The Terminator never lies. He said he'll be back, and true to his word, here he is - digitally re-mastered for his first ever PS2 and Xbox appearance.

T3's narrative elegantly throws you into the shoes of a T850 terminator, whose mission objective follows that of the movie, to ensure the survival of future rebel leader, John Conner, which subsequently means the destruction of the T-X - a fiendishly beautiful terminator sent back through time to end the life of mankind's saviour.

You must first infiltrate Skynet's compound, fighting your way across a post-apocalyptic landscape until Skynet's core defences have been smashed and its displacement chamber located.

Once achieved you will be teleported back to present day L.A., where you must struggle to protect the saviour of mankind from Armageddon. Sounds fantastic… until you play it.

And with all the verbal claptrap from Atari about T3: Rise of the Machines being the first in the franchise to own copyright to Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice and body image - "because the technology has only just become available" - anyone but a fool would be led to believe that this was going to be one great looking title.

T3: Rise Of The Machines falls flat according to Clarkestar.

But you'd be wrong…this game screams "botched-job". And what's even more bizarre is that Atari claim a remarkable 400 people worked on this tangled mesh of rubbish code!

The conglomerate of industry experience that is Atari have failed to muster even a whiff of innovation in this latest terminator outing. Well, that's not strictly true… they did muster up something… but it's far too unpleasant to explain here. Oh go on then…

The animation is a joke: human soldiers are animated from the elbow and knee joints only (think Manic Minor), and the terminators only appear to alternate between a fistful of frames, standing up and lying down. That means: no recoil to bullet fire and no visible indication of damage.

Then there are the abysmal first-person shooting levels: The lock on facility (think Metroid Prime) doesn't work at all here, and as a result, acts as a hindrance and thus an inevitable annoyance.

Try to lock onto an enemy and you'll find yourself facing the wrong direction, usually towards a random wall where an undetectable terminator is wedged behind - all while you're being shot at.

The corridors are far too narrow, and the vanishing point is too restricting for any decent face-offs, not to mention the appalling level design and inexcusably bland and drab textures… and just think folks, this game was created by 400 experienced game developers… oh really?

But don't worry, it's not all bad. A first person shooter with a decent multi-player option can gain extra brownie points. But what's that? Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines doesn't have a multi-player option? That's right… it's exasperating single player action all the way.

And furthermore… the FPS segments are interrupted rudely by clusters of poorly executed third-person one-on-one battles - they're so bad they don't deserve this space in this review.

Mission status: This is for hardcore Terminator fans only. The concept is great, and after all, it's the terminator, but like most film to game conversions, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines falls victim to the curse of the interactive movie license. Too bad.

4/10

Clarkestar