So, I've been playing Terminator Salvation and thought I'd review it for this very site. Enjoy and please do discuss if you feel the need.

Back in the summer of 1991 I was a small sickly weedy 15 year old who had undergone massive and painful spinal surgery, not once, but twice. And after a long and quite frankly crappy recovery period I decided to treat myself to a night out. So my friend Bryan and I went to see Terminator 2 at the local Odeon Cinema in Birmingham. It was a great film. The acting was great, the effects were stunning for the time, and still look pretty good now if a little dated maybe. There were also popcorn, M&M's and hot dogs involved. It was everything a great cinema experience should be. Well it was the perfect cinema experience until until that fateful bus ride home. My friend and I were set upon by what can only be described as a clearly overly drunken overly chemical intoxicated cowardly nasty piece of work who took exception to my long hair and proceeded to drag us off the bus in front of witnesses who did nothing and then kick the living crap out of us both.

This complete animal took our jackets and a grand total of 17p in loose change. Bryan managed to get away after being ordered to leave by the assailant where he managed to alert the police.

He had no choice but to leave me alone for his own safety and mine really and I suffered a lot of nasty injuries including hair pulled from my scalp, a very swollen blackened eye, a wrist that turned jet black from a hideous sprain a swollen jaw, what I'm sure was a broken nose and various other bruises all over my torso. It was quite literally the nastiest experience of my life and let's say the injuries weren't just physical they were psychological too. And as you can imagine I wasn't all that keen on the Terminator franchise any more. You could say my love for that particular film had been terminated.

Fast forward 18 years, by now I've warmed to Terminator, T2 is now one of my favourite films, it was actually the first film I bought on DVD and I've watched and enjoyed it many many times. I've even seen T3. I didn't enjoy that one so much but it was fun, had a hot Terminatrix and didn't take itself too seriously and I'm still waiting to see Terminator Salvation which I've heard mixed reviews on. You're probably wondering what all this has to do with the Terminator Salvation video game, and now you're about to find out.

After the nightmarish and true scenario I just told you about I'm re-evaluating my life. For most people they re-evaluate their lives after reading a profound work of genius fiction or watching a film so gut wrenchingly beautiful with powerful acting and a story designed to make the most hardened action fan weep. Maybe listening to the sweeping melodies of a majestic masterpiece of song or reading that hard hitting prose that seems to speak to its reader in ways nobody else can understand or appreciate are cause for life affirming re-evaluation. But in my case it's a video game.

Yes, Terminator Salvation has made me re-evaluate my life, look at my existence and realize what is important in life, made me realize that some people have it a lot harder than me in my story. And how has it done that you may ask. Well I'll tell you.

It's done that by giving me a new “worst experience of my life.”

Yes the Terminator series has ruined my life again. I can't even call Terminator Salvation a game. It is probably the biggest waste of an epic film license since ET on the Atari, probably the most inappropriate piece of video game/movie crossover insensitivity since I dreamed up Schindler's List- The Video Game one drunken night.

The game itself promised so much, it opened quite promisingly with an on-rails type section. After all being chased in a speeding car shooting evil robots sounds like fun, should be fun but in this case just isn't. It's generic, uninspiring it's the gaming equivalent of a Robbie Williams album, actually no. It's so unprofessionally done and unfinished feeling it's the equivalent of a Robbie Williams album mixed by a 4 year old, who's been sent to bed early. And the whole game feels like this, even the on foot bits. They're so linear they may as well be on-rails.

Not only is Terminator Salvation the game so linear and generic, it's less interesting than watching grass grow. And brown grass at that. I've never seen so much brown in a game. To be honest I've seen less brown in the toilet after a dodgy curry and a belly full of beer. And if that wasn't bad enough the shades of the same colour seem to do the impossible and clash. Horribly.

Add to this repetitive gameplay and horribly predictable A.I and ugly character models for both the people in the game and the unvaried Terminator types and you pretty much have little more than a 9 level demo, well I say little more, it's probably not even that good.

I mentioned unvaried Terminator types, there were 6. Yes 6! There was a motorbike one, a spider one, 2 flying ones and 2 walking ones that weren't that much different from each other. So in the interests of common decency I'll take back that 6. There were 5 and a half different badguys.

Weaponry in the game packed little more than a punch struggling with a wet paper bag. A choice of 2 assault rifles, pipe bombs, grenades, a rocket launcher, a shotgun and a grenade launcher are about it really. The only changes here were the odd mounted machine gun here and there and weapons on board vehicles in the on-rails sections.

The game did try to redeem itself by allowing you to shoot at nondescript things and turrets from a Terminator Tank, all this in reality did was turn the screen red and add another yawnsome on-rails section to a game that already leads you around like a guide dog with OCD.

There isn't even a real bad guy at the end, no surprises, just a few more Terminators that I'd already shot countless numbers of and the chance to run to a helicopter and escape to live another day.

I played the XBOX 360 version of the “game” and although there is a desperate attempt to add longevity to the experience with a co-op mode, you really wouldn't want to bother and it just feels tacked on like a whole load of extra “and's” in a naughty schoolchild's essay that needs padding out just to get even a D-.

So, to cap it all up, Terminator Salvation, is ugly, repetitive, flawed, boring, unimaginative and probably every reason to stand under a nuclear bomb if one drops, just in case this is what will happen, not to mention very very brown.

I'm just grateful I rented this tedious over expensive not even good enough to be a coaster disc. It's sure to end up in a rental bin with Barbie's Horse Adventure, and given the choice, I'd seriously suggest the galloping plastic blonde.  Add to the drudgery lazy achievements for completing levels that seem to get shorter as the game goes onand you have a wholly incomplete package you wouldn't even inflict on the most perverted of video game masochists. This game really is 5 hours of torture and probably should only ever be used to extract information from criminals who actually like the St. Anger album.

Also, if a certain street robbing scumbag is reading this, your efforts have now been downgraded.

Got a response?  Throw it at Villan over HERE!