terminator Salvation film and the franchise' second attempt at an arcade-style shooter after Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The player plays the role of John Connor during the war opposing the human resistance to the machines of Skynet. The game consists of two selectable missions: seek and destroy the secret lab where Skynet conducts experiments on humans, or escort refugees to a safehouse and destroy Skynet. The player faces whole armies of T-600, T-7T, Aerostats and Mototerminators. He can find grenades, shotguns, and miniguns on his way. During some sequences, it is possible to use heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles (helicopter, pickup).

A full playthrough of the game can be watched here.


This game contains the following tropes:

  • Action Bomb: Spider Mines. One-Hit-Point Wonder enemies that attack in a Zerg Rush and attempt to jump on the player to explode, dealing very heavy damage if they succeed.
  • Adaptational Wimp: All of Skynet's machines are remarkably susceptible to regular old bullets in this game.
  • Airborne Mook: HK-Aerials and Aerostats.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Several of the Terminators can be offed quickly if the player shoots them in the weak spot.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Generally averted, unless you're in a segment where you can man a machine gun turret.
  • Cool Bike: Mototerminators, which attack by ramming the player.
  • Crosshair Aware: When facing Harvesters and HK-Tanks, you will need to hit their targeted sections in time before it hits you.
  • Cranial Processing Unit: Shooting off a T-600's head instantly destroys it.
  • Crapsack World
  • Cyber Cyclops: T-7Ts. Go for the Eye to beat them easily.
  • Degraded Boss: You face an HK-Tank (the first boss) in the final area. However, you easily beat it by making the ceiling collapse on it.
  • Escort Mission: Subverted. The second mission has your "main objective" to escort humans away from the machines, but you don't have to protect them as their deaths are all scripted events. They don't even get hurt at all if you accidentally shoot them either.
    • The game even lampshades this in its "mission objectives" (technically, there's only one):
    Escort the Convoy
    Get to the Safehouse
    Protect the Humans
    DESTROY THE MACHINES
  • Fake Difficulty: There are points where it is near-impossible to avoid damage. Sometimes there may be too many Mooks, and there's not enough time to stagger those about to fire. Even a large life bar isn't going to save you from repeated occurrences of this.
  • Giant Spider Robot: Spider Mines and T-7T Tetrapods.
  • Golden Snitch: The ending you get depends on whether you manage or fail to hit all the final boss' weak points within 5 seconds.
  • Hostage Spirit-Link: Averted. You can shoot innocents, they won't even seem to get damaged, and a red X just appears over them to indicate that you shouldn't do that. This is understandable because the game is really hard.
  • Humongous Mecha: The Harvester. The HK-Tank may count as well. Getting hit by these does about a third of your life.
  • Incredibly Durable Enemies: The normal mooks (T-600, T-7Ts) can take a beating before going down. Justified because they're robots and are literally Made of Iron.
  • Lightning Bruiser: The various HK vehicles are much more agile than their movie counterparts. The aerials zoom by and do tight turns while the tanks instead of being ponderous armored towers on tracks are easily capable of keeping up with speeding trucks. Then there are the spider-legged HK models which leap and run around like freaking xenomorphs.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Both the HK-Tanks and HK-Aerials use this. The T-1 uses a less spammed variant.
  • Made of Iron: Besides the Mooks, the player is as well. Your character can probably take more damage than any other Light Gun Game player characters out there. With that said, you will need it.
  • Mecha-Mooks: Pretty much what you'll face 100% of the time, save the occasional debris.
  • Nintendo Hard: Hoo boy. Enemies give you frequent cheap shots in this game. Even your large health bar isn't going to save you from the continue screen at least five times.
  • One-Hit Kill: One of the final boss' attack phases will one-shot you regardless of health if you don't stop it in time.
  • Robot War: It is Terminator after all.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Terminators with eyes sport them.
  • Scenery Gorn: You'll be seeing lots of ruined buildings while outside.
  • Segmented Serpent: The robotic worms called Hydrobots. Attack their heads to end them.
  • SkeleBot 9000: The T-600 enemies.
  • Taking You with Me: After placing and arming the final bomb, the final Harvester (already just a head, torso and arms) latches onto your helicopter and tries to bring it down. You have to shoot its weak points within 5 seconds to make it let go, otherwise, it blows up with your helicopter.
  • Weak Turret Gun: Some of the areas feature turret guns that sprout out of the walls to attack. While relatively flimsy, they are very quick on the draw and the player must shoot them down ASAP if they do not want to get shot.
  • Zerg Rush: Most of the Terminators and machines, but especially Spider Mines.

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