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[IbizaPocholo]

Unreleased Terminator NES Game Footage Emerges

Footage of an unreleased Terminator game developed by Sunsoft for the NES emerges thanks to the work of video game history website Gaming Alexandria.

gamerant.com

In 1990, Sunsoft released a game called Journey to Silius, a generic action platformer for the NES. However, the story runs a little deeper than that, as the title was originally intended to be a Terminator game, which Sunsoft acquired the license to from Creative Licensing Corporation, or CLC, in 1988. Sunsoft showed off the game in a promo video at Las Vegas' WCES in 1989, when the game was still relatively early in development. The promo video was dug up by Gaming Alexandria and is the only known footage of the project.

Later in 1989, the finished game was shown off to CLC's founder, Rand Marlis, who then revoked the license due to the game not following the movie's plot. The game largely took place in the future, where the movie itself mainly takes place in the past as the Terminator attempts to find and kill Sarah Connor. Without the license, Sunsoft was unable to publish it as a Terminator game and had to convert it into Journey to Silius,simply swapping out the cut-scenes to pass it off as something else.

 

[ShadowFX]

That's actually very cool to see those earlier screens.
Luckily, there is a hack available for the released game that aims to restore the original Terminator concept: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3925/

 

[Chittagong]

Wow, I had no idea that this was the origin of Journey to Silius.

 

[Tesseract]

skip to 2:28 for the torminortor

 

[EightBit Man]

I've been reading about this. Very nice to finally see footage of the game before it was changed into another game altogether.
There's also talk that the Sunsoft NES Batman game wasn't a destined to be a Batman tie-in also. I read this in The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers, Volume 2..

 

[Hulk_Smash]

They keep putting Platoon on their list as if that game is something to be proud of. lol!

Game sucked and when I was old enough to see Platoon uncensored, my reaction is WTF? They thought making this into a kids game was a good idea?

 

[Deleted member 738976]

Opening old wounds.



Why couldn't I have had a good NES Terminator game to rent instead?

 

[strange headache]

My god and to think that we've got this abomination instead:



♪ dud dud dud dud dud dud ♪

 

[nkarafo]

*Shows NES graphics:

"Incredible graphics technology that literally brings games to life"

"the most amazing lifelike home video game you ever seen"


God, i love old game promos (and magazines). The hyperbole, the fanfare, the naivety.

I mean, even back then this was complete BS since much more powerful home systems existed already existed.

 

[EightBit Man]

*Shows NES graphics:

"Incredible graphics technology that literally brings games to life"

"the most amazing lifelike home video game you ever seen"


God, i love old game promos (and magazines). The hyperbole, the fanfare, the naivety.

I mean, even back then this was complete BS since much more powerful home systems existed already existed.

To be fair, people experienced games a lot differently in those days. I remember seeing a segment in a Dutch video game program (Power Play) where a 65-year old lady was playing Super Mario Bros. 3, telling how life-like Mario was, and how he did things we do.

Here's the video:

 

[strange headache]

To be fair, people experienced games a lot differently in those days. I remember seeing a segment in a Dutch video game program (Power Play) where a 65-year old lady was playing Super Mario Bros. 3, telling how life-like Mario was...

Not only your Dutch grandma, I was blown away by the graphics in SMB 3 too! When the SNES came out, I thought that things couldn't get any better than that

 

[Ellis]

Nice. I could have got some enjoyment out of this, but at least we got two amazing games from the series.

Robocop Vs. The Terminator ( Superior Master System version )
The Terminator Mega CD ( that soundtracks )

 

[EightBit Man]

By courtesy of Retromags and The Cutting Room Floor, a scan of the July/August issue of Nintendo Power:

 

[deriks]

Love to see new stuff like that being discovered

 

[Tygeezy]

Journey to Silius had awesome music. I wouldn't consider it a generic action platformer.

 

[Scopa]

Nice. I could have got some enjoyment out of this, but at least we got two amazing games from the series.

Robocop Vs. The Terminator ( Superior Master System version )
The Terminator Mega CD ( that soundtracks )

I really liked Terminator 2 on NES when I was a kid. It was hard, but I loved it for some reason.

The death screen was cool.

 

[kingbean]

Journey to Silius was a pretty good game. It's neat to see a little bit of what it was before.

 

[EightBit Man]

I really liked Terminator 2 on NES when I was a kid. It was hard, but I loved it for some reason.

I always wanted to get that game, but never got around it for some reason. Did get the Game Boy game though, which was enjoyable, but also insanely difficult at times. Never made it past the "stage" where you have to re-program the Terminator's CPU for the second time (just before the bike chase).

And, I got T2: The Arcade Game for the Super NES later. Was a big fan of the arcade game, and it's Mega Drive conversion, and this was also a reasonable adaptation of it.

Oh, and I really, really liked the Mega Drive game of The Terminator. Was incredibly interested in the game ever since I saw it appearing in the June 1992 issue of C&VG.

 

[Mobilemofo]

Graphics so Real.. You'll shit the bed..

 

[Angelcurio]

Always heard that theory about Journey to Silius being originally a Terminator game, so it's good to know the truth behind it. Still, up to this day, Journey to Silius is definitely one of the best run and gun contra style games on the Nes, and the music a was superb.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

I love stuff like this.

Thanks OP.

 

[MrCunningham]

I love the voice over guy for this pitch video.

"When you really look at it, it is a video game of sorts, already"

But I mean, hey, Sunsoft has always been one of the stand out third parties on the NES. Most of the claims about Sunsoft delivering some of the best visuals on the NES are most definitely true. They always delivered high quality licensed games on the NES. I'm sure Sunsoft made many pitches like this to different film studios.The first person segments look pretty cool.

I actually didn't mind The The Terminator game on the Genesis/ Mega Drive that was developed by Virgin. It was OK, but nothing amazing. The NES port is garbage, though. Virgin's Sega CD Terminator game was the best title that they produced with that license. Too bad it was on an add-on that few people got to play.

I also really liked some of the Terminator games that Bethesda released for DOS/PC back in the day. Future Shock and Skynet were great for their time. I never played the first person 'open world' Terminator game from 1990, though.

The LJN Terminator 2 games were cancer though. But the light gun T2 arcade game was pretty fun.

This video is a really cool find.

 

[wondermega]

I remember seeing that original Sunsoft Terminator teaser way back in an early issue of Nintendo Power. I was curious why it never came out, but then Silius released instead and when I rented it I thought "hey waiiiitttt a minute.." Loved the audio of Silius but the gameplay left me cold so I never bothered to pick it up - it was kinda stiff compared to the likes of Contra, etc and Sunsoft had already proven they could do much better with Batman & Gremlins (2 standout games for the system).

 

[Gazimaluke]

I am still trying to find out more about the development of the game. It had a really long development time. Starting sometime late in 1988 and released in September 1990. Even accounting for changes needed to be done for the new version the time it took to be released was really long.