Just to be clear, this game is the only game of the Twisted Metal series I have ever played. That said, after playing this game I have no interest in playing any one of the other games. In essence the game resolves around driving around, killing opponents with a variety of weapons and all the while trying to keep yourself alive. A promising concept but, as a fan of car combat games, thisJust to be clear, this game is the only game of the Twisted Metal series I have ever played. That said, after playing this game I have no interest in playing any one of the other games. In essence the game resolves around driving around, killing opponents with a variety of weapons and all the while trying to keep yourself alive. A promising concept but, as a fan of car combat games, this game proved to be a disappointment and I cannot see how it has achieved such critical acclaim.
The positives of the game are limited in number. I like the design of the vehicles which assist the overall dark/comical feeling of the game. Furthermore the weapons are varied enough, and are quite easy to get the hand of as the controls are acceptable. Furthermore, I did have the odd giggle with the game, although I suspect those giggles stemmed from the game having the novelty of being a car combat game, a genre which has been criminally underused by Triple A develops in my opinion.
Despite such strengths, for every one second of game play that made me chuckle, there was a good ten minutes of frustration. First of all the games maps were rather dull, with the first maps being passable and the maps displayed later on in the game having the same charm as a wet carrot. I gave up on the game at level 6 during the “drive-in movie” map, which is the gaming equivalent of trying to scrape entertainment out of a lecture on the development on bus timetables in Scarborough. Secondly while the weapons were varied, the vast majority of them were rather pointless, as many of them do not lock on or take far too long to fire. Rather than feeling like weapons, many felt like the equivalent of America trying to fight North Korea with enthusiastic pubic lice. Combine this with the sheer chaos of the other drives driving all over the place, the game loses any sense of strategy and cohesion. I imagine similar results could only be obtained if Rockstar decided to employ Patrick Starr as the chief designer for the next GTA game.
Perhaps I could ignore such short comings, if the game was like Dynasty Warriors, and made you feel like the matches were a complete free for all and you were a conqueror of worlds and that other drivers weep at the mere mention of your name. Instead I felt that the game was overly difficult. This feeling emerged due to how the useful weapons in the game, aka the ones that lock on to targets, seem to deal such little damage to opponents one could compare their impact to the impact made on a phone screen by trying to text with a pointy nipple. Consequently, rather than feeling like a badass, like say “the Doom Guy”, you feel powerless as enemies just shrug off damage, in the same way that Piers Morgan shrugs off any sense of moral decency. As a result if you want to feel like a badass when playing this game, then this game is not for you.
This revelation made me think that the game is supposed to be difficult in order to make conquering levels more rewarding. However once again the game seems to fall flat on its arse, because rather than being difficult but rewarding the game is just difficult. Such difficulty is caused by the previously mentioned flaws, but also by how opponents seem to damage each other with such pathetic impact that is comparable to a house fly consistently flying into a window. By contrast when they deal damage to you it is like the house fly has suddenly developed the ability to fire nuclear weapons. This, coincides with you only having 2 lives, the refill health station only allowing you to refill your health a few times per match, and the health pickups being as few as Modern Flat Earth societies that display common sense. As a result rather than being a badass, or being a challenging brawl, for me the matches consisted of me driving across the map in loops, and picking off targets while the droning soundtrack smashing itself into your ears. In short the matches were like a Jane Austin novel, overly long and dull.
This feeling only serves to drown out the game’s strength. After playing through to level six I thought why should I play through the game again with different characters, if the game is this dull and difficult (never mind the fact that the characters controlled largely the same to me)? In brief, in my opinion you should not buy this game. For me it is a waste of the possibilities offered up by car combat as a genre of gaming. Furthermore, there are many better car/vehicle combat games out there, (such as Motorsiege: Warriors of Primetime which for the record is superior and is a lot cheaper). As a result this game left me feeling frustrated, annoyed and is therefore in my view worthy of a low score.… Expand
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