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I Played Mobile Strike in Honor of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Birthday and Immediately Regretted It

18K View2022-08-02

That’s right. The big man’s birthday weekend just passed. On July 30, 1947, the world was graced with the muscle-building, machine-destroying, Predator-stomping “Governator” himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Although I was too young to have known much of his work in his Mr. Olympia days—a title he would win seven times—I fondly remember the release of possibly the best action sequel of all time, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. With its near-perfect combination of live stunts, CGI, and an emotional story, that movie holds up to this day as a classic example of what action flicks should be. More importantly, it served as my first introduction to Arnie!

Flash forward three decades later, and although the Terminator franchise may not be the high watermark of action flicks that it once was, Arnold Schwarzenegger is still alive and kicking ass. In honor of his seventy-fifth birthday, I thought I’d play a game I’d always been meaning to try but never got around to until now: Mobile Strike.

I don’t know how I could’ve missed this one. I remember the ads way back in 2017 with Schwarzenegger using his phone to call in missile strikes while saying awesome one-liners like “I’m back,” “Hasta la vista,” and “Get to the chopper.” Perhaps my delay in playing it had something to do with the fact that Mobile Strike had notoriously bad feedback from critics and gamers alike. But I’ve never been one to follow the crowd, and I didn’t have set standards while going in, so it couldn’t be that bad, right? I mean, Arnold loved it...

Unfortunately, yep, It sure is terrible! I mean, not all of it... I was greeted with an introduction from Schwarzenegger, and that got my hopes up, but it went downhill pretty fast after that part. Starting with the basic introduction, Mobile Strike gives you so much information at once that it’s overwhelming to a casual player, and even as a seasoned gamer, it was a lot!! I really did just want to play. Instead, I was given walls of text and tutorials. The goal of the gameplay was to build up my base. I could place in new structures, which provided different upgrades to my overall fortress.

There’s no story here. I couldn’t tell you why I was adding a research facility to my base other than the game that told me to do so. After the first hour, it started feeling really monotonous. Not to mention my entire screen was so filled up with icons that I could barely see what was going on. From what I could see, the artwork wasn’t impressive even by the standards of 2015, the year when Mobile Strike was first released.

Not to mention my entire screen was so filled up with icons that I could barely see what was going on. From what I could see, the artwork wasn’t impressive even by the standards of 2015, the year when Mobile Strike was first released.

When I decided to check out Mobile Strike, I was looking for games that brought back the nostalgia I felt from when I was a kid. It was a time in history when action superstars weren’t relegated to very, shall we say, questionable mobile releases. I remember playing Terminator 2: Judgment Day in the arcade, using the rail gun to vanquish Terminator bots, or playing Last Action Hero on the Super Nintendo and zoning out in front of the TV.

Unfortunately, Mobile Strike couldn’t even live up to those meager standards. Nor could it provide me even a full weekend of entertainment. Don’t consider this a review because I gave up and uninstalled Mobile Strike after just one hour of agonizing gameplay.

The Arnold will go down in history as one of the most prolific action heroes of a generation. And his cinematic video game releases—like Predator, Conan: Hall of Volta, and The Running Man—make him one of the greatest characters and actors to appear across multiple gaming platforms for over thirty years! Mobile Strike will certainly not be remembered as a remarkable moment in that storied career, but I’ve still got to take a moment to say it’s damn good seeing Arnie on my cell. Happy birthday to the man, the myth, and the legend.

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