Return To Home Page		April 5, 2012

Weapons and vehicles in Twisted Metal are insane.

It’s a little bit worrying that I can clearly remember the release of the original Twisted Metal game on the PSOne. The reason it’s worrying is because that happened seventeen years ago, and is proof positive that I am not getting any younger. Rather than dwell on that unhappy reality let’s get stuck into the new Twisted Metal, the first new game in the series in over a decade. Back in the capable hands of David Jaffe and his Eat Sleep Play company, does the new Twisted Metal live up to the legacy of its forebears? Read on...

The Twisted Metal tournament is back, brought to you by the mysterious and decidedly wicked Calypso. The tournament plays out as a series of violent and anarchic vehicular combat events with the winner being granted one wish from Calypso. It’s a fight to the death and only the strongest, and craziest, have any hope of earning their hearts desire.

Such a tournament attracts a truly bizarre range of characters, all of whom could generously be referred to as bad apples. The single player campaign lets you play as Sweet Tooth, a serial-killing clown, Mr. Grimm, who turned violent after his father’s death, and Dollface, a murderous supermodel who will do anything to be the best. You don’t get to choose your character, rather, campaign is sequential so you start off as Sweet Tooth, progress to Mr. Grimm and finish with Dollface. Each character’s campaign is just six events long, but given the steep difficulty each campaign may take a while to complete.

Using the homing missile...

To aid you in your car-destroying goals there are a number of vehicles and weapons at your disposal. Unlike previous Twisted Metal games you’re not locked in to any one vehicle, instead you get to take your pick from any already unlocked. In some events you can use up to three vehicles, swapping between them at a garage, which is most helpful when you’re low on health. There are around fifteen vehicles to choose from, each fitting one of three general types; slow but with lots of armour, fast but with minimal armour, or somewhere in the middle. Each vehicle has its own special weapon, some of which are very effective (the Junk Yard Dog’s taxi slam) and others that seem a tad underpowered (the Vermin’s rat rocket).

Special weapons replenish with time, but you’ll also want to stock up on the weapons that litter each level. Weapon pickups include homing and standard rockets, shotguns, remote control car bombs and more. Each vehicle also has mines, shields and a freeze gun at their disposal, the latter of which combines very well with the Road Boat’s mega-magnet special attack. Your vehicle also has a side-arm weapon, such as a machine gun or magnum, which inflicts minor damage on your opponents.

There are few different event types over the course of the campaign. There are traditional death matches where you have to kill all your rivals to progress and endurance events where you have to survive long enough to take down eight of the re-spawning enemies. There are also electric cage matches where you have to stay within an electric cage that moves often or else you’ll constantly lose health.

Flying around in a chopper.

A couple of events have you battling against Juggernauts – huge trucks that release new enemies every ninety seconds – as well as regular enemies. Taking down the Juggernauts is no easy feat as they’re armed to the hilt and have plenty of health. There are races, which test your controller-throwing impulses (you’d think I’d have grown out of that by now) and also boss fights that complete each character’s campaign. The first boss fight is nothing special, but the second is downright insane - you’ll have to capture Dollface’s minions, drive them to a missile launcher and launch them at Dollface – and the third features a pinball machine obstacle course. Insane I tell you.

When it comes to vehicular combat there’s no doubt that the real fun is multiplayer, and Twisted Metal has plenty of options in that regard. Up to four players can compete locally in split-screen and there is LAN support as well. If you venture online up to sixteen players can join in the fun. As far as game modes go there is death match, last man standing and Hunted, which is a lot like ‘tiggy’ in real life. Each of these games can be played as a free-for-all or team-based depending on your preference. Then there’s Nuke, where the object is to capture the other teams’ leader (an NPC), carry them to a missile launcher and hurl them at opposition statues. The other team will definitely try to stop you and missiles can be shot out of the air making for frantic action.

Twisted Metal is a PS3 exclusive.

Sometimes it’s annoying when you have to wait for games, but in the case of Twisted Metal, which was released mid-February in North America, the wait has been advantageous for Aussie gamers. The reason for this is that online play has been severely hampered by frequent disconnections and games that don’t start at all. While there are still some issues with regards to stability of online play these issues happen much less now, making for a better overall experience.

That said there are a few issues with online play. It can be hard to find a full game because they often start with a minimum number of competitors, and on the odd occasion you do find a full game they often don’t start (though Sony is working on an auto-start feature it wasn’t fully functional when we played). Team balancing is also a little off and many games begin with an uneven number of drivers on each team. Lag was also commonplace and while it’s never so bad as to ruin a game, it’s disconcerting to see cars jumping from one spot to another.

The last issue is that there’s not a lot of depth to online play. There aren’t a lot of game modes and there are only so many times you can play Nuke. While it’s true that you level up and unlock new weapons and vehicles, these are the same ones you unlock in the campaign, so there’s not a host of new content. Despite these issues online play is still a lot of fun, but the fun may not last as long as you were hoping.

Twisted Metal (2012) includes 16-player online matches.

Outside of the imperfect online game, there are a couple of other issues worth mentioning. AI racers are extremely aggressive and all of them focus exclusively on you, even to the detriment of themselves. This is most annoying in races where you’ll be rammed mercilessly, and falling off a cliff even once can effectively end your chances of victory and force a restart. At these times you’ll find yourself wishing you could skip an event and come back to it, but that’s not possible here. At other times the AI attacks can feel cheap, especially when you get frozen in place, rammed into a wall and then blasted into mid-air in quick succession.

Generally speaking Twisted Metal’s visuals look dated, but they still work well enough. Environments are almost fully destructible and buildings will crumble when you drive into them. Pedestrians and drivers of destroyed cars are fair game and will spatter the windscreen with blood if you mow them down. Explosions abound and they can send your car hurtling through the air, while special weapons look alright but nothing special. The level design is a strong point of the game, making it fun to learn the layout of new arenas.

It would be negligent of me not to mention the live-action cut-scenes that play out during the campaign. They are reminiscent of Sin City in terms of style (actors in front of a blue-screen) and the characters capture the menacing theme of the game very well. These scenes basically give you the origin story of the characters in the game and provide an entertaining interlude between campaign events.

Visuals are decent, but not groundbreaking.

The music in the game is mostly heavy metal, though there are some rap and rock songs in there as well. Artists such as Rob Zombie, NWA, Sammy Haggar and Iggy Pop are featured, and almost without exception the music suits the game perfectly. The music definitely adds to the sinister atmosphere the game is trying to create. The sound effects are decent enough, and the acting is fine in a B-grade horror film kind of way.

Twisted Metal’s single player game is equal parts competent and frustrating, but, cut-scenes aside, never really excels. Multiplayer, whether local or online, is a different story, and it is here that Twisted Metal blossoms into something a lot more fun. There is something undeniably engaging about blowing up human-controlled opponents rather than AI-controlled bots. Online play does have its fair share of issues but it’s a lot of fun for a while. Unfortunately the lack of depth here means that the fun may not last as long as you’d like. Fans of the series or the genre are likely to have fun with Twisted Metal, but newcomers may find it too frustrating to persist with. Twisted Metal is a mostly competent game but it’s not a must-have by any means.

Review By: Mike Allison

GRAPHICS	Looks a bit dated but the cut-scenes suit the game wonderfully well.	72%
SOUND	Awesome music with decent sound effects and voice-acting.	83%
GAMEPLAY	Single-player is extremely frustrating at times, but online it’s a lot of fun. Controls can take some getting used to.	76%
VALUE	Both single-player and online modes lack the kind of depth you might expect.	72%
OVERALL	At times Twisted Metal is sensational fun, but it’s equally frustrating too. Fans of the series will enjoy it, but the limited depth and steep learning curve make it hard to recommend to all.	74%