Halcyon adapting Terminator for new game

by Justin McElroy { Nov 16th 2007 at 11:50AM }

If you're looking at it objectively, Terminator should be the best video game license in the known universe. It's a story about a robot who travels through time to kill other robots. Doesn't that just scream GOTY? Puzzlingly though, the franchise has had mixed success in its interactive form. Now it seems a new, untested publisher will be taking the reins, and fans can expect the streak of disappointing Terminator games to finally ... continue.

Halcyon, the studio that picked up the rights to Terminator, is working on a new game based on their upcoming film Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. Both are due in mid-2009. Both are also their first projects, but we already know one thing they're bad at: Naming things. ... Oh, and filling us with confidence. So, two things.

Tags: halcyon, terminator

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

gonk @ Nov 16th 2007 11:53AM

wtf a new terminator movie? wasn't number 3 bad enough?

ugh

FrankTheCrank @ Nov 16th 2007 11:57AM

They should have stopped at T2...

Unfortunately, Cameron doesn't own the story anymore, it belongs to the studios and they will milk those teets dry.

angryguy77 @ Nov 16th 2007 11:58AM

If people stopped buying these horrible movie games, it would force them to get better

Korova @ Nov 16th 2007 11:59AM

This one is gonna be with governator and stallone, enjoying their retirement in a junk yard, playing the Wii!

Dan Parmelee @ Nov 16th 2007 12:01PM

Best Terminator game ever was the side scrolling arcade game "T2" with the plastic machine guns...holy sh*t did I pump lots of quarters into that thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day_%28arcade_game%29

TomCo @ Nov 16th 2007 12:08PM

The best use of the Terminator licence was Robocop VS Terminatior on the mega drive.

Still totally playable to this day.

Chris @ Nov 16th 2007 12:03PM

The new Terminator movie is being directed by the director of the Charlie's Angels films!!!!

Seriously, WTF is wrong with Hollywood? Why don't they look at a film like, Children of Men and think, "this guy should do Terminator" not, "Wow Charlie's Angels is basically Terminator with chicks!"

FrankTheCrank @ Nov 16th 2007 1:37PM

Greedy producers and studios look at the bang, bang, tits and ass....they don't care about the story. They just have some halfwit create a sub standard plot and then they roll.

The beauty of Terminator is the story....machines overtaking man, man trying to conquer machine, the time travel element and the occasional ka-boom!

The whole Charlie's Angel director just proves my point. It's going to suck so bad and probably go straight to DVD....hopefully HD DVD.

Rubang B (BRUSH WITH FAME) @ Nov 16th 2007 5:41PM

Don't tease me with your "What if Cuarón made a new Terminator" stories man. That hurts. Some of us are painfully stuck in reality.

NATO_Duke @ Nov 16th 2007 12:06PM

"It's a story about a robot who travels through time to kill other robots." = second best game idea.

First best game idea is a 'Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future' who travels through time to tell long drawn out stories while killing other robots.

(You're welcome ATHF fans)

DammitBran @ Nov 16th 2007 12:10PM

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO...

Long before Sigourney Weaver.

angryguy77 @ Nov 16th 2007 12:51PM

this will take awhile, you might want to get some snacks

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Nov 16th 2007 1:01PM

And no smoking! Gimme a smoke! Gimme a smoke! Gimme a smoke! Gimme a smoke! Gimme a smoke!

NATO_Duke @ Nov 16th 2007 1:15PM

Toys were made into recognizable shapes and given names like "train," but these toys were also thrown at predators and defecated upon because they were so stupid.

Howard-the-Duck @ Nov 16th 2007 12:10PM

The new TV series doesn't look that bad, actually.

Steve @ Nov 16th 2007 12:12PM

If anybody remembers the HORRIBLE Terminator game for the PC from like 10 or 12 years ago, you'd not be too excited about this one.

rallion @ Nov 16th 2007 12:39PM

I remember *A* Terminator game, from about that time. Vaguely. I think it was a first-person thing, where you had to go into stores to buy guns...and try real hard to figure out what the hell you were supposed to do, because at the time you were like eight years old.

rallion @ Nov 16th 2007 12:43PM

Okay, I meant the FIRST Terminator game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator_%28DOS%29

Just look which company made it! Oh, how things have changed.

Between 1990 and 1996, looks like there were SIX Terminator games for PC. SIX! And an expansion pack!

stik_man @ Nov 16th 2007 1:00PM

such a good idea for a game... so flawed in it's development.

terminator is way past the scope of just about all developers. To much work to implement any fun time travel gameplay.

Devs should just give up on this game.

Grindstone @ Nov 16th 2007 1:06PM

Poor Arnie, looking a bit old in that pic. Maybe they'll CGI him since his anatomy isn't holding up well these days.

JonFitt @ Nov 16th 2007 1:10PM

Futureshock, and Skynet were both good Terminator games. One of the first truly 3d fps's with mouselook.
You could get into vehicles to fly or drive. The jeep was fun, much like a warthog.
It was way ahead of the competition with it's huge almost free roaming areas, and very atmospheric. Being hunted by the Goliath or HKs was scary if you didn't have any good weapons.
I would play a sequel to those.

gonk @ Nov 16th 2007 1:28PM

it would be totally awesome if you started out as a terminator in the future and had to research your enemies, then go back in time and try to find their ancestors and eliminate them. make it kind of like assassin's creed but with guns and it could be so awesome

JonFitt @ Nov 16th 2007 3:17PM

That's a bit too far from the story though.
You have 2 aspects of a Terminator movie/game
Trying to escape/destroy an unstoppable machine that is way more technically advanced than you and laughs at your puny weapons.
Or
Trying to survive against hoards of machines in a war ravaged future where humanity is hunted to almost extinction, and while you can destroy some of them, there numbers are vast and they constantly evolve new ways to infiltrate and destroy you.

A game where you play as a Kyle Reese character would be good. Some sci-fi missions with plasma guns, with you transported to 1984 in the middle, and then trying to save Sarah and destroy Arnie.

However, the modern day part of Terminator films just doesn't work as a game, you've got;
Lots of running away levels.
Lots of escort missions with lots of running away.
One final beat the boss level.
Urgh.

stik_man @ Nov 16th 2007 1:24PM

I want a terminator game with 5-10 layer levels of time travel ranging from the 1980's - 2050. with an open GTA style world with no clear mission objectives, Other than save the world. with layer levels overlaping in story and and framework.

So for example: you travel back to 1980 and find a homeless boy who is cold.after traveling back to 2030 you find out this boy is dead. You find a jacket in the time of 1990 and then jump back to 1980 to give this boy a jacket. Travel to 2030 and find out he's still dead. you jump back to 2020 and have to escort this boy through a war time mission so that he doesn't die. jump back to 2030 and find out he's still dead. he died of pnemonia. so it's back to the 1980's for some penicelin. and then back to 2025 and give him the medicine. Finaly back in 2030 the boy has opened an item shop where you can purchase the most powerful weapon in the game. But you learn that he killed John connors future wife back in 2000 in a burglary incident so now you have to choose weither you want the powerful weapons or if you want to go back and kill him to save JC's wife.

And thats just 1 insignificant option. 1000's of interconnected overlaping events. spanning 5-10 layers of time. with 100's of endings and 1000's of hours of game play. ridiculous secrets, and 100's of story arcs.

I don't want to play if it's any less than that.

JonFitt @ Nov 16th 2007 3:09PM

You just want a proper time traveling game.

That's nothing to do with the Terminator

Rubang B (BRUSH WITH FAME) @ Nov 16th 2007 5:57PM

Please take over the world and make that game for me.

Erock @ Nov 16th 2007 1:51PM

The third one could have been WAY better. They are going to have to really outdo themselves for the 4th one, and for another game to make any money.

ares04 @ Nov 16th 2007 5:26PM

I can't wait to see the next movie. But how are there're going to do a Terminater movie without Arnold? I hope this game is better than the last one. There're many unanswered questions like, how fucked up is the future? and is there an army of robots as powerful as the Terminater?

http://www.ares04.com