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Gameloft's Terminator Salvation is a gorgeous action game for the iPhone that, like Assassin's Creed before, proves that few developers are ambitious when it comes to treating the device like a hardcore gaming rig. That said, this game needed more time in the studio. Perhaps rushed to get in front of the movie, which debuts later this month, Terminator Salvation seems incomplete in places due to missions that appear undercooked and story elements that make no sense. 

Where Terminator Salvation really succeeds is in evoking the spirit and atmosphere of not just the upcoming movie, but previous films too. Several of Skynet's supposedly unstoppable robots are on the march, from the traditional T-600 skeletons to the massive Hunter-Killers that always struck me as terrifying because they don't necessarily have a future-aesthetic. They look like they were designed only for killing. All of these machines look great in the game -- even the Harvester, which figures heavily into the plot of the movie, which is mercifully not spoiled in Gameloft's game, but at the expense of a coherent story. The environments are exceptionally well done as well. Crumbling freeways, abandoned desert facilities, and coastal cities left in ruin -- all of the locations look both uniformly fantastic and appropriately dreadful.