‘I Know Now Why You Cry’: The Futile Hunt for a Good Arnold Schwarzenegger Game
I’ll open today’s piece, as I always do, with an admission of personal failure. I set out to write an article along the lines of “Ranking Every Game Based on an Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie.” But then, about halfway through the list, I realized that pretty much all of these games fall somewhere between bad and very bad. And I didn’t want to spend my weekend splitting hairs about which NES platformer was more underwhelming — not when the Detroit Lions had a playoff game, and my neighbor needed help shoveling the snow out of his driveway (a selfless act I have no problem participating in. I don’t even tell people about it or anything. Pretty impressive, right?).
So instead, I’ve recalibrated my intentions here, and now I’m just wondering if there has ever been a good video game based on Arnold’s myriad of 80s/90s action movie staples?
Short answer: no.
Long answer: see below (but, it’s also no.)
I’d been meaning to play Predator for a long time. I didn’t have high expectations, but the movie is an absolute favorite of mine, so I was curious to see what form it took as a video game.
Last week, while talking about games based on Tim Burton films, I mentioned how the Sega versions of Batman Returns oddly started about an hour into the plot of the movie, skipping over a bunch of cool stuff in the process. I found it strange. But when the Predator NES game opened by explaining that Dutch and his friends went to the woods and then all his friends got killed (putting you squarely into the final quarter of the movie), I thought it made a lot of sense. No point showing me crude 8-bit versions of Blaine, Mac, and Billy — especially when Dutch himself came out looking an awful lot like Bret “The Hitman” Hart.
Predator reminded me of Contra, if the secret code you put in at the beginning made the game have 30 levels instead of giving you 30 lives. It’s actually bizarre. You’ll run 10 feet and jump on a few platforms, shoot a guy, kill a bug — and suddenly, you discover an exit and the level is over. I guess maybe this was an alternative to long, difficult stages that led to replaying a lot of levels if you died. Fair enough.
I mentioned Contra before, and Predator does some of the same things found in that classic, but in an underwhelming way. They both have you running and gunning in the jungle, and they both wisely switch-up levels once in a while — with some scrolling vertically instead of the standard left-to-right horizontal business. Unlike Contra, however, I found your character’s arsenal to be a bit underwhelming. There are four weapons you can use:
Grenade - these are hard/impossible to use effectively
Hands - it’s difficult to punch the soldiers and scorpions you encounter consistently
Machine Gun - Standard issue video game gun
Laser Gun - Overpowered (it’s a damn laser gun)
I was actually doing something close to enjoying my experience playing Predator, when I suddenly encountered something called ‘Big Mode’ — a different style of level that triggers every five stages or so.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “I played GoldenEye and NFL Blitz. ‘Big Mode’ sounds fine to me!” But it’s not that. It’s not that at all. It’s this alternative mode they threw in for variety (I suppose), and it reminds me of some old Atari game or something — with its lack of background, and off-the-rails logic.
Suddenly, instead of fighting bugs and mercenaries in the jungle — all of which are in the film Predator — you’re running around in a purple abyss fighting four predator heads at a time. It feels like something out of a different game, and, unfortunately, that different game may be Friday the 13th — another licensed NES game that used to confuse me greatly. How does it work? How do any of these games work? No one knows.
There was something there — a sort of playable morbid curiosity. But I wasn’t exactly having “fun.” I’d had fun before, and Predator on the NES wasn’t it. To its credit, however, I played through more of it than Total Recall, Last Action Hero, and The Terminator games combined.
After bouncing off a bunch of these, I decided to play something I’d been curious about for a while: Terminator 2 for the SNES1. By my estimation, this is one of the greatest films to ever receive a video game adaptation, which makes it unfortunate — if not unsurprising — that playing it is a rougher experience than a T-800 trying to tell a joke.
Right from the get go, I was bothered by the endlessly respawning waves of enemies and their horrible, horrible hit boxes. Combine that with your awkward controls, and enemies are nearly impossible to deal with. You’ll never clear the room — the bikers’ bodies will just pile up as you struggle to punch them because they’re too close to you.
Speaking of the controls, Arnold has this pitiful little jump that feels absolutely pointless to have included in the game. It looks a lot like the way you’d jump over a puddle, or step over a French fry on the ground. I’d rather have a dedicated button that lets me stand on one leg or ask someone what their dog’s name is than this pathetic jump. Though, it does feel quite accurate to what a giant heavy robot would be able to do with leather pants on, so great job I guess? Still not sure why it’s in there, though.
The only element of this bad game more confounding than Arnold’s theoretical jump is the completely pointless, boring, and hard-to-control driving sequences in between levels. Why must I drive Arnold from the bar to John Connor’s house? I’m completely okay with not seeing that. Want to know why? Because nothing happens! These puzzling driving interludes offer you the chance to possibly not get lost on the way to your destination, nothing more.
One fun thing some of these Terminator games do is —no matter how many people you shoot with pistols or shotguns, dropping them like a sack of shit — the computer will always tell you some technical version of “Hey nice job, no casualties!” It leaves you free to save the timeline without innocent deaths weighing on your mind.
There’s no way to know that though, right? So everyone’s going to be okay, despite being shot, or being in a car that exploded? What’s their quality of life looking like from here? Will anyone need surgery? Time off work? Are they insured?
This is all just to say that a neat detail to include in the Terminator movies would’ve been that Skynet robots just tell themselves that everyone’s gonna be okay, no matter what happens. And then they will just always boast about no one dying because they believe it’s true. Now that’s commentary!
I kept coming to these games hoping to see them through to the end — and even with the assistance of emulators and uh, my uh, back pain medicine, I still just couldn’t do it. All these good movies had been turned into boring and/or incomprehensible experiences.
This made me wonder if maybe another reason games like this are always the shits is because there’s often no way they can compare to the thrills offered by the fun movies they’re based on, right? Maybe I’d find a diamond in the rough by way of a game based on one of Arnold’s lesser movies.
I’d read somewhere that there were two games based on Terminator 3, and that one was actually pretty decent. I decided to check out the one I’d heard was kinda good — the second one they made. Maybe everyone’s wrong about the other Terminator 3 game, but I will literally never find out because I’d rather eat a PlayStation 2 disc than play another Terminator game at this point.
Oh, but hey — how funny is it that they made a (reportedly) terrible Terminator 3 game, and then 10 months later released a pretty decent one called The Redemption? I know odds are strong that it would’ve had that generic title no matter what, but I don’t care. It’s funny!
So yeah, this game is DECENT, and that’s honestly too bad, because I was freaking the hell out for the first few minutes of this game. I really thought I’d discovered a hidden treasure at first. Before it all went to shit.
The game covers the events of Terminator 3: Check Out These Machines, but wisely backs up and takes a running start to begin before the film and features a few levels of you (playing as Arnold) battling your way to the time travel contraption they use for that kind of thing. Right when the action started, I was shooting terminators, fighting them hand to hand when they got close— and then I pulled a “Speed Limit” sign out of the ground and started pounding T-800s with that, too. I gasped in delight. I thought this was going to be a fun, experimental, and visceral brawler — somewhere between The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and a Dead Rising game.
Additionally, there are some early driving/shooting sequences that are absolutely kinetic, where I felt like I was controlling both players on an old Lucky & Wild machine.
Sadly, for every driving level that does justice to the car chases from the Terminator films, there’s a level that you have to play perfectly— where missing a shortcut or bumping into the wall is all it takes to doom the whole run. Overall, the feeling that I was playing some kick-ass shit faded, and the more the game demanded perfection instead of sloppy chaos, the less I enjoyed it.
This is probably the best Terminator game — and it’s certainly in the running for best Arnold game — but, contrary to my theory, I think it’s held back a little by being based on such a forgettable movie. That hasn’t historically been a dealbreaker for licensed games, but this is from the PS2 era, meaning we got full scenes from the film it was based on. So, get ready to watch some uninspired Terminator 3 footage, featuring John Connor, the future military leader, portrayed here as a little rat fuck for some reason.
All told, this game is worth playing if you want to beat up guys with speed limit signs as Arnold. But that’s about as far as it goes, as you’ll likely check out after a little while.
I was over the whole thing at this point, but I did have somewhat of an ace up my sleeve…
I had a hunch True Lies was the best Arnold game going in — I had a bit of a soft spot for it after renting it a few times in my youth, and playing it on an emulator every now and again. I was right, but it’s kind of the best by default. It’s fiiiine. On the plus side are great graphics, killer animations (of killing people), rock-solid controls, and Tom Arnold.
On the negative side, we have a very redundant game that loses a lot of appeal by the later levels, a steep difficulty curve, and the inability to control the aforementioned Tom Arnold. There’s nothing bad here— the fun just sort of wears off before the game is over. I remembered enjoying this game because I rented it. If I’d owned it, I probably would’ve grown bored of it.
So, there you have it. I certainly didn’t play them all, but I think I have my answer. Arnold games fuckin’ suck. Maybe the bar was set too high by a series of incredible action movies, or maybe licensed games are just schlock. Either way, I’m afraid the best Arnold Schwarzenegger game you can play is still just shadowboxing and running around the room while you watch Commando. There truly is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
There is also a Terminator 2 arcade shooter game that was ported to the SNES. I didn’t play it for this piece, as I’m sure the arcade cabinet is the preferred experience, and I don’t have access to one. However, years ago, while frequenting a bar called The Green Parrot in my hometown, they used to have this machine in the back of the place. It did this funny thing where, if no one had paid any money, but you hit the “Start Game,” button, it’d play a recording of Arnold saying “No way, Jose.” It was a really funny bit to do if you happened to be asked a question where the answer was “no,” and you were within a few feet of the T2 game. Anyway, pressing that button delivered more joy than just about any of these video games. So maybe there’s your answer— go get drunk and press buttons on the T2 arcade game.
