My mother once said, "If you can't say anything nice about something, don't say anything at all." Well...Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines' disc is perfectly round and the green plastic of its Amaray case is refreshingly free of toxic vapors. There, I said something nice. Since I actually played all the way through this thing, let's get on with the review.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (T3:ROTM) by Infogrames/Atari (Let's face it, the Atari name has had so many owners you just about have to specify which regime you're talking about when you say "Atari" or any long-time gamer is going to get lost.) is based on the movie franchise that follows future machines' attempts to kill in the past the human resistance leader that will one day defeat them. This time the machines have sent back the advanced T-X model terminator and the humans have once again managed to send back a lone defender for the young John Conner in the guise of an earlier model T-101 terminator, played again by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It should be noted that this is the first time Schwarzenegger (or should I say Governor Schwarzenegger) has allowed his image to be used in a video game.

The game starts in the future. The player, as the newly-reprogrammed T-101, must first fight through several missions in the future to reach the time-displacement lab and then return to the past to take up their mission of protecting John Conner. Infogrames/Atari highly touted the fact that you also got to play as the terminator against the human Tech-Com forces, but that turned out to be only in one mission that the player only gets to once they have reached the past. Feels kind of like a flash back. Or would that be a flash forward?

In addition to the standard first-person-shooter faire, the player also has about four opportunities, once against another T-101 and about three times against the T-X, to engage in some hand-to-hand fighting.

Sounds like a pretty good premise, right? Sadly, the execution does not live up to the setup.

The missions are repetitive and a bit arbitrary. In one I actually stood in one corner of a room and repeatedly shot what looked like the same terminator falling from the same hole in the ceiling until I had apparently shot enough to move on. I also have to say that the "Objective Proximity Meter" often behaved very randomly, making it hard to find where I was supposed to be going next.

The future missions felt like they constituted fully four-fifths of the game. After finally getting to the past I blinked and the game was done. The only mission that stood out in my mind from the "past" missions was one I came to call Zen And The Art Of Helicopter Maintenance in which the player has to gather parts to repair a helicopter to follow the T-X and John Conner. It was even less fun than it sounds like.

Graphics and animation were far below what would have passed for a first-generation Xbox game. Textures were bland and the special effects far from special.

Sound was also well below par. I didn't feel the power of the weapons. In one mission the sound actually cut out almost completely. My weapon made no sound whatsoever.