Back when I was younger, I remember playing Twisted Metal
on Sony’s original Playstation. I was enthralled by the death match modes while
driving cars. At that time, it was an original concept and not very well
emulated by anyone. So, following my current trend of playing remakes and
re-releases, I allowed myself to be suckered into playing Twisted Metal as
released on the PS3.
The first thing that needs to be said about this game is
that it is not an old release that’s simply been rendered with better graphics.
This is a whole new game that pulls from its old roots over ten years ago, and
did a complete makeover of the series. If you’ve played the newest Mortal
Kombat, you know what I’m talking about. Both games have taken the old story,
and updated it, and released a whole new game.
One of the things that I loved about this game is the
offline 2-player co-op gameplay. You can play through the entire campaign by
yourself or with a friend. Myself, I come from the school of thought that says
that anytime I can play with a friend, it’s preferable to playing by myself.
So, me and a buddy grabbed a borrowed PS3 and borrowed the game and started to
play.
My buddy isn’t really a hardcore gamer. But he is your
average gamer when it comes to ability. He won’t drag you down in co-op
gameplay, but he’s not on the first round of picks for online competitive
multiplayer in games. So, we decided to skip the easiest difficulty and play it
on the second difficulty, hard. We played for a few hours one night, and then
finished it the next morning. Once we had beaten it on hard, we decided to try
the “Twisted” difficulty. It took us several hours to beat that difficulty, but
when we were done we realized that we had gotten a gold rating on all the maps
except three. So we went back and got gold on all maps on the Twisted
difficulty.
The campaign overarching story follows a character named
Calypso. Calypso hosts a tournament (again, think Mortal Kombat) where there
are different events to play, each one driving a vehicle, and each one ending
with you killing off all your opponents. The winner of the tournament gets a
single wish granted. Fans of the old series will remember that once the wish is
granted, it is in some twisted way that ends up killing the person that made
the wish.
The campaign is split into three sections, each consisting
of five events plus a boss event. All three sections happen at the same time
chronologically, but you have to complete one person’s story before advancing
to the next story. You start off playing as Sweet Tooth, the demonic clown that
has become the series’ banner. After completing his story, you become a man
with a honorable goal of going back in time to save his father from death.
Then, you become a sadistic, insane runway model who has aspirations of being
the top model in the world.
Even though you can not choose your driver in the campaign,
you still have the ability to choose the car that you drive. Each car has
strengths and weaknesses. Some posses more armor, and are capable of dealing
damage by ramming into other cars, but at the expense of speed. Some are
quicker, with lighter armor. Others are geared more towards their special
weapon’s ability. Probably one of the most unique vehicles to play as is “Talon”,
a helicopter who can use a magnet to grab cars, fly high, and then drop them.
Even though the campaign only consists of 18 matches, don’t
expect it to be over quickly. If you actually beat a match, it will take only
about 3-5 minutes on average. But don’t expect to beat every match on the first
try, especially on the hardest difficulty, and also especially the boss rounds.
All the rounds in the campaign are not deathmatches either.
The deathmatch is a staple of the game, but there are several variations. There
is a “cage match” mode in which you must stay in a cage, or lose cumulative
time on your grace period. If your grace period runs out, you start taking
damage. Your goal is similar to deathmatch; kill your opponents before you die.
There are a couple races in the game, too. In these levels,
every car has a bomb attached to it. Once the first place crosses the finish
line, the rest of the cars’ bombs are triggered, killing the other drivers. As
you are racing, you may also kill off other drivers with your usual weapons.
Another mode worthy of noting is the juggernaut modes.
There are a few variations, but they basically boil down to one thing. You have
a few enemies, and one semi with a trailer called the Juggernaut. The
Juggernaut has more health and armor than any other vehicle in the game. Your
goal is to kill all the enemies before dying. The unique thing is that every 90
seconds or so, the Juggernaut will spawn another enemy. So, you need to kill
the Juggernaut to keep him from spawning more and more enemies.
After each match, you will be given a ranking based upon
the speed in which you beat the match. There are four rankings; gold, silver,
bronze, and no award. As an extra challenge there is an achievement for getting
all golds, and another for getting all golds on Twisted difficulty.
The graphics and sound in the game are not breathtaking,
but there are more than sufficient. This game isn’t about a beautiful world;
it’s about carnage. It’s about killing off other drivers in order to win your place
at the top. With that being said, this isn’t a game for kids. There is gore and
language throughout the game.
All in all, it was a fun diversion for a few days. But now
that I’ve beaten the hardest difficulty with all gold, there’s not much more to
do since I can’t go online out here in Afghanistan.
- Woody
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