Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a 2003 First-Person Shooter based on the 2003 film of the same name. The game was developed by Black Ops Entertainment (who had previously made the Playstation 1 versions of the James Bond tie-in FPS games Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough, as well as Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror) and published by Atari. It was released on the 6th generation platforms the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox. PC players instead got a completely different game, Terminator 3: War of the Machines, a Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory inspired multiplayer game featuring battles between Skynet and Tech-Com.
The game is a very typical "The Game of the Movie" experience, with extensive use of clips from the film and fairly simplistic gameplay. The game was poorly received due to its perceived low quality, and was later followed by Terminator 3: The Redemption in 2004, a Third-Person Shooter/driving game/rail shooter with a higher budget that tells a heavily remixed version of the Terminator 3 story. A demo version of Redemption's first level is included as part of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
The video game provides examples of:
- Action Bomb: Inside the time displacement base are a number of Roomba-like wheeled drones that zoom towards you and explode on impact. They can take quite a lot of shots and can be tough to destroy before they bomb you.
- Adaptation Expansion: Only the last 1/3rd of the game follows the events of the film (most likely because the T-850's inability to kill humans severely limits the potential for levels set in 2003). The first 2/3rds involve the T-850 fighting his way through the Future War setting in order to reach the time displacement chamber and travel back to 2003.
- A.I. Breaker: In the fighting game boss fights, your running tackle attack hits 100% of the time; the enemy A.I. will only block it if you try to use it 3 times in a row. So you can easily cheese any boss by performing 2 running tackles followed by 1 running throw, over and over until the boss dies. Given how
Nintendo Hard the later T-X boss fights can be, with plenty of The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard, this technique may very well be necessary to beat the game. - Art Shift: The first 2/3rds of the game use prerendered CG cutscenes, due to being set in the Future War setting which wasn't covered in the film. Once the game switches over to 2003, it starts using a mix of live action footage from the film and CG cutscenes.
- Camera Lock-On: Instead of aiming-down-sights or zooming in, the "zoom" button instead causes you to automatically lock onto the closest enemy, immediately pointing your weapon at it. This is just as well, since the game's manual aiming is quite bad, with a huge sensitivity deadzone and speed acceleration.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Green T-900s are the more basic mooks armed with plasma smgs, yellow T-900s dual wield plasma smgs and have about 50% more health, while red T-900s have roughly double health and are equipped with assault cannons.
- Escort Mission: In the last Future War level before the time displacement base, you have to escort a Tech-Com technician to a computer terminal. This can be tough since the terminal is guarded by a bunch of fliers and mini-tanks and the tech has a bad habit of running ahead of you and getting himself killed. Likewise, during the masoleum level you have to escort John Connor and nonlethally take out the S.W.A.T. teams who seem hellbent on riddling the unarmed John full of lead.
- Game Within a Game: Two classic Atari games can be unlocked by finding their arcade cabinets in the game's levels. The games are the thematically appropriate Missile Command (which even appears in the films) and Centipede.
- Informed Attribute: According to the manual or strategy guide, the T-900s are supposedly an improvement over the old T-800 series, being tougher and more powerful. This absolutely does not come across in-game, where they die to just a few plasma rifle shots and you mow through them by the dozens. In fact a basic T-900 can only survive slightly more damage than a human Tech-Com soldier. The only non-T-X Terminator that's able to match you one-on-one is another T-850 unit.
- Knee-capping: The player can deal with the SWAT by shooting them in the knees (or arms) to incapacitate them.
- King Mook: At the end of the first time displacement base level you have to fight an abnormally strong mini-tank to finish the level. It has no boss health bar or anything to let you know it's stronger than normal, and your only indication is the fact you dump you entire mag into it and it still doesn't die.
- Mecha-Mooks: Because Terminator 3 had Arnold's likeness but not the rights to the T-800 Endoskeleton design, your primary enemy in the Future War levels are T-900s, which visually have the much sleeker lines of the T-X rather than the T-800's more industrial dieselpunk design. They're also quite easily killed, going down after only a handful of shots from basic weapons.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: This game was developed concurrently with Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror and seems to be based on similar code, both being First Person Shooters with fighting game style boss fights.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: Nope. The shotgun only does a little over twice the damage per shot of the assault rifle, despite having a considerably lower rate of fire and mag size. There's absolutely no reason at all to use it.
- SNK Boss: The T-X's bare endoskeleton Final Boss form has massively boosted health and can either perfectly counter your attacks or straight up hit you through them. Fortunately, she's still vulnerable to the A.I. Breaker listed above.
- Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: Human Resistance members take 3 shots from the plasma assault cannon to kill; the green T-900s only take 4 shots. Even the T-1s in the present day can be blown up with just 8 rounds of assault rifle fire.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change:
- Besides the FPS gameplay, there are a handful of fighting game style boss fights, the 1st is a Mirror Match against a Skynet-loyal T-850 and the remainder are against the T-X in 2003.
- One level later in the game is a flashback to before the T-850 was reprogrammed in which you fight through the human Resistance on behalf of Skynet.
- Universal Ammo: Your two basic ammo types are ammunition and energy. About 2/3rds of your guns use ammo, and the other 1/3rd use energy. Run out of both ammo types and your guns all become useless. A very extreme example, the sniper rifle which kills T-900s in 1 shot and the basic plasma rifle which takes several shots to kill both cost the same amount of ammo to shoot. There are also plasma grenades and rockets for more specialized weapons such as the underslung grenade launcher on the plasma rifle, or the missile launcher.
- Video-Game Lives: Each game session gives you 3 continues which allow you to immediately revive after death with no loss of progress. Extra continues can be found hidden in the levels. Continues can be wasted if you try to use them in the fighting game sections, as in those levels they're no different than simply restarting the mission.
