Head2Head - Terminator Salvation Length: 00:04:31 Which version will resists the Terminators onslaught?

Welcome back for another exciting Head2Head battle!  This week at the Lens of Truth we had an amazing opportunity to play the much anticipated Terminator Salvation almost a week before the release date. This exclusive was made possible because the amazing staff at Play N Trade (Oviedo, FL) who let us borrow their store preview copy for this Head2Head. Thanks Play N Trade for making this possible we couldn’t have done it without you!

Don’t be mistaken this is the full release game and not a demo! Since there’s so much I want to talk about I will only give a brief description of the game and move right in for the kill. In Terminator Salvation, you are John Connor, a soldier in this post-apocalyptic world, and it’s up to you to lead your squad of loyal fighters in a desperate battle for survival against the superior forces of Skynet and its deadly Terminators.

Let’s start shall we? Terminator Salvation was developed by GRIN, the same guys that brought you Wanted: Weapons of Fate, and if you can remember this Head2Head then you might already know who won this battle, but I can assure you, the differences in Terminator Salvation blow away the differences in Wanted: Weapons of Fate, in some areas it was like night and day! First let’s talk about screen tearing shall we? This is one of our most disliked and annoying problem that never seems to go away. This bothers us because it’s distracting and on occasion, it can cause a strobing effect which is sickening; but that’s only under extreme conditions, well folks this was one of those extreme conditions. The Xbox 360 had so much screen tearing it literally made me fell like I was going to puke all over my brother’s face. I had to get up and leave the room until he finished the level. It was everywhere (the screen tearing, not the puke). There’s one part in particular where you’re driving a vehicle for a few minutes and you need to be constantly firing you weapon, so for about three minutes all you see is this massive amount of screen tearing. You see it everywhere. When you fired your weapon, when you looked around, it was so abundant it even happened in the pre-rendered cut scenes, it was horrific. You might say, well the PS3 had a mandatory 2 minute install and the Xbox had no install at all! In my opinion I would take a two day install if it meant I could actually play the game I just spent $60+ on and not get sick in the process. In the performance department the PS3 kicked the Xbox 360’s butt. The PS3 had a steady frame rate and absolutely no screen tearing at all, but enough about screen tearing what other differences were there? Well let’s talk textures.

Although they both had texture issues, like missing color maps in random areas, the PS3 seemed to use specular and normal mapping correctly. Although these techniques were present in the Xbox 360 version it was random and misused; in essence it felt broken. Sometimes the Xbox 360 version had them, but most of the time it didn’t. It was way too inconsistant. The PS3 had much more consistency and used both techniques like a next gen system should.

Okay, let’s break away from texture issues and talk lighting. So far the Xbox 360 hasn’t done a thing right in this Head2Head but it’s time for it to shine in the lighting department, right? Well no! Unfortunately the Xbox 360 came up significantly short in this much important field too. To start, the Xbox 360 was much darker then the PS3 version. Now this isn’t too bothersome most of the time, but with the random appearance of specular and normal maps coupled with the lighting issues, the Xbox 360 suffered severely; let me explain.  The PS3 utilized HDR lighting, volumetric lighting and blooming throughout their levels, which complemented the correct use of their normal, spec and color maps. On the other hand, the Xbox 360 seemed to have areas that were missing the effect completely. In one portion of the game the PS3 had rays of volumetric light shining through a hole in this tunnel with little dust particles bouncing around in this pretty little ray of light, the entire scene looked great! The Xbox 360 looked completely different. It seemed to have nothing at all! No HDR, no volumetric light, no bloom, no grass and definitely no little particles floating around. It had nothing but color maps and fog that engulfed everything. It looked terrible! The differences were incredible and it looked and felt like an entirely different level. I’ve never witnessed such a drastic difference between two of the same areas before! Even the renowned red eyes of the Terminator were missing in some areas on the Xbox 360. What the heck happened you asked? We’ll get to that shortly.

Were almost done so hang on! There was one more thing missing on the Xbox 360. The PS3 had this cool camera effect when you threw a grenade or when an explosion was near. In the PS3 version when you threw a grenade the screen would shake as if the explosion would affect you, the Xbox seemed to not have it at all. Under further investigation the Xbox 360 did have the camera shake effect but it was so minute it could easily be missed. In my opinion it’s not as major as the other problems mentioned prior but it does effect the overall immersion of the game. As minor as the effect was we all agreed it made the game more intense. There really isn’t a logical reason why it wasn’t present in the Xbox version, but at this point we weren’t surprised.

Roll over to see the differences. The PlayStation 3 version has an issue with the ceiling.

Roll over to see the differences. Notice the Xbox 360 version is missing volumetric lighting and effects .

Roll over to see the differences. Notice the Xbox 360 version is missing the specular map making for a less detailed environment .

Roll over to see the differences. The Xbox 360 is much darker making the environment harder to see.

Roll over to see the differences. Notice the grass clumps on the PlayStation 3 looks more defined and much fuller.

So finally lets wrap this up. I want to make it clear that this Head2Head is by no means bashing the Xbox 360 or GRIN.  We created this site to inform consumers, who own multiple systems, the differences in each game before they spend their hard earned money on a game they thought was equal on both platforms. Some differences are so minor it really doesn’t matter which system you buy it for, like last week’s Head2Head of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  However this wasn’t the case with Terminator Salvation. In some areas the game looked really close but in other areas the differences couldn’t be ignored. Someone at GRIN dropped the ball and dropped it hard. So what happened with this port? Why so different? There are many people involved in the creation of a game and its mind boggling that no one stopped and questioned the differences. Maybe they did and they just didn’t care. Maybe they ran out of time/money for the port. Well whatever the case, we care and that’s why we do what we do.All we hope is that the information provided will help when purchasing the version that’s right for you.