John Connor risks his life against Skynet to rescue a stranded resistance unit.

 

Watch the video game walkthrough at YouTube

 

Notes from the Terminator chronology

 

This story takes place during the future war in 2016, two years before the events of Salvation.

 

Didja Know?

 

The actual name of this video game is, of course, Terminator Salvation. Since the movie has the true claim to that title, I've chosen to name this story "Faith" based on the use of the term by or about John Connor in the course of the story.

 

Actress Moon Bloodgood here voices the character of Blair Williams, whom she portrays in the Terminator Salvation movie. Likewise, actor Common voices his character from the film, Lt. Barnes.

 

Though Christian Bale played John Connor in the movie, a different voice actor, Gideon Emery, voices the character here.

 

The graphics of the game are similar to those seen in Machinima since that story was told through this game's animation engine. The graphics here do appear to be a bit more sophisticated and varied than those seen in Machinima, however.

 

At the end of Machinima, it's obvious that Blair has still not met or heard of John Connor. Here, she is a member of his resistance cell. Possibly, she is the one who was assigned to deliver the Ghost jamming key discovered by her original cell in Machinima to John Connor and she then chose, or was ordered, to remain with his cell.

 

Characters appearing or mentioned in this game

 

T-600

John Connor

O'Grady

Blair Williams

Lewis (dies in this game)

Griffin (dies in this game)

Rogers (dies in this game)

Wells

Marks

Murphy

David Weston

Simpson

Angie Salter (dies in this game)

Deckard (dies in this game)

Sam Dobkin (dies in this game)

Warren

Barnes

Linda 

 

 

 

Didja Notice?

 

Chapter 1: L.A. 2016

 

The T7-T Tetrapods (Spiders) and Aerostats (Wasps) from Machinima appear here as well.

 

Early in the game, a radio message comes through to John from the resistance leaders for south side units to regroup at the Straand Hotel for emergency evacuation. This appears to be a fictitious hotel in Los Angeles, though there is a Straand Hotel in Vradel, Norway.

 

A resistance fighter called Wells appears here. Possibly, the viewer could interpret this to be the same Wells who appeared in the timeline of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, in the episode "Automatic for the People".

 

Blair appears to be wearing the same clothing she wore in Machinima.

 

The ruins of a Stop n Shop store are seen in Los Angeles. There is a liquor store by that name in L.A., but the building does not look like the one seen here.

 

Chapter 2: Thank Heaven

 

A wrecked van seen early in this chapter has license plate SFCPL37. It is seen again several times in the game. In Machinima, the license plate SFCPL85 is seen over and over on similar vans.

 

At one point, Blair refers to the unit leader insultingly as Captain Crunch. This is a reference to the character of Cap'n Crunch, the cartoon mascot of the cereal brand of the same name.

 

John Connor pauses next to a mannequin or statue of a female and points his gun at it. It's possible he's wondering for a split-second if it is a female T-X Terminator like the one he encountered in Rise of the Machines.

 

This game introduces Harvesters, giant, bipedal machines designed by Skynet to collect humans for study. They are similar to the Flencers that appeared in the 1995 and 1996 home video games Terminator: Future Shock and Terminator: Skynet.

 

Chapter 4: The Sights

 

John mentions the possibility of making it to Eagle Rock. This is presumably a reference to Eagle Rock Bunker, a resistance outpost. The Eagle Rock Bunker is seen in the Sarah Connor Chronicles episode "Alpine Fields". Eagle Rock is a relatively affluent neighborhood of Los Angles.

 

John, Blair, and Angie encounter a T-600 with rubber skin for the first time. John remarks that they are easy to spot due to the rubber skin, but the 800 series will have real human skin. He is referring to what he knows from the information provided by Kyle Reese to Sarah Connor in The Terminator (and, possibly, information provided to him directly by the protector T-800 in Judgment Day).

 

To make it back to Eagle Rock, John and the other soldiers find the streets too full of machines, so they enter Union Station and take the subway tunnels instead.

 

Chapter 5: Underground

 

Angie speaks of stories of people who went crazy after Judgment Day and became cannibals. She says that's why command never sends forces to Fullerton. Fullerton is a city in Orange County, near L.A.

 

Chapter 6: Into the Wild

 

No notes.

 

Memorable Dialog

 

one thing remains constant.wav

armed, dangerous, and drop-dead gorgeous.wav

what do you know that we don't?.wav

you mind if I tape her mouth shut?.wav

people who went crazy after Judgment Day.wav

imagine what you could do with some help.wav

it gives me faith.wav 

 

Back to Terminator Episode Studies