In a letter from GRIN founders Bo and Ulf Andersson, the CEO and director, respectively, write that "too many publishers have been delaying their payments" to the developer, ending the 12-year-old company officially. The Anderssons lament their "unreleased masterpiece that we weren't allowed to finish," going on to thank their partners and the publishers who apparently did pay them.

Rumors of GRIN's demise began popping up earlier this week, with studios Barcelona and Gothenburg shutting down and the imminent closure of the company's Stockholm HQ. That followed reports of cutbacks earlier in the year, not long after the developer's Bionic Commando and Terminator games failed to inspire sales.

GRIN was reported to have filed for bankruptcy earlier today, with Swedish news radio outlet Sveriges Radio citing the economic climate at the root cause of the closure.

Develop also reports that some former GRIN employees have founded a new studio, Outbreak Studios, which plans to focus on downloadable titles for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, iPhone, Games for Windows Live and PSPgo. Outbreak was founded by former GRIN lead programmer Peter Bjorklund, whose credits unfortunately include Terminator: Salvation.

Best of luck to the guys and gals at GRIN. We really would've liked to see what became of that final "unreleased masterpiece." And thanks to all of our tipsters—Guendolin, Khoi and Johan—for the helpful info.

The last Credits from the brothers GRIN [GRIN]

Gamasutra got their hands on the NPD numbers for the title, which represent U.S. retail sales between May 19th and May 30th. To put things in perspective, Terminator Salvation, also developed by Sweden's Grin studio, sold 43,000 units in the same length of time. The contrast between sales of the two titles really says a great deal about how recognizable properties tend to blind consumers to game reviews. Bionic Commander garnered a Metacritic average of 70, while Terminator scored a measly 45 percent, yet the latter outsold the former by a good 16,000 copies.

Perhaps the low sales for Bionic Commando are simply a result of another month of declining video game sales, as the low numbers certainly aren't limited to Grin-developed titles. Another game released on May 19th, Ea's Boom Blox Bash Party for the Wii, only sold 23,000 units during the same period, though of course that title was a console exclusive and Bionic Commando appeared on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

While no information was available as to how the consoles split those 27,000 copies, sources tell us that the Xbox 360 demo, as dismal as it may have been, did manage to boost sales on Microsoft's console significantly.

Slow sales can't possibly be good for Grin of course, already the subject of rumored layoffs late last month. Despite the rumors and poor performance, I ran into a couple of Grin folks at E3 earlier this month who seemed completely upbeat, and when I asked "Aren't you guys supposed to be fired?" they simply laughed and handed me a pair of Grin-embroidered socks. I suppose that could mean something in Sweden.

Terminator Salvation for the iPhone is another video game spin-off of the fourth Terminator movie, released earlier this month as another option for those look for an interactive expansion of the McG-directed Christian Bale-starring action flick. You could go with the console version of the game blasted through in three hours by Kotaku's Brian Crecente or this game, also a third-person shooter, which I wrapped up in 90 minutes. Both tell side-stories to the movie, this one alternating player control from John Connor to Marcus Wright, the heroes of the film.

The iPhone edition, developed by Gameloft and credited by the company as its 12th movie game, is comprised of eight levels of mostly on-foot cover combat with a couple of vehicle-based shooting missions thrown in. Several tilt-the-iPhone circuit-board hacking segments are sprinkled in as well. There was effort applied here, a reason enough for gamers to hope and part with five bucks?

Loved
The Movie Game Solution? Consider the variations of the simplistic, licensed movie game that gets gifted to movie fans. In the old days, there were lots of side-scrolling beat-em-ups on, say, the Genesis. These games were full price, but barely resembled the movies they were based on. They've mainly had some successors, including cheaper but still crude cell-phone movie games and expensive but much more graphically and aurally cinematic movie games for higher-end consoles. That latter group includes the recent console version of Terminator Salvation and typically costs consumers more than their gameplay quality warrants. Their value is in the you-are-in-the-movie virtual-acting experience they provide. You are John Connor up against Terminators while the signature soundtrack clangs. The fourth way? An iPhone/iPod-Touch game like this one that can look good enough and sound epic enough to put you in a movie experience, but will only run you five dollars. In terms of balancing blockbuster-cinematic-appeal, game-design-quality and wallet-expense, this may be the perfect scenario to amuse players without burning them. Apple's platform to the rescue?

Hated
Clumsy: While our future fight against murderous machines will not be an easy one, let's hope it's not this awkward. Gameloft's approach with third-person games like this on the iPod/iPhone is to imitate dual-analog controls via a virtual thumbstick on the left and a drag-your-right-thumb-to-aim mechanic on the right. The firing button is in the screen's lower right corner. The scheme works fine in straight-on firefights, and the snap-cover system works fine also when approached in a straight line, but at angles or in the heat of battle there is much stumbling, much getting caught on scenery and a very slow turning radius. Humanity can't win this way.

That Other Marcus: One assumes the game's designers have played Gears of War. Hence the cover system. Hence the curb-stomps. Hence the button-mash melee moments. Hence the vehicle missions. Where's Dom's wife? The problem here is that Gears controlled well. This barely gets by.

What you've got in Terminator Salvation is what one's lowest expectation of movie games should get you: something basic but enriched by the style of the movie. There's little the designers can probably do with the thin source material — after all, what is the essence of Terminator fiction that can be ported to a video game in any more complex way than skinning the enemies to look like killer robots? Little opportunity was squandered, because it's hard to see what opportunity there was.

Movie critics have already declared that the Terminator Salvation movie is like a video game. Doubtless they didn't have a game like Ico, Tetris or Portal in mind when they made that comparison, but might they have been comparing it to a game like iPhone Terminator Salvation? They might as well have been.

Terminator Salvation was developed by Gameloft for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Retails for $4.99 USD. Played through easy mode in 86 minutes, found 71 item drops to unlock concept art, started Extreme difficulty which swaps the lead character for a Terminator.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

The third-person shooter has gamers taking on Skynet and its army of robots as they fight to save a group of soldiers lost behind enemy lines.

The Terminator and its red eyes has already spawned nearly two dozen Terminator themed video games. Can Terminator Salvation set itself apart... in a good way?

Loved
Cover Yourself: Terminator Salvation has a fairly robust cover system. That's because they expect you to use it in most encounters with the different bots you'll be going up against. You press a button to stick to cover and then push the thumbstick in a direction to see if you can move to nearby cover. While other games have done this before, I've never seen a game that allows you to move around an entire map almost entirely in cover.

Vehicular Homicide: The most enjoyable moments in the game are when you're not walking, but riding in the back of a truck or buggy or piloting an over-sized robot. These moments are few and far between and relatively short, but fun when they happen.

Hated
No Diversity: There seem to be less than half a dozen guns in this game. You also get grenades and pipe bombs. And that's it. But that's OK, because you're really only facing four types of enemies. Sure you'll see a few others and there are a couple of boss battles, but this is one sparse, unimaginative war going on.

Objective Confusion: The minimalist heads-up-display does little to help this game. Since you have no radar and no objective indicator you have to make sure to follow your teammates, teammates who either constantly run well ahead of you or stick so far behind they don't seem to like your company. Even more frustrating are the moments—the many moments—when you're getting peppered with enemy fire but you can't figure out where the gray enemies, which often blend into the rubble of the landscape, are.

Voice Acting and Plot: The voice acting in Terminator Salvation is just horrendous. It sounds like the lines were read, not acted, and recorded. It's the first time I've played a video game and really noticed the disconnect between the dialog and the avatars that are supposed to be speaking it. The plot, as short as it is, is completely free of twists, turns or nuance. You need to save a bunch of guys, killing robots on the way to your goal. End of story.

Cut Scenes: Created with the game engine, the cut-scenes at times look better and at other times worse than the gameplay itself. The scenes are often blurry, murky affairs with distractingly bad lip-syncing and no real emotion.

Short, Not Sweet: It took me just under three hours to blast my way through the game on the easy setting. That included getting lost and confused about my objectives a few times. I went back and played a few levels on the hardest setting and the only difference seemed to be the number of shots required to put a bot down.

Bad AI: One of the big points of this game is that you have to work in concert with your teammates to take down many of the enemies. That entails laying down cover fire into the front of a terminator while someone sneaks around behind it to blast its weak spots. Neat idea, and when it works it's sort of fun. But when the friendly AI just refuses to help you out it becomes an exercise in tedium.

Narrow Paths: It doesn't take long to realize that much of that vast landscape of destruction is off limits to you. The game piles up cars, rubble and buildings to make sure you can't stray very far from the beaten path. There are entire levels that look more like mazes than cityscape because the path is so narrow.

Terminator isn't a horrible game, but it is a bland one. The third-person shooter does little to set itself apart from other shooters or other Terminator games. The encounters with robots are so expected, so similar to one another that the game feels more like a job than a diversion.

Terminator Salvation was developed by GRIN and published by Equity Games and Evolved Games for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Released on May 19th. Retails for $59.99. Played Xbox 360 version. Completed story mode on easy difficulty, replayed through multiple levels on hard difficulty.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

GRIN, which has development offices in Sweden, Spain and Indonesia, is rumored to be in the process of shuttering its Gothenburg and Barcelona-based annexes. Layoffs at its headquarters in Stockholm are rumored to amount to nearly 30. That reduction in staff and studios is said to affect somewhere between 100 and 160 employees total.

The developer most recently shipped Terminator: Salvation for multiple platforms to mixed reviews. It also shipped Wanted: Weapons of Fate and Bionic Commando Rearmed within the last year.

While layoffs that occur after a major title ships are not uncommon in the industry, the alleged closure of studios is more telling of GRIN's situation.

We've contacted representatives from Capcom and GRIN, but have yet to receive confirmation on the layoffs. Consider this distressing news rumor until we hear something more definitive, but given the numerous sources, all of whom wished to be kept anonymous, we'd think something's definitely up.

Terminator Salvation, the fourth Terminator movie, opened last weekend to cranky reviews.

Unimpressed with actor Christian Bale and director McG's take on the evil-android series, movie reviewers eviscerated the film. And in the process, they lobbed the grandest of insults:

They wrote: this movie's like a video game.

Here's a sampling:

*The Memphis, Tennessee Commercial Appeal's John Beifuss: "...The giant shape-shifting robots (which harvest humans like the Martian machines in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds") are more Transformer than Terminator; they seem to have been designed for video games and Toys R Us spinoffs rather than for movie sequels."

*The Chicago Sun Times' Roger Ebert: "… most of the running time is occupied by action sequences, chase sequences, motorcycle sequences, plow-truck sequences, helicopter sequences, fighter-plane sequences, towering android sequences and fistfights. It gives you all the pleasure of a video game without the bother of having to play it." (Two stars)

*The Boston Herald's James Verniere: … "Terminator Salvation, which sports a surprisingly grating score by the otherwise great Danny Elfman, looks less like a movie than a hybridized video game." (C+)

*The Seattle Times' John Hartl: "… More video game than movie, "Terminator Salvation" is the fourth and easily the least-entertaining installment in one of Hollywood's most successful science-fiction franchises." (1 1/2 stars)

*The Tampa Tribune's Kevin Walker: … "Loud, monochromatic and relentlessly grim in the way of a video game for preteens, this movie - directed by McG (of the 'Charlie's Angels' movies and a whole bunch of music videos) - completes the transformation of the 'Terminator' series from mind-bending science fiction bolstered by great special effects to a special effects circus with very little story." (1 1/2 stars)

*The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Colin Covert: "The film proceeds with video-game logic. The humans have a chance to strike at the heart of SKYNET by jamming the communications link to its army of high-tech killers. But that goal can be interrupted at any moment by an onslaught of unmanned fighter jets, motorcycles or even mechanical eels patrolling the rivers." (2 1/2 stars)

*The Winnipeg Free Press' Randall King: "[Actress Moon] Bloodgood projects all the gritty humanity of a sexy video-game character." (2 1/2 stars)

*Gizmodo's Mark Wilson: It's a two-hour video game linking a series of sequences that have little reason for existence other than McG's action-packed directing style.

*(Bonus blast from the past from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's review of Terminator 2 back in 1991: "It is, at the same time, dazzling and numbing, a movie that stuns you in all senses of the word. ... It is as dehumanized as Nintendo, which is ultimately what it resembles — the world's biggest video game.|)

I didn't see the movie. Any gamers out there think this is inaccurate criticism? Or is Terminator Salvation guilty as charged of being too video-gamey?

Actress Moon Bloodgood will voice Williams in the six-part series.

"From a film maker's point of view, Machinima provides an incredibly dynamic way to explore live worlds and tell compelling new stories," said McG, director of Terminator Salvation. "The process allows the writer and director to think cinematically, while at the same time executing certain things that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive or even impossible on a set."

The series is available on iTunes, Amazon Video on Demand, Xbox Live and Playstation Network for $3 an HD episode or $2 an SD episode. You can also sign up for a season pass for $15 for HD or $10 for SD.

"Working with The Halcyon Company's motion picture development team and having produced a high-octane, story driven action shooter videogame using Grin AB's cutting edge ‘Diesel' engine, we had an incredible basis to further explore stories set in the Terminator universe," said Cos Lazouras, president of Halcyon Games, creator of the "Terminator Salvation" videogame. "Re-purposing our game to produce the very first dramatic series in this medium is a fantastic innovation and will become the norm for game makers in the future."

The series kicks off in 2016 with Blair sent into downtown LA to find and destroy something called The Ghost.

While promoting Terminator Salvation, Bale told PhilStar.com, "Yes, I do love video games. I played video games in my entire growing-up years. One of my favorites is Super Mario. I wouldn't sleep until I finished the game, you know."

Christian Bale fun fact: His acting debut was in a Pac-Man cereal commercial. He was eight years old and played a child rock star who ate Pac-Man cereal. AMAZING.

That Christian spirit [PhilStar via Joystiq]

Users have been complaining about serious install errors all week, to the point where the game has had to be recalled from North American retail shelves. A notice on the game's official forum states:

Unfortunately a defect occurred during replication of the PC version of Terminator Salvation, which does not allow end users to install the game. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are not affected and function properly. We have recalled all PC copies of Terminator Salvation from retail in North America and are currently in the process of replicating new copies. The new copies will be on store shelves in a few days. A replacement plan for all end users that purchased the defective units is currently being set up. Details to get a replacement copy will be announced shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused the end users that purchased the defective copy.

In the developer's defence, this sounds like a proper "defect", like you'd get with any other product, rather than the result of sloppy code (yes, Fallout 3, we're looking at you).

Terminator Salvation PC Install Error [Terminator Salvation]

After reading Crecente's preview of the game and seeing this and other trailers of the title in action, I lack the will to even come up with a satisfyingly witty "Gears of ____* remark. This looks like several other games I've already played, only not quite as good, to the extent that I get an overwhelming sense of déjà vu watching the vehicle turret portion of the trailer. It isn't that I've played games like this before. It feels as if I've already played this game in particular. It's uncanny. Or perhaps over-canny. I can't decide.

Noting the checkered history of movies made into games (which is still much, much better than games made into movies) the AP talked to four different studios about why they think this year's crop of movie-games won't repeat 2008's largely unremarkable quality.

Joby Otero of Luxoflux, which is developing "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," thinks somehow that studios "get it" more this year than they did last year, which gave us Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and other check-cashing projects.

"I think Hollywood is communicating with the games industry on a different level now. There's a recognition that a game's quality can impact the overall franchise. I think part of the reason is that more of the key creative decision makers grew up as gamers themselves. There's an understanding of how wrong these things can go."

Jason Enos of Electronic Arts, which is handling G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (can we please be done with the "Rise of" subtitles?) sees his game as an extension to the movie, not its adjunct.

We pick up where the movie ends. We tell a genuine story that's exclusive to the game but ties in key plot points in the film. That also allows us to leverage the larger 'G.I. Joe' universe - characters, vehicles, things you're not going to see in the film but you'll get in the game.

Call me cynical, but no one is asking or answering the essential question of why these games should be done in the first place. What is their point, what is their value proposition to me as a gamer? Sure, films and games may not be mutually exclusive formats; what makes them mutually inclusive?

Don't bother coming up with a creative answer, because we already know it: Money. Pure color-by-numbers money-making strategy.

Summer Movie Video Games Seek to Terminate Stigma [AP hosted by Google]

But what about the game? Can it shake its movie roots and deliver an experience that is as good as or better than the movie?

What It Is
The third-person shooter takes place between the events of Terminator 3 and the Terminator Salvation movie. The game has players take on the role of John Connor as he fights his way deep into enemy lines to save members of the resistance left behind.

What We Saw
I was shown the beginning of the game and was able to play through a healthy chunk of several levels with Cos Lazouras, president of Halcyon Games, in local cooperative mode on the Xbox 360.

How Far Along Is it?
The game is set for a release on May 19 for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. I was told that development was fairly closed to finished, though the Grin is still adding a bit of polish.

What Needs Improvement?
Cooperative: With local only cooperative play, the game really needs to deliver on that experience, but the horizontally-split screen felt a bit cramped and the lack of drop-in, drop-out was disappointing.

Sizzle: While the game doesn't really have any glaring issues, it also doesn't really have anything that sets it apart from all of the other shooter games out there. It feels like a generic shooter reskinned with a thin veneer of Terminator.

Lost: In my relatively brief time with the game I managed to keep getting lost. Support characters tend to run off after you're done and I didn't see any indicators of where to go.

What Needs to Stay the Same?
Cover System: The game uses an interesting cover system that has you hopping from cover to cover to avoid getting chewed up by the enemies. The system turns hopping into cover and moving between shelter a main tactic of the game.

Rail Shooter Moments: Riding on the back of a jeep shooting down living motorcycles was the highlight of my experience with the game. The jeep tilts wildly as your driver zips around wreckage and up embankments, making this segment more challenging than I had expected.

Final Thoughts
Terminator Salvation looks like a playable shooter that will lean heavily on the Terminator name to move copies. I don't see this game winning any awards, and can't expect that I would get much out of playing through the seemingly lackluster title.

The insider tells Arcade Heroes that the already-in-development game currently looks "astounding." With the recent Rambo movie getting an arcade game, this rumor does make sense. It wouldn't be the first Terminator light gun arcade game — that honor would go to Midway's 1991 Terminator 2: Judgement Day game.

Rumor: Terminator Salvation coming to arcades later this year [Arcade Heroes]

In an interview with GamePro Magazine, developer Cos Lazouras reveals that players will be playing as Terminator hero John Connor, but players will not be playing as Christian Bale's likeness.

Those disappointed by the absence of Bale, feel free to scream and threaten your television.

Exclusive Terminator Salvation Interview on GamePro.com [GamePro.com]

Playing a character exclusive to the game, McGowan is former elementary school teacher Angie Salter who must adjust to the horrors of the war against fictional computer system Skynet. The film version of Terminator Salvation, the fourth in the franchise, stars Batman Begins actor Christian Bale as John Connor. It's set in 2018 and shows the war against mankind and Skynet.

It is unconfirmed whether Bale is lending his voice to the game, which is out May 21.

Terminator Salvation Voice Talent Announced [IncGamers] [Pic]

The mag reveals the first concrete details on Terminator Salvation, the video game adaptation of the movie directed by McG and starring a mentally unhinged Christian Bale. Developed by Bionic Commando devs GRIN, Terminator Salvation apparently has an "epic story," "numerous menacing Terminator machines" and "weapons," according to GamePro's preview.

Halcyon Games announced its intentions to bring the GRIN-developed Terminator Salvation – The Videogame to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and PC in November, promising "a visceral story with extremely polished production values to create a fully interactive Terminator experience.”

It also has a very scary look at the T-600, the massive Terminator new to the apocalyptic sci-fi franchise. It's huge! And its eyes glow!

Warning: GamePro says the issue is "about to blow your face off like the enormous Earth-incinerating blast depicted in Terminator 2: Judgment Day." Read carefully and with a spare face.

GamePro's Terminator Salvation cover story revealed [GamePro]

“Building on the incredibly strong franchise, Terminator Salvation – The Videogame will be a cinematic gaming experience that complements the upcoming film,” said John Quinn, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Working with Halcyon and Equity Games, we will expand on the Terminator universe on next generation consoles with action packed gameplay and detailed environments.”

Of course this is the same sort of spiel we hear every time a movie-based video game is announced, and we've all seen how that usually works out. Note the press release doesn't mention what consoles it is being developed for, which probably indicates all of them.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Equity Games Production and Halcyon Games Announce Terminator Salvation – The Videogame, an Intense, Action Game Based on the Highly Anticipated 2009 Film

BURBANK, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Equity Games Production and Halcyon Games announce Terminator Salvation – The Videogame, an action-packed, third-person shooter, to be released in conjunction with the highly anticipated Warner Bros. Pictures and Sony Pictures film, which opens nationwide on May 22, 2009.

Based on the upcoming “Terminator Salvation” film, the game offers players the chance to assume the role of John Connor, a soldier in the resistance, battling for survival against the far superior forces of Skynet. Terminator Salvation – The Videogame is a third-person action game with concentrated armed combat against all of the Skynet enemies from the film while encountering new enemies specifically designed for the game. The game was developed by GRIN Studios, published by Equity Games, co-published by Evolved Games and distributed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

“Terminator Salvation – The Videogame allows players to battle for survival against Skynet enemies utilizing an incredibly fluid and realistic control set,” said Cos Lazouras, President of Halcyon Games. “The player will be led through a visceral story with extremely polished production values to create a fully interactive Terminator experience.”

“Building on the incredibly strong franchise, Terminator Salvation – The Videogame will be a cinematic gaming experience that complements the upcoming film,” said John Quinn, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Working with Halcyon and Equity Games, we will expand on the Terminator universe on next generation consoles with action packed gameplay and detailed environments.”