Twisted Metal Review

Everyone knows that there are three things that always sell in today’s world:

-Sex
-Action
-Violence

There aren’t a lot of games in today’s world which don’t use at least one of those three selling points, and normally those games are puzzle games, like Tetris, or Peggle.

Eat Sleep Play, the developers of Twisted Metal, when looking for something to help boost sales, turned to Action and Violence, and then sat back to watch the explosion. However, the explosion was not nearly as big as they thought it would be, which is surprising, considering just how many rockets and bombs this game has.

Twisted Metal is actually part of the longest running PlayStation exclusive series, which spans back to 1995. There are currently nine games in the series, with the 2012 Twisted Metal becoming the Golden Number Ten. It’s also one of the most popular game series to date, which could be seen as odd, because its idea is actually very simple.

The entire series is based on a Demolition Derby style of game play. Everyone is in different vehicles outfitted with guns and rockets, with the last one standing being the winner. The 2012 release is no exception, with a few major differences.

Which in past Twisted Metal games, the character you chose would determine what vehicle you would be driving. This would mean that during story modes, whatever car you chose at the start of the storyline, would be the car you stick with until the end. In the 2012 release, instead of making an individual character for each car, the developers instead made four factions, which can use whichever vehicle they feel would get the job done the best.

This was a very good move on the developers part. This allowed the gamer to take an almost RPG approach to game play. They could switch to a better car, suited to that particular event if need be.

However, this change effected the storyline more than anything else.

In past Twisted Metal Games, the matches were all based around the whim of a man who goes by the name Calypso. Calypso is a man who has the power to grant wishes, and will grant a wish to anybody who survives a certain number of matches. Each car had its own separate character, each with their own wish that they want granted. This meant every car had its own storyline.

In the 2012 release, three out of the four factions have leaders, each of which have their own wish they want granted. So, the 2012 Twisted Metal storyline is very short compared to the others.

By no means is the story bad, however. The entire story is very well told in the cut scenes, and has a much darker feel to it in comparison to the other Twisted Metal games.

The difficulty of the storyline is very high, the developers made the first 2/3s of the story moderately challenging, rising in difficulty with each victory, but the last third of the game feels like it was suddenly shifted into a much harder setting, and will take a lot of time and effort to complete.

A new game mode was also added to the storyline: three racing levels. In these levels, your goal is still to destroy all the other contestants, but the quickest way to do so in complete a very difficult race to arm a set of bombs and make it back to the starting line to detonate them, causing all the other cars to explode. They feel very awkward, and take trial and error to win. They are completely pointless, and did not work alongside the rest of the game.

The ending also comes very abruptly, and almost making it feel like the series is over, with very little promise of another sequel.

Changing gears, the game also has a local multiplayer mode, which is standard for this series. You and up to 3 other people can duke it out split-screen style. There are enough maps, vehicles, and games modes to keep the fun going, and will definitely entertain for quite some time.

This Twisted Metal also has an online mode, where up to sixteen players can battle it out. It’s extremely fast paced; when someone is killed, within three seconds, they’re back on the road. The game even allows you to change cars during the match.

The online multiplayer does have some kinks that need to be worked out, matches have a very bad habit of shutting down halfway through, and often feels very unbalanced when the Rank 5 player is in a room with a bunch of new Rank 1 players, and just tanks them.

The game itself has a few problems as well, cars and trucks have a very bad habit of exploding for no reason whatsoever, the physics are a bit broken, and can sometimes cause your car to fly across the map because you turned a bit too fast, and there are a couple places in game maps where cars can become permanently suck, and pretty much have to just sit there until someone comes along and puts them out of their misery.

But by no means is the game not worth your time. The same Twisted Metal fun is still there, it’s just turned down a bit in this release. I recommend this game to anyone who has a PS3, but I would say, wait a month or two for the price to drop about $20 and for the kinks in the online multiplayer to get sorted out.

What feels weird is the game feels like it literally popped into existence, there was very little hype over this game, and not many people rushed to the stores on release day to get a copy before anyone else could. It feels as if Eat Sleep Play isn’t as in to this idea anymore, and they’re ready to move on.

To everyone on the Eat Sleep Play team, I urge you to not give up on this great series. The series has so many places it could go, and so many things it could do! You have core game-play down to a T, but now is the time you start playing with different ideas, like what you did in this Twisted Metal. Sure, a couple of the ideas didn’t work very well, but now you know that, now you can dust yourself off and start experimenting with some more new ideas.

And me, as a fan, will love them all the same.