T2 The Arcade Game

T2 The Arcade Game or T2 is a light gun shooter based on the film of the same name, produced by Midway Manufacturing Company as an arcade video game in 1991.^[1] Developed in tandem with the movie, several actors from the film reprise their roles for the game and are featured as part of the game’s photorealistic digitized graphics.

T2 – The Arcade Game’s plot largely follows that of the film, casting up to two players as the T-800 “terminator” cyborg from the film, sent back in time to protect John Connor from assassination by the T-1000 terminator.

A success in arcades, home conversions of the game were released by Acclaim Entertainment for various platforms under the title of T2: The Arcade Game in order to avoid confusion with the numerous tie-in games also based on the movie.

Gameplay – T2 The Arcade Game

The game consists of seven stages, with the first four set during the human/machine war in 2029 and the last three during John’s childhood in the 1990s.

Cross a battlefield to reach a hideout for human refugees.
Travel through the hideout, protecting the refugees against Terminators and other attackers.
Fend off Terminators and hunter-killer aircraft as John drives to the main Skynet facility in a pickup truck. The player can earn a bonus for completing this stage on the first attempt.
Invade the facility and destroy its main computer, after which the player’s character is transported back in time.
Destroy as much equipment in the Cyberdyne research lab as possible while employees and SWAT officers fight back. If all equipment is destroyed during this stage, the player earns a large bonus and will receive the better of the two possible endings to the game as described above.
Fight off the T-1000 as it uses a police chopper and tanker truck to attack the SWAT van in which Sarah and John are escaping to a steel mill.
Shoot holes in the tanker to douse the T-1000 in liquid nitrogen until it freezes solid; fight off mill workers as John flees through the mill; then knock the T-1000 into a vat of molten steel to destroy it before it can kill John.

Plot – T2 The Arcade Game

The story of the game falls in line with the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day: to save the leader of the Human Resistance, John Connor, and his mother Sarah from the T-1000, an advanced prototype Terminator bent on killing them both.

The player takes the role of a T-800 Terminator cyborg, already captured and reprogrammed by the human resistance, and fights alongside them against Skynet in the year 2029. Eventually, the T-800 and John Connor penetrate Skynet’s headquarters and destroy the system CPU.

Discovering the time displacement equipment, the T-800 is sent back through time to John’s childhood, with the mission to protect him from the T-1000 that Skynet has already sent back. In the past, John, Sarah, and the T-800 launch an attack on Cyberdyne Systems in order to prevent the development and creation of Skynet. The T-1000 catches up to the group and pursues them in a police helicopter and a liquid nitrogen truck.

Two endings are possible, depending on the outcome of the Cyberdyne raid. If all equipment is destroyed, the player receives a message that Judgment Day has been averted; otherwise, the company’s research will continue and Judgment Day remains a possibility.

Development – T2 The Arcade Game

Carolco Pictures started looking for developers and publishers to create an arcade game adaptation of Terminator 2: Judgment Day when James Cameron signed on to write and direct the film.^[2]

The game runs on Williams/Midway Y-Unit arcade hardware.

Ports – T2 The Arcade Game

The game was converted to the 16-bit game consoles Mega Drive/Genesis and Super NES, along with the 8-bit Master System and Nintendo Game Boy with downgraded graphics. However, the Mega Drive/Genesis and Master System versions could not do scaling due to hardware limitations, and many of the images were redrawn at different sizes.

The Game Boy version got around this problem by having the enemies move from the side or top of the screen.^[3] The Game Boy version also uses some music from the arcade game Narc.

The game was also retitled to T2: The Arcade Game to avoid conflict with the platform game. Players could control the gun cursor with the control pad. The Super NES version supports the Super Scope and the Super NES Mouse in addition to the standard control pad.^[4]

Other lower graphical ports include the Amiga and the Game Gear. In North America it was one of the few games which supported the Mega Drive/Genesis’s Menacer, but on the Master System, the Light Phaser was not supported, only a joypad.

Reception – T2 The Arcade Game

In the United States, the game topped the RePlay chart for upright arcade cabinets in December 1991,^[18] and remained at the top of the RePlay upright arcade charts into early 1992^[19][20][21] through April 1992.^[22]

Electronic Gaming Monthly likewise rated the SNES version as a good conversion, though they complained that game was too difficult. They gave it a 6.8 out of 10.^[25]

Legacy – T2 The Arcade Game

In 2021, Arcade1Up announced a 3/4 scale replica on the T2 arcade cabinet.^[28] The cabinet runs the original arcade version of the game and also includes a behind the scenes documentary of how the game was made.

Noticeable differences include the light guns being demountable, rather than Positional guns.

They are also red & blue in color, instead of the original black. The cabinet uses Sinden technology,^[29] in which a small webcam is built into the guns that track a white boarder on the screen.^[30]

This is because all Arcade1Up machines use a modern LCD display. Other minor difference include the Midway logo not being present on the top sides of the cabinet & the ability to post high scores via a WiFi leaderboard.

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