Terminator 3 - War of The Machines (PC)

I heard that the latest Terminator movie get some general negative reception. Such a pity because Terminator has interesting premise to me. The game adaptation of the franchise doesn't go well either, generally. People most likely fond on the railgun shooter arcade game that's adaptation of Terminator 2. It also gets ported basically anything in 90s home console. SNES, Sega Genesis, you name it. Some adaptation is less known and relatively not famous in the form of Asymmetrical FPS made by Clever's games: Terminator 3 - War of the Machines.    

There's terminator face from the famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and that's the only charm in the main menu. I'm fine with that. As i have said before that the game is not well received. Gamespy give it 1 star out of 5. Computer Gaming World (CGW) give it 1.5 stars out of 5. PC Games (Germany) gives it score 30 out of 100. While PC Zone Benelux gives it score 67 out of 100. But i say this upfront. I really like this game. The game can have all the hate in the world and i still fancy it. Not all game that i like is good, y'know? The most deciding factor of a game to be my favorite is fun and fun is relative.

I have installed this game twice from two different source. The first version has no apparent problem. The second ones has some problems: Single Player mode that doesn't work most of the time and player's name isn't displayed properly. Otherwise the game runs fine.

This multiplayer screen menu may reminds you to classic Star Wars Battlefront 2. I can set multiple map for single play. But i stick to one map per play for my review's convenience, Also i put time limit to 20 minutes which is shorter than the default setting (30 minutes) but enough time for me to get the "standard" experience. You don't need to fiddling with these settings in single-player mode. All you need to do there is just select the map and the only game mode there is termination which is mixed between "King of The Hill" control points mode and Deathmatch because you get more score from both more conquered control points and more enemy killing. For first battle let's choose Plaza map.      

 

Those green or blue rectangles are building. That specific big green ones on the right-bottom corner is underground parking lots. To choose the human side, pick "Tech-Com" side on that small top tab. To choose Terminator side, pick "Skynet" side on that small top tab. Once you pick your side and class, you pick the control point on the map where you will spawn. Obviously, you can't spawn on Skynet's control point if you choose human and vice versa.

To be honest, my favorite class is scout which is pretty much sniper! Sniper_award03.wav    

So here i am at the base of human resistance. There's driveable jeep up ahead. But we will talk about the vehicles in detail later. For now, i say that they're human's advantage against. Human already moves faster than terminators combine with ability to drive vehicle that moves even faster is certainly huge advantage on capturing control points. However, human is more fragile than Terminators naturally.

The control is as basic as you can get. W, A, S, D keys to move. Mouse's movement to aim around. Left Mouse button to fire your weapon. R to reload your weapon.

I quickly move toward the control point on the center of the map thanks to the jeep. This white symbol indicates neutral control point and anyone can take control of it. Simply by standing near it to start capturing the point. Needless to say that the more people capturing the point, the faster the process.

This is how sniper works naturally. Let other fighting the enemies head on while the sniper take potshot at enemies from safe distance. That infiltrator unit is lucky because i have to reload before i'm able to finish the moron. To bring this scope view, simply pressing right mouse button. Also you can get out the scope view, by pressing the same button.

Eventually, i'm dead. However, being camper earns me the most frag points thus i have access to play as Arnie himself! Now that we have lots of control point, i can spawn from more than one place. Theoretically, you should spawn from the point nearest to frontline. But you can spawn from other control point either for flanking or the control point that nearby the control point is overwhelmed by the enemies and it's considered lost cause.

Heavy_mvm_say_ready03.wav

Funny that there's blue filter in the screenshot. It's supposed to be red when i'm playing the game. Fraps being funny or there's advanced setting that i miss.

What can i say about Arnie here besides he has armor/defense power of Terminator but he's on human's side?

From dozens time of playing this game, i notice unusual indicator on top of magazine icon. Turns out it's just bullet casing from my Gatling Gun. I didn't expect the game has such graphic detail.

 

Then i execute a teammate that stands still doing nothing with handgun. Soldier_DominationSoldier06.wav

I can tell that the AI is janky even with bot skill sets to expert. But that's the part of the charm, i guess.   

 

Should you runs dry on ammo, there's ammo caches on some part of the map that will regenerate your ammo if you stand near them. Usually they're located near control points like this one. I apologize for this blue filter that makes you can't see the ammo cache well. At least it's better to look than red filter that i got during my playthrough.     

There's also medkit box that regenerate your health...what the bloody hell? Enemies attacking the human base while i replenish my health. Big mistake. Because either players can't take control of their enemy's base otherwise their enemies will have no place to respawn and the game will be broken. Main base usually have bigger faction symbol than the control points, in minimap.  

On my next respawn, i spot team's scout that stuck in this manned machine gun nest. So i pull out my gun and execute him with headshot. Sniper_domination12.wav

There's other way to replenish your health and ammo, that's with provision provided by "Supply" class that i become right now. The way it works is: Supply guy can throw either box ammo or medic satchel and allies can pick it up for bit replenishment. He can replenish his own ammo or health from his own provision but it takes quite long time after dropping it so he's able to pick it up to boost health/ammo of his own. Presumably, to prioritize his allies over himself. 

Look at this spectacular sight of crash landing plane and downed palm tree. But i'm playing with danger here because i'm quite near the Terminator's main base as you can see from the minimap in right top corner. Those blasted Terminators should respawn any time now and shred my flesh with their deadly gun.

I said that i'm playing with danger by walking around near the Terminator's main base but here i am doing the same thing but in different spot. Now i'm playing as "Hunter" class that carry assault rifle with grenade launcher attachment. By pressing right mouse button, i can launch 40 mm grenade to my crosshair. Obviously, barrage from assault rifle is not enough to take down Terminators. Thus having grenade launcher certainly helpful to turn the tide of battle in your favor.  

Human have other weapon to provide advantage against Terminator: grenade! Generally, every class can have either -the usual- fragmentation grenade or EMP grenade. The former has the biggest explosion while the latter has the shorter detonation time. your teammate can be killed by the grenade's explosion, so be careful using it..

 

The terminators manage to take capture the control point in the underground parking lot. I take this position to give them bottleneck on this parking lots' entrance. Not all Terminators are slow and tough unit. This FK unit is quite opposite of it. It can flies fast and high but it can't capture control point. Bullet barrage usually enough to fell it. 

The Terminators also manage to capture control point near the human base! But we're still in the lead. Our score is higher by 277 points. I would like to purge this control point from the Terminators but let's watch this hilarity longer. Terminator the ultimate killing machine with advanced weaponry, can't kill an idiot on the machine gun nest. From behind! Also there's two Terminators that aim at him! I know i said the AI is janky but this way ridiculous! XD 

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Look at my score. I got 37 frags. Even though i killed some of my men. Killing teammate worth: -1 point. There's no score for assist. So there's no glory and award for tryhard tanks that live to assist other's frag. Suck to be them.  

This time the map is suburban which is my favorite because how simple it is. The game mode is Team Deathmatch which i never play before. Let's how well it goes.

Also i'll be Terminator for this match. T-900 Heavy to be more precise. It looks the vicious bipedal robot that we know and love(?). It has 2 weapon slots. The main weapon and holster the weapon? When the weapon is holstered, i can see ally's health and range to them. Medic_sf12_badmagic05.wav   

 

The premise of Team DM is every player spawn at random spot, they meet and kill each other. Sounds quite right in paper. But in practical, here i am sweeping the map and not encounter enemy yet. No. The one in front of me isn't human. It's the infiltrator unit. Moreover ever T-900 unit move really slow. Imagine in Team Fortress 2, you play as the slowest class: Heavy and running around the map to find enemies. That sums up the experience that i had here.    

 

Finally, humans for me to slain. PEW! BOOM! PEW! BOOM! PEW! BOOM! PEW! BOOM! They drop like flies. If the flies suddenly petrified or frozen to death then fall stiffly to the ground. That (dead) body's physics is suitable to soulless machine like Terminators. But it feels wrong if it's applied to human as well. On the other hand, this Term Cannon is awesome gun. It fires thick laser bullets that explodes on contact. It can't fire rapidly but it's still great weapon afterall.

 

I almost run out of health and ammo. The only way for me to replenish my health is: by recharging at this Terminator's base and there's only one in every map!  

 

BZZZZZT. I get shot by damned humans while i recharge my health and ammo. Very sportive, humans. [Sarcasm with average size of mushroom cloud]  

 

This is the most boring manhunt that i ever experience. I move too slow for this relatively small map. To vent my boredom, i shoots at this unmanned car. It is able to withstand very lots damage! Heavy_jeers05.wav

 

This time i will become the infiltrator unit which is not impressive. Most of its weapon is weaker than T-900 units have but stronger than what Hunter (the human class that it tries to "disguise") have which can make it distinguished over the real Hunter. Infiltrator may or may not moves slightly faster Than T-900 units. It can also change its stance to kneel/crouch.  So what's the good of being infiltrator unit?

 

Ok. I take it back. Being Infiltrator is pretty awesome because it can drives human car! I assume it can also take on passenger seat as well. However it can't operate machine gun nest so i assume it can't operate turret gun on the car as well. To change your seat, press the number key like how you change your weapon. You can see that the car physic during drifting is kind of questionable. But i manage to run over the human successfully!

I don't know why for the movie capture, the screen is in red properly whereas for the screenshot it become blue.  

 

Another class unit in Terminators is *uuggh* The FK. I hate being FK. It's so fragile. Even with the ability to float around like demented flying drone, FK sucks. Perhaps FK units are equivalent to Scout in Team Fortress 2, and i also hate being Scout.  

 

By pressing "Space Bar", FK can float up the air but it will start to fall slowly. Thus you need multiple press of "Space Bar" to make FK flies properly. Apparently, FK able to identify enemies on the screen full of red. The screenshot is to be red, i tell you.

 

I spot another human. RATATATATATAT! Bzzzzt! I'm dead. Scout_jeers10.wav

 

Turns out, FK has another weapon besides the twin laser gun. It's small rocket launcher and i got double kill by using it. Scout_cheers05.wav

 

Being FK is not totally bust but i still prefer being T-900 unit. Speaking of it, what's wrong with this one standing still perfectly? I have no choice but to execute it but it's not easy like executing human deserter because T-900 is very durable. The process is rather funny. Whenever it get hit, it bows presumably to search for whoever shot it. When it drops dead, it spawns immediately on the spot and walk casually like there is nothing wrong happened to it before.

 

Time's up and we won, again. Actually, it feels easy to win as Terminator because you can just force your way through those humans even though they have more complex warfare such as sniper or combat vehicle. The thing is human AI can't snipe properly and don't know how to operate the vehicle. They can do mounted machine gun but car, nope. They're too stupid for that. But they still lethal with rocket launcher and grenade however they like to kill themselves with those explosive weapon.

Ok, let's crank up those max player count to make this play more interesting, i put the balance of AI player in Terminator side. This time let's play "Mission" mode in Downtown map.

 

Here's the mission objectives but i can't read it in time because they vanishes so fast. I just assume, i have to do usual thing: capture control points and kill enemies.

FK most likely sniper's biggest nemesis because it moves fast. This is the rare occasion of me able to snipe a FK right in its head. Its head is the front windshield part. Scout has 2 main weapon: sniper rifle and scoped rifle. The former is the usual single-action rifle that deal largest damage per shot. While the latter is automatic rifle with scope that deal least damage per shot but has ability to rapid fire. I usually prefer the latter rifle because having ability to rapid fire allow me to defeat FK easier. Due to its low armor/defense power, any rapid-fire gun is good against it. With scoped rifle, it takes more than one headshot to kill T-900 (i think it requires 3 bullets to head instead) but that disadvantages can't be covered with the ability to rapid fire. Whereas the sniper rifle takes quite long time pause before able to fire another bullet. Also the recoil is quite big.

 

Oh no! I can't occupy this enemy's control point at all! There's no usual capturing control point icon on top of magazine icon. So my (lone) offense action is for nothing!  

So all i need to do is always on defense. This spot seems perfect for sniper camping. It's our second respawn point located on 2nd level and there's bridge between these buildings. Which mean the bridge is bottleneck for incoming enemies. For this time, i take sniper rifle because the bridge is quite narrow, preventing enemies move too much. That's not how sniper works, you bloody moron. So i kill him and let him become other class (hopefully). Sniper_DominationSniper20.wav    

 

If sniping isn't working well. I can resort to this mounted machine gun. Heavy_specialcompleted07.wav  

Only scout class has this proximity bomb which works slightly different than grenades. Once it's primed it will explode in even bigger radius than the fragmentation grenade if anyone comes near it. By anyone, i mean either ally or enemy so be careful using it. Scout can only have 2 of this devastating bomb at the time.

Suddenly, the time is over. Our score is lower...but the mission is successful? Cm_sniper_gamewon_comp_04.mp3

So all i have to do is just play defense and let the stupid ai teammates do whatever they want.

Next map is Research Lab in the usual Termination mode. But there's bit twist on it. The maps have 2 eras: future and present. So far, i played in future era where there's no restriction. But in present era, we get some restriction or handicap. For example: there will be no laser gun because it's not invented yet in present era. Make sense, right?

 

In present era, there's no T-900. Instead we got T-1 that presumably the prototype of Terminators. It's bulky. It has multiple treads  instead of 2 legs. It can only carries Gatling Gun on each arms. But in my opinion it's cool and remarkable! I want to be one of those! I'm sure Team Fortress 2's Heavy will think the same. The other unit/class of Terminator in this present era setting is *groan* FK. Despite the laser weapon restriction in this era, FK still retains its laser gun on each arm. On human's side they also only get 2 classes: Hunter and Heavy Hunter, removing Supply and Scout class. The change is remarkably boring. The most interesting part of the change is: Hunter now allowed to carry scoped rifle thus making him Semi-Sniper which is often my preference.    

That's odd. During my playthrough, the filter's screen should be cyan but it's yellowish green in the screenshot. Anyway, this is T-1 in close view. It has considerably ineffective body size but with tiny head. We get 900 ammo for both Gatling Gun! Heavy_positivevocalization01.wav

 

The manslaughter goes quite well especially if the human stupidly blown his friends and himself with grenade. Having 2 Gatling Gun seems imposing but it's balanced with reduced accuracy thus less efficient than you think. You see, the targeting HUD is wide. That circle on the center is presumably the overlapping part of bullet grouping from both Gatling Guns. There's not much strategy here except "Spray and Pray" if only The Terminators had God to worship.

I'm almost out of health so like usual i park myself on Terminator base to recharge my health. But what about my ammunition? I only have 39 left. Heavy_jeers05.wav

It seems i'm doing very well. But if you look closely, those humans have been slain by stray rocket from stupid git among the group. It was Charles Guillot. 

What's this? I replenish my ammo by standing near ammo cache that belong to human! Your carelessness for not keeping me away from your ammo supply is proven to be your huge mistake. MUAHAHAHA! Oh, i'm dead already. My health is too low back then.

I said that the twin Gatling Gun has reduced accuracy. How bad the inaccuracy is? Look at this by yourself. I unload hundreds of bullet on him (as you can see the wall behind him full with bullet holes), right in the center and he still alive. But not for long though. So far, rocket launcher is the best weapon against Terminator but it takes long time to reload after each shot. This guy is in the middle of reloading his rocket launcher and i can kill him harmlessly with my Gatling Guns because i don't need to reload it. Now that i think about it. In Team Fortress 2, Heavy can brute force his way to defeat Soldier while reloading. Heavy_award03.wav

Look at my amazing score! 78 Frags and Frag-Death Ratio 600%! Heavy_award08.wav

On the other hand, the human team has lots of minus frag score: -65! Heavy_taunts10.wav

 

Next match takes place in Canyon which is one of the largest map in the game. Terminators also have vehicle although it's only available in this map. It's this huge robot tank. Sadly, it moves slow and it's not suitable for off-road terrain. Now it's stuck on this rocky terrain and i have no choice but to ditch it. :(

I forget to show you being T-900 Supply. It only allowed to carry 1 main weapon: Plasma gun with grenade launcher attachment. It's like human hunter's assault rifle with grenade launcher attachment but with stronger main weapon and doesn't require any reloading. Unlike human supply class, T-900 Supply can only carry ammo box and doesn't have health provision. 

Finally, we get to see the Terminator Tank in action. It has Term Cannon on each arm. It's devastating weapon but it overheats very fast so you have to be careful firing these laser cannons.

Back to T-900 Heavy. I forget to tell you that if i holster my gun and there's HK that's the big Terminator plane, flies near above me (indicated by HK Plane indicator on right side HUD). I can tell it to bombard on area on the target circle by pressing left mouse button. Upon successful Airstrike order, my T-900 Heavy will say "HK deployed!". The thing is there's no indicator on the bombardment zone so it's hard to tell exactly where is the bombardment spot. Me or my ally can fell victim to the airstrike. On the another note, heavy hunter can destroy HK with his rocket launcher. I did that a lot back then.

The terminators have conquered 4 control points out of 5 and I reap lots of frag score. But i'm moved with how hopeless the human resistance, so i move to human's team. Let's how helpful i can be in this critical situation. At least if we can keep this one last control point, i consider it my win. I try the usual snipe camping but The Terminators still overwhelm us. Then i try crazy idea by ramming them with buggy car. It doesn't work well. That T-900 is so tough to crack, my car slipped and i get killed. Soldier_negativevocalization01.wav

Naturally, human lost. My frag score is 92 points, that's thanks to my kill as Terminator. I Don't get much kill when i'm in human side. With some miracle. The human's frag-death ration is the magical number: 69. Scout_sf13_magic_reac03.wav

Ok, this is the last one. As i've said before that human's advantage against Terminators is: vehicles such as buggy car, police car, and Armored Personnel Carrier. Some have mounted machine gun, rocket launcher, laser gun, or even no weapon at all. The availability of vehicle type depends on map. Like in every map, mounted weapon doesn't require ammo to fire. Instead every shot, it will fill heat bar. When it's fully filled, the weapon can't be used until it cools down for a while. This mounted rocket launcher is really powerful. You can make the rocket homing to enemy by tracking it down for a while in scope mode (with right mouse button). It also works the same way with the Heavy Hunter's rocket launcher. I think we're done here.  

As i've said before that Clever's games' Terminator 3 - War of the Machines (2003) is relatively unpopular and i can't see why. It has number of big flaws. T-900  units are too strong, making any of rapid-fire gun pretty much useless unless you fire the gun at their head.

Let me break this down for you. Humans are pretty fragile. But they move faster than any T-900. They can change their position. From standing to crouch to prone and vice versa. Although there's not much use to it except to take cover more efficiently. They can also jump that not so high. It can only be used to jump on fence or to venture uneven terrain quicker. With already faster move, humans can drive vehicle that move even faster, allowing them to capturing control point swiftly. Human has more tactical weapon such as grenades, Scout's proximity bomb, or Supply's C4 explosive. The plastic explosive explodes in even bigger radius but takes very long time to detonate. No manual detonation sadly. Should their main weapon out of ammo, they can resort to pistol but i never killed Terminators with the sidearm. I would be long dead before i can kill them with it. Keep in mind that the sidearm is in "1" slot and the main weapon is in "2" slot. The weapon slot should be the way around. But if you can get used to it, you will have no problem about it. Health kit and ammo cache can be found basically everywhere on human' side of the map or hidden in secret corridor. When human get hit, the screen shakes. Standard for nowadays FPS. If you're on map with open sky, you should be careful with HK airstrike. The fear of laser airstrike makes the game intense and fun.

On the other side is Terminators. T-900 Heavy carries lethal weapons and it can withstand lots of punishment but it moves slow. It's the only Terminator that can call down HK airstrike if it's available. Calling airstrike probably the most tactical mean in Terminator's side. T-900 Supply carries fairly less lethal weapon but still force to be reckoned with. Unlike Human supply, T-900 Supply can only carry ammo provision. Infiltrator probably carries the least dangerous weapon: human's rapid-fire weapon. But as i mentioned before, i just discover that it can drive human vehicle. Making it more mobile than T-900 if it can get its hand on any steering wheel. Unlike T-900, Infiltrator can crouch but that's not so useful feature in my opinion. FK is the fastest and the most mobile class in this game but it can't capture control point. It's also the most fragile unit. It serves as point man bot, scouting ahead before the main force (which is T-900 units) advance. It also serves as anti sniper thanks to its high agility. Its arsenal is quite pack a punch especially the rocket. The only recharging point for Terminators is in the main base. FK probably can reach it in decent pace (provided if it's not blown up yet) but the other most likely can reach it in time because they move so slow. Unlike human, Terminators don't have any sidearm. So if they are out of ammo, they might as well as dead. The developer should give them ability to punch if their ammo depleted. If Terminators get hit, the screen goes glitchy filled with the "dust", "dandruff", "snow" or whatever is that you like to call.   

On to general gameplay. The hit detection is fairly decent. The reload system is unusual but realistic where you don't keep the ammo within removed magazine. They just gone forever. The reload based on number magazine rather than number of ammo in detail. So if you're player who like to reload often (like me), you have to be really careful on when you have to reload your gun or at least do it less often than usual. For those who love gun that fire rapidly, the game has bunch of them. Assault Rifle, Light Machine Gun, Laser gun, and Gatling Gun. Also you don't have to worry about recoil that affects your accuracy. All the rapid fire gun have constant projectile grouping. Flak Cannon (the Gatling gun in this game) feels has the worse bullet grouping. Generally bullets deal less damage than laser projectile. But it doesn't matter much if you go for headshot against T-900. Actually, i strongly recommend you to fire whatever gun that you currently have at T-900's head because their body is hardy against anything except explosives. Which can be fitting to the Terminator setting. Humans have more variety on loadout than Terminators, so they can have more sub-classes. For example: hunter probably has the least variety on main weapons because both of them are assault rifle. The M4 carbine has more ammo capacity on each magazine (60 bullets) but less reserve magazines. While the futuristic boxy assault rifle has less ammo capacity (30 bullets) on each magazine but more reserve magazines. However, at least they're quite distinctive in visual. As i've said before that the laser gun (or plasma gun) is more powerful than the conventional firearm but it has less reserve ammo. Do you notice i didn't mention shotgun here? That's because there's none. Shotgun could be effective to destroy Terminators in close range but sadly there's none. 

There's little music in this game. There's one if you reach critical time (5 minutes left before end). Then there's different victory tune for Human resistance and Terminator. The sound effect is pretty alright. The graphic is fairly good. The AI bot is as simple as you get: (try to) go to control point and engaging enemies. The bots don't know how to be sniper properly, drive vehicle, and throwing provisions. They also suck at throwing grenade. Quite often they hit themselves. No wonder they work better as Terminators than as human resistance. Speaking of vehicle, the car control is serviceable. But if you do drifting so hard, the car will start to turn over.  

I can name other competitive FPS that better than Terminator 3 - War of the Machines (2003). Team Fortress 2 (with better yet balanced arsenal), Quake 3 Arena (with stronger weapon overall and faster pace), modern Battlefield 1 (with larger scale war and more various warfare), or Classic Star Wars Battlefront 2 (with better ammo & health recharge and there's shotgun!). Although the basic gameplay is ok, the game is imbalance and has so many things that go wrong. Nonetheless it's still appealing to me. I can recommend you to play this game if you have huge tolerance toward stupid AI human and red filter over your entire screen. I don't think it's good for your eyes. At some point i will review classic Star Wars Battlefront 2. Look forward to it!