ADEPTUS CRITICUS GAME REVIEWS

Developer: Bitmap Bureau

Publisher: Reef Entertainment

Platforms available on. PlayStation consoles, Xbox consoles, Nintendo consoles and PC

System reviewed on: Nintendo Switch 2, 1

Provided with code: No Purchased the collectors edition.

Terminator 2 is my all-time favourite movie and when I saw that a game based on the movie was being made and it was a pixel art side scroller I was very excited as I do love my pixel art side scrollers/metroidvania’s.

So, let’s just get the Elephant of the room yes, the game is short, but this is on purpose Bitmap Bureau wanted to re-create the arcade game days which is something they have done very well. The developers want you to keep coming back to play the game and break your high score across all the paths which get unlocked when you finish the story. You start the game as Sarah Connor where the game play is more inline with Contra run and gun and then switches to Streets of rage style gameplay when you get to control the Terminator for the first time in the famous bar fight scene oh and I see you Fresh Prince reference if you know you know. The game play changes again when you get to take control of a young John Conner on his motorbike where you are given prompts to avoid obstacles whilst avoiding being run down by the T-1000 and of course you get to control the terminator on his bike blasting away with your shotgun. The game as you would expect is full set pieces from the movie and all of them are expertly put together, you even get to play as adult John Conner in the future which reverts to the Contra style run and gun wiping out various variants of Terminator. There is even a stealth lite mission in the mental hospital as you are being hunted down by the T-1000 periodically throughout the mission. The bosses are well put together where you are encouraged to take cover when prompted or to take high ground to avoid devastating attacks. The game gets more challenging as you play on harder settings but the difficulty isn’t unfair.

The controls are excellent they use no complicated mechanics or combos as like I mentioned previously they went with an arcade style of game, the controls are very responsive which is a must for me in these types of games. The pixel art is also stunning and the animations on all the sprites are crisp the music and sounds of the laser weapons are also excellent, the soundtrack is a banger.

I played this game on the Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch and although there isn’t a switch 2 upgrade the game still looks brilliant. I did not come across any issues with frame rates or blurry images on either console.

I ordered the collectors edition which comes with the day one edition of the game which has a reversable sleeve, cloth poster, 25mm collectible metal arcade token, full colour manual book and collectors’ box. The Collectors edition includes everything in the day one edition as well as a Collectors Tin, Steelbook, Fiery Visions Cloth poster, Premium metal paper weight, flip book and an art book, all the items are of the highest quality.

Now I have seen people saying they do not think the game is worth the price but for me that is always subjective as is my review of the game you may disagree with me and that’s fine, but for me it was worth every penny I have had such a blast playing this game and I would love to see these developers make more Terminator games, but if memory serves me correctly their next release will be a Masters Of The Universe game which I am now really excited for.

In Conclusion Terminator 2d No Fate is one of the best games I have played this year and one of the most fun I will keep coming back to this game regularly to beat my high score hopefully.

I will give this game a 10 out of 10 which also considers all of the collectors edition content.