If you told me that Terminator: Resistance was a game from 2005, with the Xbox 360 freshly on shelves, I'd probably believe you.
I hate it when I see people on social media - or in our comments, lol - posting that Brand New Game X looks like it was made for the SNES, or the OG PlayStation, as an insult to the efforts of the developers. But this new-for-2019 game, with its murky environments, wooden character models and archaic gameplay, really does feel like a relic of the last console generation.
Which for some players out there will be part of Resistance's appeal. That it looks and plays like a memory of something else you blasted your way through over a decade ago is kind of reassuring in a way. No matter the progression that action video games exhibit, as they evolve both during and beyond current platforms, someone, somewhere, will always be happy to turn back the clock.
We've a wealth of pixel-art platformers out there right now, reminding us of 16-bit thrills. And Resistance is an aesthetic callback to the mid-00s, with all of the grim greys and dirty browns that our shooters of choice back then were painted in.
The story of Resistance has no connection to the events of the new Terminator movie, Dark Fate, but it's clearly released to benefit from Sarah Connor's return to the big screen. Rather than being set in the late 1990s, in the immediate aftermath of Judgment Day, it casts us as resistance fighter Jacob Rivers in the year 2028 - the year before John Connor sends Kyle Reese back to 1984 to save his mother, and a reprogrammed Arnie to save his younger self in 1995.
And rather than being as memorable as the movies depicting any of those events, Resistance is a bland affair that keeps its dialogue and destruction on the same level as its looks. Which is to say that this is incredibly dated stuff, whatever aspect of it you choose to analyse.
What Resistance is not, however, is a total disaster without any merit whatsoever - which isn't an argument you can make for 2014's Rambo: The Video Game, the last notable licensed title released by its developers at Polish studio Teyon. While Rambo was a rail shooter plagued by technical problems as well as tired gameplay, Resistance tries to be better, bigger, and more than just a big name slapped across what'd otherwise pass for shovelware.
This game's makers wanted, clearly, to emulate Bethesda's open-world games. So there are numerous other characters for Rivers to interact with, like Jennifer, Colin (yes, Colins still exist in the year 2028), and my favourite, Dr Mack, whose flow I am never not going to want to watch (high-five if you get that reference).
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Some of these NPCs provide you with essential tools and set you off on side quests, set in fairly barren mini-open-world areas. Others let you sleep with them, with the subsequent sequences every bit as bad as Ride to Hell: Retribution's carnal distractions playing out to the embarrassment of everyone involved. I feel for the poor people who had to program that, frankly.
But look, at least there is effort here. Attempts have been made to bring warmth to a game world that's not simply destroyed by the incessant march of the machines, but plagued by a painfully dull palette. Teyon have tried to expand Terminator lore with original characters telling an original story, and y'know, it's admirable. Nothing here feels like it belongs in a 2019 video game - but if you pick this up for cheap a few months from now, and you're something of a swot when it comes to all things Skynet, you'll get a few kicks out of it.
The rest of us? Think of Resistance as you do the T-X model Terminator from Rise of the Machines. It's never going to be a classic, but at least it tried.
Terminator: Resistance is out now. We played it on PlayStation 4 using code supplied by the publisher. This isn't a review, as we've not finished the game, or reached a point of it where we're comfortable with putting a number on it. But let's agree that it's definitely not great, and move on. Cheers.
Featured Image Credit: Teyon / Reef Entertainment