Game: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
System: SNES
OH MY GOSH. I love this game. This game took about 2 hours to beat. This was one of those games that I hold dear to my heart. It was one of my earlier ones from my past, and what makes this special is the fact that it is hard as hell to beat. If you've ever played this game you'll know that once you are dead....you are DEAD. Game over. Correct, there are no save points in this game. You will also know that it REALLY SUCKS that there are no save points. Basically the game starts you out at a location where you go around and gather terminator head objects. At the same time there are police, bad guys, (later) terminators, and T1000 chasing you around the place trying to kill you. This really isn't that big of a deal until much later where you have to destroy an entire building, but the part that sucks enormously is the DRIVING. Between stages you have to drive to the next stage. OMG THIS SUCKS ASS. Police cars and motorcycles are chasing you. A. if you hit them too many times you blow up and DEAD. Game over. B. the map is enormous, so you have to know where you are driving to get to the next stage. It is super frustrating because 75% of the time you are lost and by the time you realize where you are you've been hit so many times you are dead. Game over. Sigh, I did beat it though and trust me it was quite a celebration. 20 something years later and I finally beat this game. I hate you creator of this impossible game.
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You start the game here where you run around the bar killing pretty much everyone. You are looking for the terminator heads and picking up as much guns as you can. The more amusing things to do at this part is to get the shotgun and just shotgun absolutely everything that moves. You waste bullets but oh is it fun to do! My favorite part is shotguning the motorcyclists. Heh, they fall and the bike goes up in flames. Also, good luck realizing you have to look up at the telephone booth above. The game gave you absolutely no hints at doing this.
And then we are at my most favorite part ever.....the driving shit. In the beginning parts of the game you drive around as a motorcycle. Not a lot of police cars chase you at this point but the bad motorcyclists do. You will learn to absolutely hate this driving. Again, the map is enormous and the little directional shits on the top right are horrible at telling you where to go. Sigh, I hate this part with a passion. Driving from the bar to John's house is not that bad but later on it really sucks.
Then you arrive at John's house. This place isn't that bad at all. You run around and pick up terminator heads but the suck part is the fact that you have to check every damn drawer or closet for a driver's license. Why? I don't know but no one told me that so I spent forever figuring out what to do. Also, destroy the alarm outside. -_- If you don't then the cops will be everywhere. It's annoying.
Woohoo! And we are driving after retrieving all needed items. This driving takes you to the mall!!! I can't remember why...wait yes I do...you go to the mall to pick up John. As usual the driving sucks ass.
This place is actually a pretty cool place. The trick about this place is the fact that if you maneuver around the mall and never kill anyone...no one will attempt to kill you. Don't shoot anyone. Don't accidently kill anyone. Just retrieve the terminator heads, grab the machine gun upstairs, and get John. After that high tail it out of there. There is an obstacle that tends to fuck your shit up. T1000 shows up in the arcade portion. He spends most of the time trying to kill you and make you shoot him. This always leads to accidently killing someone and next thing you know the police are everywhere making this level a pain in the ass.
NOW, if you are me...you can immediately find the grandma walking and shoot the hell out of her. Sometimes doing this level is fun killing every innocent person in the game. I tend to blow up every car in the garage, break every glass window, and just kill everything in sight. If you make it out alive then congratulations! You've made the level unnecessarily difficult and survived! (Don't forget to go up the escalators in the wrong direction. He looks like an idiot. Hilarious. :-P)
Driving again!!! I love it. Shit. You head to the hospital next. Now the secret with this driving is the fact that you don't have to hit anything when driving. Just accelerate and lean back in the chair. The bike will take you straight to the hospital. No turning necessary.
And let the bullshit begin. This point the game begins to suck. You end up at the hospital where the police are already trying to kill you. The issue here is the fact that you have to do 3265432 things to complete the mission. First: you must find all of the terminator heads. This is bullshit because there are like 6-7 floors in this hospital. You can either take the stairs or the elevator. On each floor there are tons of rooms that you have to go through to find the heads. It takes forever especially when everyone is shooting at you and you have T1000 bitch ass on your tail. Second: you are having John's dumbass following you. He has a health meter so not only are you dying from everyone killing you he is too. Third: you have to find Sarah Connor. She is located in one of the 100 rooms.
This level truly is a pain in the ass. I usually have John stand somewhere near the entrance while I run around and find everything. I guess the only good thing about Sarah is the fact that she shoots at people. Its a pathetic gun but....meh.
After that horribleness you are back to driving but OMG this is THE WORST PART EVER. My entire childhood consisted of dying trying to drive to the next destination. This time you are a police car and you are driving out into the desert. Its a pain because the desert is long and its a huge maze. Also there are way too many cop cars that hit you. I used to ALWAYS die. My dad used to play this game and he would die here as well. Remember, this was back before the days of internet where I could just get the directions to the next destination. Ugh, this part brings back nightmares.
And if you do manage to get all the way out here to this place then GREAT. Get ready for a lot of T1000. You start out outside next to a shed. All is calm and great. You discover there is a hatch that you can blow up and go down inside. Once you are down in there you find the mother load of ammunition. That is when T1000 starts to kill you at every turn. Not only that but stupid asses are dropping grenades down the hatch blowing shit up while you are down there. Since this place is full of amo....everything explodes. Watch out because you can easily kill yourself down there. Your main objective is to pick up the big massive gun thing that I don't know the name of. It is very powerful. You also need to pick up the TNT for some other mission later on. The level is short and sweet but when you have explosives everywhere and you don't really know what you are after it becomes hectic. Once at the top you'll find 2387592 police officers. Run like hell to the end and you'll be fine.
MORE BULLSHIT DRIVING YAY.
After driving you end up at this bitch's house. What you do here is find Miles Dyson and something important in one of the drawers of cabinets. I forgot what it said it was when I found because I clicked out of it so quickly but...YOU NEED IT. It took me nearly dying trying to find it too because at this house the police have been upgraded to NINJAS. Yes, ninjas are attacking from the windows and everywhere. I'm pretty sure that is not what they intended to suggest but they look exactly like ninjas.
Yeah....ninja.
So once you get past this little stage which was not too difficult you go back to yes...you guessed it...driving. Most of the driving is near you because once you got out of the desert you end up back where your previous location was. It wasn't too difficult for me to get to the next location.
This shit. This level is the biggest bullshit level of them all in this game. This is when all hell breaks loose and you become beyond frustrated because after getting this far the last thing you need is something nearly impossible. When I die here I give up for a long time with this game because it takes forever to get back here. Let me explain what bullshit has to go down at this bitch house.
A. Make sure Sarah and John do not die.
B. Collect terminator heads.
C. Retrieve robot hand...I think. Again...I hit something and the game liked it. I was near a robot hand.
D. Find secret location to place TNT you found in the desert.
E. Destroy most of the building by shooting at everything.
F. Avoid dying by everything shooting at you.
DO YOU REALIZE HOW DIFFICULT THIS IS??? I was so totally cool and alive when I played but OH MY GGGGGG I could not find this "secret spot" to put the TNT. It's somewhere in the building. What the hell? When you do find it a big red box happens to indicate this is the spot...but then what? How the hell am I supposed to know a TNT thing is supposed to go there? Red square pointing out nothing at all significant on the wall of one of the rooms DOES NOT INFORM ME OF DOING ANYTHING. Its not something you push and place either...I think. I don't know. All I know is that when I found the spot to place the TNT I hit every button on the controller and walked, jumped, shot, etc all over this location until he put the TNT down.
That doesn't even explain the bullshit of destroying the majority of the building. Yes, you have to shoot literally everything in the building. Keep in mind the robots and crap shooting you make you take SERIOUS damage. There is this tank that shoots at you that drops your health enormously. Robot shits on the ceiling are shooting at you. Actual terminator robots are shooting at you. I'm telling you...this level is the ultimate bullshit. When I was a kid I once got here and was ecstatic. I died nearly instantly.
To place more bullshit on top of bullshit....once you place the TNT you are timed. YOU ARE FUCKING TIMED. Who the hell can think about time when you are being shot by everything and have to shoot everything. Omg this stage is a miracle if you can win. I don't know how I did it. I just shot everything and took my sweet ass time. Once that TNT was placed I ran like hell out of there not giving a shit if I was almost dying. Good luck with this one my friend. Lucky for you there is only the final level after this.
Yes, driving is next.
Then you end up at the warehouse where you will fight T1000. I didn't think this level was all that difficult. The only things here were T1000 shooting you any chance he had and actual terminator robots shooting you. Other than that you wandered around collecting terminator heads and avoiding the annoying hook that pushed you all over the screen. The lava drops falling from the ceiling were annoying too. Good luck figuring out that you need to knock T1000 off of the side into the lava pit down below. I never would have guessed that in a million years unless it accidently happened. I was lucky it did.
FINAL BOSS: T1000
I honestly did not expect this boss. All he does is shoot lava drops at you. Granted yes they are very fast falling and extremely rapid but...what? I felt like I jumped into a donkey kong game or Mario game. All you do is avoid the falling lava and shoot the hell out of the melting T1000. You really need to avoid the lava though because they do a hell of a lot of damage. One wrong move where you end up walking into 3 or 4 of them can almost bring your health halfway down. Other than that I didn't find him all that difficult. Once you get used to the maneuvering just shoot him until he blows up. That's it.
It was a good game and extremely intense as far as difficulty goes but I'm not going to lie...I don't think I'll be playing this again. It is a childhood game that I cherish but it is too long and a pain in the ass. I don't think I can do it again. Heh, after writing this I am kind of feeling like playing this but NO...I can't stand the driving and the cyberdyne building. Try it out if you want but get ready for a very high frustration trip. It'll take a few game overs to figure out what you are doing.
Best Terminator ever!!! Summer Glau I see you!! I miss this series but that might be because I am an enormous Summer Glau fan. Firefly, Terminator, you name it. She is the best actress ever. And her looks...................I see you. Anyways, sorry...that was a tangent. I just wish there was a Summer Glau terminator game. Everyone tends to forget she plays a role in the Terminator saga. Love her!!!
