Terminator 2: Judgment Day

He said he'd be back and he is! He's the Terminator, and he wants to help John and Sarah Connor, although you may not want to help him.

Steel Deal

In T2: Judgment Day, your mission is to find and locate John Connor and his mother, Sarah. You must also destroy the Cyberdyne building, which houses the memory chips for the Terminators, all while trying to avoid the T-1000, who's trying to kill John. Sounds like your social calender is filled for the day.

You start by swinging your fists, but you eventually trade up to a gun. Unfortunately, there's only one gun, unlike T2 for the SNES or Genesis where you power up different guns. There are also no driving sequences, and the Connors don't follow you around after you find them. You'll look for the Connors at the Hospital, and travel through Cyberdyne and the Steel Mill, as well as fight past security guards, hospital orderlies, and the deadly T-1000.

Platinum Pee Wee

The graphics in T2 are small and poorly defined. You can't see any detail in the characters, and very few in the backgrounds. Telling the Cyberdyne labs apart from the hospital is pretty hard.

The music and sounds in this cart should have been terminated. There's nothing familiar or even mood-enhancing here.

Hasta La Vista

The basic theme here is to walk through levels and to shoot anything that twitches. It's not very imaginative, but that shouldn't be a problem, since because your brain will be bored into numbness by the end of the first level. We've seen this side-scrolling run-and-shoot countless times before. If you're that hard-up for fun, this is the last action-hero cart you'd want to see.

ProTips:

• Keep track of what floor you're on in the hospital. It's easy to get lost Check every room carefully, too. There are 1-ups strewn everywhere.
• Sometimes it's better (and safer) to just duck into the nearest room when the T-1000 appears.
• To knock off the first boss, nm up to him, hit him, then nm away. Five hits later you've got one knocked-out boss and you're on to the next stage.

Mission: Find John Connor and terminate the T-1000. This can mean only one thing -- the Terminator is back! Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger in mega-hit movie, Terminator 2 by Acclaim let's you assume the role of the model T-800 robot warrior and set out across five levels to save John Connor from another Terminator.

There's No Fate But What We Make

There's plenty of variety in the action and the scenery. You begin by rampaging the nearest truck stop to search for a weapon, transportation, boots, and clothes. You then face off with a level boss.

After "persuading" the biker to relinquish his Harley, you race against the T-1000 in a semi-trailer. Use the ten gauge shotgun you acquired in Level One to blow open the gates and keep the truck off your tail!

Win the race and rescue John and his mother, Sarah. Now you're on to Level Three. Here at John's request, you must stop your enemies without killing them.

It's Terminator against Terminator in Level Five. Once you confront the T-1000, you'll see what makes him an advanced prototype. His slick method of escape is to change forms via the Mimetic Polyalloy (liquid metal) he's constructed with.

The Final Frontier

As long as Arnold keeps promising to be back and companies, like Acclaim, keep producing games like this, gamers are in good shape. Let's hope "Ahnuld" returns for T3. Until then, you can rest assured that this game packs good looks and a great challenge. Get terminated!

THE BIG MOVIE ON THE LITTLE SCREEN

Another excellent movie title has arrived. Terminator 2 is here and it's ready for play on the Gameboy. Even though the game play is pretty fast, there is still little on-screen blurring. The cinema art is cool, and besides its action theme, it also has a puzzle theme to it as well. Connect the lines to make a circuit and reprogram the Terminator in the second level; you must do this before your time runs out. Terminator 2 will challenge the speed of your fingers, and the strength of your mind, there is also a variety of enemies and obstacles to overcome. You liked the movie, now here's the game.

He said he'd be back, and here he is! Arnold Schwarzenegger's box-office smash will hit the Game Gear later this fall. As a T-8000 Terminator, you fight to save the future through four levels of multi-scrolling shoot-em-up action to a final showdown with the liquid-metal T-1000. This game will also be released for Super NES and Genesis.

First there was T2: The Arcade Game with the Menacer, now there is T2: Judgment Day! This game is more along the plot of the movie, with each level based on a scene from the hit flick. You control the T-800, and you must protect John Connor from the menacing T-1000 that can melt itself into any form. There are several vertical- and horizontally-scrolling levels, including some overhead perspective driving sequences to take you from place to place. However, the T-800 has a limited power supply that gets diminished with each hit it takes. You start with your power at 100 percent. Once that is explored, there is a backup power supply that gives you 50 percent more power. Give your power meter a boost by finding some of the recharger items hidden in the levels. There are also plenty of weapons to find needing ammunition, like shotguns and machine guns, so find the ammo to keep them reloaded! If John Connor is killed anywhere during the game, you will be transported back to the future and the game will end. Save the world with a Terminator in T2: Judgment Day, or face a nuclear fate.

LJN Brings The Terminator To The Nintendo

Where do video games come from? More importantly, where do creative ideas for video games come from? Some of them come from the movies. And one of the biggest video game companies has taken this idea of using movies as a basis for their games and have released a number of popular NES game titles based on blockbuster motion pictures. Beetlejuice, Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure, Back to the Future and Total Recall are just some of the games that Acclaim/LJN have converted into Nintendo games from those movie counterparts. Acclaim/LJN are now busy at work with another movie to game conversion with possibly one of the most expensive, action packed pictures to corns from Hollywood: Terminator 2!

I'll Be Back...

Terminator 2 continues the story of a desolate future where machines rule the earth and hunt down any human who gets in their way. As explained in the first Terminator movie, a savior named John Connor has the power to destroy the rule of machines and set the enslaved, continually massacred human race free. However, the machines are aware of this possibility and have developed a time machine to send a robot, known as a Terminator, back in time to eliminate John's mother, Sarah Connor, before she can even give birth to this savior. The first movie was an action packed, gun blasting pyrotechnically filled picture with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the part of the ruthless, unemotional robot relentlessly tracking Sarah Connor.

The movie ends with the Terminator biting the dust and Sarah Connor being victorious.

Several years have passed since then and the Terminator has become a cult movie favorite, especially popular within the video rental market.

James Cameron, the writer/director of the first picture, recognized this unending interest in his movie along with Carolco, the company producing the Terminator sequel, and are bringing anxious Terminator fans an exciting continuation of the story titled with great plot, non-stop action and wild and very costly special effects. In fact, the film is reportedly going to be one of the most expensive movies ever made, with total costs exceeding the $110 million mark!

As for the actual story, we don't want to spoil it for you. What we can say is that Terminator 2 continues the manhunt for John Connor. In this movie, John is a young boy who is yet unaware of where his destiny lies. This time, two Terminators have been sent back to find him. One of them is there to protect, the other is there to destroy. As with the first, heart pounding high-tension action scenes are present throughout Terminator 2, along with the idea of playing with time travel, mans driving spirit to survive and finally defeat over the machines which he helped create.

Terminator 2: The Video Game

According to Paul Samulski, Vice President of Creative Product Development and Licensing at Acclaim/UN, "We have two major criteria that must be met before we accept a movie license for game conversion, those being the gameplay possibilities offered by the story and the license value and visibility of title. Since the first Terminator movie is such a classic, we knew the license 4 value was there. And after reading the script, our design team was overflowing with ideas for a videogame." Having met those two important needs, Acclaim/LJN acquired the rights from Carolco to produce a videogame based on Terminator 2 and went straight to work. "The first item we had to consider of the movie to videogame treatment was which scenes should be in the game and which scenes had to be dropped. We decided that a Nintendo gamer would find more play value in the action and driving sequences in the movie as opposed to the scenes containing heavy dialog, so we began designing a large portion of the game around those two aspects." Paul continued to point out that it was important for Acclaim/LJN to be careful not to upset the flow of the picture. "We want the player to enjoy the game as much as they enjoyed the movie, as if they were the movie characters themselves. It was important to prevent fragmentation of the storyline so that the game follows the movie as closely as possible. Because of this, the ending in the videogame is the same as the ending of the movie (if you can get there), and we think game players will be completely satisfied with the way we've integrated that aspect into our Terminator 2 game."

Acclaim/LJN is quick to point out that there will be a few surprises in the game as well. In fact, the GameBoy version of the Terminator 2 will be based on one portion of the movie that goes on a tangent from that idea. Paul explained that it was important not to simply repeat what already exists on the NES version. "We feel that GameBoy owners are also NES owners and rather than give them the exact same game that they own for their NES, we are creating a whole new Terminator 2 game for GameBoy players."

Movie Treatment Considerations

After determining which scenes would be ideal for entertaining game play, Acclaim/LJN then had to decide which portions of their ideas could be successfully translated into the 8-bit NES brain.

Paul explains, "With all of our game ideas, we start off big and then shrink it down. This gives us a healthy approach to keeping the game as full as possible while giving our programming staff a real challenge to include all of our ideas. Of course, we have a limited number of sprites and colors on the NES so we have to make decisions regarding styles of action and color palettes to work with. To this end, Acclaim/LJN assures us that they will maximize the potential of the 8-bit system, which they feel still has quite a lot to offer players. Also, the NES 8-bit hardware is effective at horizontal scrolling and first person perspectives and luckily, those are the requirements we intended the Terminator 2 game to encompass."

Another difficult decision for any NES game producer to make is who they intend their target audience to be. If the game is designed with younger players in mind, it would be a cake walk for more experienced joystick jockeys. And if the game were made for the seasoned gamer, the younger crowd would not enjoy the frustration associated with intense high level game play. One solution to this problem is to include a number of subtleties which may not be noticed by less experienced players but will be appreciated by advanced gamers. Parallax scrolling effects, additional bits of animation, layered backgrounds and the like are all design tricks incorporated especially for the older NES players.

Still, as 16-bit videogame systems like the Genesis and Super NES gain popularity and acceptance among both videogame companies and videogame players alike, simple graphics and gameplay will not be sought after.

Realizing this, Acclaim/LJN intend to support the new Super NES as strongly as they have the Nintendo 8-bit system, and though it is too early to confirm, Paul says they are considering the Terminator 2 game as one of Acclaim/LJN's early Super NES releases.

A Window In Time...

With the release of the Terminator 2 in mid-July, Acclaim/LJN hope to capture the fans attention with their game release following shortly after the movie. Acclaim/LJN feel that unlike other movie licenses, the Terminator will, unlike other movie tie-ins, remain fresh in people's minds long after they've seen the movie. Depending on the success of the film and the videogame, Acclaim/LJN may even bring the game to the home computer gaming market! If this were done, Paul assures us that the game ideas that were not possible with the 8-bit system would be fully realized on the home computer.

Speaking of computer versions, Bethesda Software has already converted the original Terminator movie into a computer game. Read our sister publication, Computer Game Review, for a look at the exclusive photos we've obtained from that game!

The design team at Acclaim/LJN responsible for the Terminator 2 video game is working round the clock to finish the game in time for an early August release. From what we've seen so far, it looks like Acclaim/LJN may have a winner on their hands!

You'll be back!

It is the future and THEY have won. Now it's up to you to save mankind either on your NES or Game Boy systems.

Led by the computer cunning ot Sky-Net, the Cyterdyne network of Terminators has spread across the world, laying waste to the planet and the people that opposed it. Only through the leadership of one brave rebel, John Connor, will mankind become victorious in combat and topple the machines. As Sky-Net collapses, they send a new Terminator, a T-1000, made of liquid metal, back in time to eliminate a young John Connor before Sky-Net computers are even invented. It the Terminators succeed in stopping John Connor, in the present or the future, the machines will reign supreme.

Based on the blockbuster movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day from LJN brings all of the incredible sights and sounds to your NES and puts you in control. Fighting against the robots in the future wasteland, you control the T-800 on its quest to stop the T-1000 and save John Connor. Combining state-of-the-art graphics with an intense array of weapons and action, Terminator 2:Judgment Day captures the excitement of the movie and lets you determine the future of mankind!

Save mankind!

Take control of the blockbuster movie of the year! Start the game as John Connor; your mission: break into the Cyberdyne labs and steal a Cyberdyne Model 800 Terminator. Reprogram the T-800 and send it back in time to save yourself from the nearly indestructible T-1000, a liquid metal monster bent on destroying the future of mankind. After saving John from a truck driven by the T-1000, you need to rescue John's mother, Sarah, from a psychiatric facility nearby. Then, when the gang's all together again, make plans to destroy the Cyderdyne research labs! With any luck, the Terminators will cease to exist, and the world will be safe for mankind once more!

In order to pass the Skynet defenses, you need to destroy the shield power generators. These generators must be destroyed in the correct order or the reactor core will undergo a massive meltdown. Go from largest to smallest, as shown in the map above and below.

Of course, no maniacal entity would leave its facilities unguarded! The Skynet computer has posted hundreds of Cyberdyne T-101 cyborgs to stop you from getting to the main lab. inside, you may find a T-800 and reprogram it to protect John Connor in the past. Good Luck!

Having already trounced the Super NES, Terminator 2: Judgment Day marches onto the Genesis for more of the same explosive action and adventure. T2:JD is as close as you can get to filling Arnold's shoes without having to pump a couple tons of iron. Kudos to Flying Edge for achieving a rare feat -- creating a successful movie tie-in video game.

I'll Be Back

In T2:JD, you're a Terminator from the Future who's been sent back in time to protect John Connor (the future leader of the resistance) against the malevolent ruling forces of the Future. You'll need to rescue Connor's mother, Sarah, and go head-to-head against a T1000 Terminator who's been sent from the Future to kill John Connor. The eight challenging levels represent key moments of the movie. At the start of every level, you're given a primary objective, which must be accomplished before you can proceed onto the next level. You'll march in front of backgrounds that are faithful to the story line and include a biker bar, John Connor's house, the Galleria mall, the state hospital, and finally Cyberdyne Industries for your showdown with the T-1000.

You start with 100 percent energy, which is quickly depleted when you're attacked. When your energy's gone, a secondary power supply of 50 percent kicks in. When that's gone, the game's over. No continues and no passwords. Hasta la vista baby!

All Systems Operational

Sharp, detailed graphics of the T800, the various locales, and the T1000 effectively evoke images of the movie, which the medicore sounds don't diminish. Your T800 looks and moves with the same lumbering gait that Arnold had on the silver screen. The graphics are almost a little too realistic in some scenes, like when the T800 mows down police officers and innocent bystanders with his high-powered Machine Guns. The music and sound effects are only average, with a limited repertoire of sound effects and a monotonous, droning soundtrack.

The simple controls are easy to operate, leaving you free to work your way out of each level's predicament.

Terminal Fun

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a well-crafted adventure game with a solid balance of shoot-em-up action and seek-and-search challenges. Fans of the movie will love the chance to play Arnold's most famous role. Although challenging, gamers of all calibers will master the mechanics of this game. Look for this game to be just as big as the movie. "Two thumbs up!"

Another hit movie has been immortalized in fine fashion on the SNES. Acclaim's T2: Judgment Day follows on the heels of Alien 3 as a great movie tie-in and an even better game.

He's Back

This killer cyborg-shootin' game is a scene-by-scene playback of the movie. Your mission is to find and protect John Connor and his mother Sarah. Along the way you'll need to avoid bikers, cops, T-1000s and even hospital orderlies. You must also find certain future objects, i.e. destroying the Cyberdyne Labs or getting the security key from Miles Dyson, before you're allowed to leave a level.

You start with nothing, but you can work your way up to an impressive arsenal of firearms, including a Pistol, a Shotgun, a Machine Gun and a Rotary Cannon. You'll keep the Pistol throughout the game, but you can only carry one other weapon besides the Pistol at any time. The graphics in T2 run the gamut, from good to gross. Although the sprites are small, they are easily identifiable: You'll know John and Sarah as soon as you see them. All the character movements are well detailed and deftly animated. The backgrounds, however, are blocky. They're mostly squarish objects with little variation.

One musical theme pervades the game. The pulse-pounding backbeat may get on your nerves after awhile, so be prepared to put on your headphones.

Judgment Day

This game has a lot of great features, like clever hidden clues, teamwork-style game play (John joins you for certain tasks) and shootin', shootin', shootin'! However, there's one major drawback: The annoying driving sequences between each action scene. Controlling your vehicle is harder than any other aspect of the game. The confusing controls seriously detract from an otherwise excellent game. Why spend time on other levels, shooting your way through endless obstacles and solving mini-riddles just to have your life bar wiped out by uncontrollable driving? Friends don't let friends drive on T2: Judgment Day.

Hasta La Vista, Baby!

Don't let the errant driving stop you from checking out this cool movie game. The rest of the game is brimming with nonstop action and fast-on-your-feet puzzle-solving. You'll spend more time trying to beat this game than you did watching the movie on cable TV.

He said he'd be back -- and a Terminator never kids around. NJN's brought the big bad indestructo-dude back to the 8-bit video dimension in Terminator II: Judgment Day. This time, however, our robo-man's jumped to the other side of the fence: he's a good guy and he's agreed to destroy the wicked T-1000 Terminator who's out to annihilate the entire human race. Your quest is a simple one: Terminate or be terminated. As the now good T-800 Terminator you go it alone through five levels of jumping, kicking, punching, high tech weapon shooting action. Listen to him now and play Terminator II: Judgment Day.

The action-packed summer blockbuster movie that wowed everyone with its awesome special effects has inspired an arcade shooter with equally breathtaking graphics and gameplay This 1 -- or 2-player stand-up gun game is a visual and aural feast for the senses! Terminator 2: Judgement Day incorporates actual film footage, digitized backdrops of scenes from the movie, an awesome soundtrack, mind-numbing sound effects, and digitized speech of Arnold Himself encouraging you through the heat of battle. Smooth, multi-scrolling creates a realistic 3-0 look that's enhanced by holographic-like flashes that appear between you and the screen.

Gameplay is simple -- gun down the enemies before they get you! You have set amounts of energy and ammunition, which is recharged when you shoot special weapon and energy pill icons. The game accurately follows the movie storyline, battling the robotic forces of Skynet in the Future, infiltrating the Skynet headquarters, controlling the Time field Generator which sends you back in time to our present to protect Sarah Conner and her son, and the ultimate final battle with the most deadly Terminator of all -- the T-1000!

This game requires quick reflexes and a top-notch shooting ability to handle the non-stop, pulse-pounding action. As with the movie, Terminator 2: Judgement Day is something that can't he described, but must be experienced firsthand! Hasta la vista, baby!

A action-adventure game based on T2, which was developed by B.I.T.S. and published by LJN. It was released for the Game Boy in 1991. Featuring sounds and characters from the movie as pieces.

The game offers several difficulties and play styles to choose from, along with time control, ratings on the USCF scale over different time-frames and other niceties.

It has been ten years since the first terminator appeared from the future and travelled to the past to eliminate Sarah Connor. Since its failure, Sky-Net has decided to make up for their past mistake and send a new terminator to kill Sarah's son, John who is the leader of the resistance. They have also made an advanced terminator to replace the old T-800 model, called the T-1000. This new form of killing machine has the ability to change form by metamorphosis of its liquid metal body, which will make it very hard to kill. You take on the role of the T-800 who was reprogrammed by the future John Connor to travel back and stop the T-1000 from killing John as a boy. Run into a variety of punks and tough guys who will gang up on you and try to stop your progress. You need to punch them and follow the arrows further through the level. Jump over motorcycles and go into the bar to beat the big guys that have the clothes you need.

In "The Terminator" he said, "I'll be back!"-he is, in the Game Boy. Arnold Schwarzenegger keeps his promise in UN's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, where the big screen meets the little screen with a bang!

Heavy Metal Gaming

Terminator 2 is basically a straight-laced action/adventure shoot-em-up that rates high fives as much for its smooth movie tie-in as it does fa solid Game Boy gam-ing. You get six levels; five are sideview, multi-scrolling run and gun shoot-em-ups. Level 3 is a puzzler, where you deal with some scrambled circuitry.

The graphics earn good Game Boy grades. The sharp full-screen still shots between levels are sure to jazz people who've seen the movie. The action graphics look good, too, but they're a tad small even for the Game Boy. Levels 1 and 2 are crowded with background art, which makes Terminator terminatin' tough.

Terminator, Too

Terminator 2: Judgment Day tracks the movie's storyline almost step for step. In Level 1 you're John Conna, futuristic guerrilla fighter in the War against the Machines. The action's nonstop as you fight an army of Terminators (the T-800s, Arnold's model) and Aerial Hunter Killers as you attempt to destroy five Skynet signal beacons in the correct order.

Survive and in Level 2 you shoot through the runamok supercomputer Skynet's defenses to find the correct door to the Terminator T-800 storage area. Follow a Terminator here. Now you must reprogram a T-800 into one of the good guys in Level 3. The game displays a jumbled set of circuits onscreen. You've got a handful of seconds to reroute circuit fragments into four separate neural pathways.

Successfully rewire a T-800's brain and Terminator 2 pumps you up! You travel back in time to Level 4 as an Arnold clone. You and the young John Connor are doubled-up on a Harley-Davidson Custom Electro-Glide, but this is no motorcycle joyride! You're in a narrow obstacle-strewn drainage canal with the mimetic-polyalloy Terminator T-1000 trying to drive a big rig up your tailpipes.

Your destination is the Cyberdyne Systems building in Level 5, where you f expend more ammo to retrieve a Terminator arm and a microchip, despite the heavily armed SWAT team guarding them. Level 6 is where you face the T-1000 in the Steel Mill for an anything-goes mechanical fistfight to the finish.

No Problemos

Despite the futuristic onscreen hardware and the glitzy movie tie-in, Terminator 2: Judgment Day is basic, good old-fashioned Game Boy fun (Duck, shoot, move, jump!) with a dash of puzzle action to keep your brain cells on their toes. This game's as tough as a Terminator, but we all know what happens to them.

More Terminator's are due to materialize for the NES and the Genesis. Until then, "Hasta la vista, baby!" (We had to say it.)

Save 3 billion lives! Outwit a supercomputer! Travel back into time! Destroy an indestructible robot! Turn your enemy into your friend! Sound like the plots to about four or five different games? But Arnold Schwarzenegger fans know it's-Terminator 2!

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is still tearing up movie screens, and it's about to do the same to the Game Boy. Here's a preview of an early version of the cart by LJN.

Terminate a Terminator

Terminator 2 follows the movie storyline fairly closely. You get six levels; five are sideview, multi-scrolling run and gun shoot-em-ups, one is a puzzle game. Some sharp still shots between levels are sure to jazz people who've seen the movie.

You start out as John Connor, futuristic guerrilla fighter in the War Against the Machines. You fight your way across an urban wasteland against T-800 Terminators and Aerial Hunter Killers. Survive and you break through the supercomputer Skynet's defenses to find the Terminator T-800 storage area.

Now you must reprogram a T-800 to join your side by rerouting its circuits within a set time limit. If you succeed, you can send a T-800 back in time. Now you become an Arnold clone. You're doubled-up on a Harley-Davidson Custom Electro-Glide motorcycle with the young John Connor with robot assassin The Terminator T-1000 trying to drive a big rig up your tailpipes.

Your destination is the Cyberdyne Systems building, where you must retrieve a Terminator arm and a microchip, despite a heavily armed SWAT team.

Ultimately you face the T-1000 in the Steel Mill for a one-on-one robo-fight to the finish.

I'll Be Back!

Listen to me now and understand me later, Terminator 2 looks like a winner. Of course, Judgment Day is still yet to come.