Twisted Metal

This is the 2nd game I've purchased this year, but is easily my most anticipated PS3 game release ever so my expectations for this game were ridiculously high. As of my writing of this review, it ALMOST lives up completely to my built up level of hype for it.First of all, we'll start with a huge con to the game if you're not a hardcore fan of the series. This is NOT a racing a game so the control scheme is completely different than what you'd expect coming from something like ModNation Racers. It will take some adjusting to, but once you master the controls, it becomes second nature. There is a lot of stuff to learn to be successful at this game and it might take you a bit before you completely grasp the game and can go through the campaign on the hardest difficulty (which if you want to unlock a series favorite, Warthog, you NEED to not only beat it on twisted difficulty, but you have to get a gold medal on every chapter/boss fight in the campaign on said difficulty). So, this is not a game you can pick up and expect to be godly good at right off the bat...if you bought it for a single player experience that is. Online you might do pretty good.First, let's talk about the vehicles. Each vehicle has its own strengths and weaknesses and a special move with an alt special. Alt specials usually require more than just pressing triangle and launching it. There's Meat Wagons piloted gurney bomb that does more damage than just launching a regular one but is controlled by you and can be shot if someone sees it coming and will explode if you hit a wall or traffic car or anything else that's not your intended target. There are more vehicle options available at the start of the single player campaign than online, but you're still pretty limited when you start.The campaign is broken up into 3 different stories that intertwine with each other and for what it is, is actually rather enjoyable. There are races, "cage" matches which have you confined to a small area on the map and having to move to the next "cage" area while not using up all the time on your grace period meter, your standard death match and boss battles. It's definitely great practice for online as you'll start to learn the different strengths/weaknesses of each vehicle. Note that not all cars are unlocked from the start and will not be until you are almost finished with the campaign. Even still, there will be cars and sidearms that you need to go above and beyond just beating the campaign to unlock (like Warthog which requires you to not only beat the game on Twisted difficulty but obtain gold medals on Twisted difficulty as well). It feels like just the right length and is rather enjoyable and gives those who are obsessed with unlocking everything reason to master the campaign. The enemies will single you out though so be ready to kill everyone yourself. Race modes will not only see them trying to kill you, but people who have a magnetic weapon will frequently try to grab you and throw you backwards to keep you from winning a race (btw, races can become extremely annoying/frustrating and do feel very out of place). It's not overly long but will take a couple hours to finish. Single player modes also include a challenge mode and an endurance mode which is basically your survival mode.Multiplayer is where this game absolutely shines as one of the best experiences available on the PS3. Before we get to online, let's get into your local split-screen modes. This game supports up to 4 player split screen. The available modes depend on how many players you have. If you're only playing 2 player, your options are either co-op play the campaign or death match. With 2 player split-screen, you can have bots in your death match games if you want. Add 1 or 2 more players, you get access to a wider variety of game modes (death match, hunted, last man standing and their team variants) but you can not play with bots. There is a wide range of customizable options for the games from weapon variety to health drop spawns. All cars that would be unlocked from a normal play through of the campaign are available here from the start and is a great place to at least try out the other cars that you may not have unlocked in single player just yet. If you're looking for a great game to play together with some friends over while enjoying some pizza, this is definitely a fun time and feels very nostalgic.The only blemish on this game at the moment is the online multiplayer. WHEN IT WORKS, it is literally the best online experience I've ever had on my PS3. As of now, the matchmaking for this game is a mess though. I've spent about as much time trying to even get into a game lobby as I have playing in games. I've come to find that I'm more likely to get into a game through the quick-game option under the multiplayer option on the main menu. The only different is this one will find you a game based on either free-for-all, team modes, or objective mode (which should only really be Nuke) where as going to multiplayer will let you see a list of games (but will probably only lead to matchmaking error after matchmaking error). The only downside is that sometimes Nuke gets selected through team modes which it shouldn't be and you have no control over what kind of game you'll end up in (could be team death match, could be team hunter, could be team last man standing and in some cases, could be Nuke). Online offers the same that you can play split-screen if you're playing unranked games. In unranked lobbies you can customize the settings for the game to your liking and if you're wanting to only play with a bigger group of friends, you can password lock your lobby so only your friends can get in with the password. Ranked games obviously have locked settings but the game creator can chose the map. When you start playing online, you're limited to 3 vehicles (Kamikaze, Outlaw and Death Warrant). There are different Tiers in which you can unlock vehicles and a separate system for side-arms and kill streak rewards (I think they auto-award health or a random weapon for kills?). You have to unlock everything in each Tier for the next tier to become unlockable. This is actually kind of annoying because depending on your play style, the unlocks it forces you to waste on other stuff in tier 1 is absolutely useless. The most vehicles are unlockable in tier 1 but guys like Reaper, Shadow, Sweet Tooth and Juggernaut are 2 or 3. I believe Warthog is auto-unlocked for online play if you have him unlocked in single player but I'm not sure on that yet. Another issue you'll frequently run into is people who are in charge of a lobby often do not pay attention so even if you have the required minimum number of guys to start a game, whoever is in charge of the lobby may not see that and still not start for a few more mins. It's annoying, especially when you have 10 of the 14 you need for a full game. You do get XP from various things you do online (kills, killstreaks, best player, best player on team, playing objectives, etc.) but it's just a very basic ranking up system with no medals or anything like that. The only real benefit to ranking up is unlocking new vehicles/sidearms.The other problem I have with online is Nuke. The mode itself is a brilliant idea and I was really excited to play it. Problem being and this is only my theory, but with matchmaking seemingly lumping it in with team modes, players end up in it and play it like death match or last man standing and don't play it well as a team. The concept is there and when played right, it works amazingly and is a ton of fun. But when your team mates are only playing to kill the other team and you're the only one capturing a faction leader and need to rely on your teammates who are probably all dead to help keep the other team from killing you before you launch a nuke, it is a nightmare.Visually, this game isn't the best looking ps3 game, but I've never seen a problem with the frame rate dropping even with the amount of chaos going on at a given time from rockets whizzing past you into a crazy intense firefight with people destroying houses and running over civilians left and right. There are times where you might find yourself stuck somewhere but a quick boost and a jump and you're usually free. It by no means is a bad looking game.The controls for this game can be seen as a weakness, and will take some adjusting to if you haven't played a TM game since Black. There are alternate layouts you can use but once you get the hang of the classic layout, you won't want to play the game any other way. Controls do differ if you're playing as Talon (helicopter) or flying as Sweet Tooth and are pretty straight forward.Overall, this game is just over the top fun. Any fan of the series will enjoy it and while it might take a while to feel like you've mastered the game, it's a satisfying feeling to finally see that gold medal after just barely finishing a chapter in the campaign. They are working on fixing the matchmaking issues, but as of now, those are the only major complaint I have about this game. I bought it for the mp experience and once you get into a game, it's absolutely intense and a ton of fun. Definitely one of the most worthwhile purchases I've made this year, and this console gen to be honest.Note that if you're a trophy hunter, this game will take a long time to plat between having some hard trophies and needing to win 1 ranked game everyday for 30 days in a row which can be hindered by the major connections issues currently plaguing this game. Hopefully that will be remedied soon and that won't be an issue :)

This Twisted Metal brings back old memories, but you can tell it has been improved for todays standards. A real masterpiece of fun and multiplayer to have if you are a PS3 owner.PROS+++++++ Gameplay+ Multiplayer+ Vehicles+ Online MP+ Offline MP+ Controls+ GraphicsCONS------- Character rooster- Campaign storyGRAPHICS (5/5)The game doesn't have the best graphics in terms of art design or cinematic, but it runs smoothly at 60 fps, with sharp edges and great shaders. There are no frame drops in the game, even though you see lots off fx and objects in the screen and everything occurs in milliseconds; people must understand that in order to have a great gameplay performance in a fast paced game you may have to sacrifice some graphics. TM does have great graphics with amazing gameplay.GAMEPLAY (5/5)TM... Mr. Jaffe, you know your stuff man... great game, plays superb, the controls are tight, everything feels correct, great success. By the way, for newcomers, I recommend the racing control scheme, the classic one feels kind of old and complicated imo.STORY (3.5/5)The campaign and events are great overall, I know that the theme in the game is psychotic and violent, the stories are rated for matured,they are really gory; but overall weak, each character has like 3 movies that tell their dreams and ambitions in TM but they feel kind of weak (SPOILER: Mr. Grimm enters to TM tournament in order the to the past and warn his dad from a fatal accident... I mean, come on, you can do better than that). Is hard to relate to a character since all are sinners (Except for Grimm). The campaign is also weak due to the lack of characters, the game itself lacks of characters. Only three? Come on?!!SOUND (5/5)Explosive, metal goes perfect with the games theme.LASTING APPEAL (5/5)The gameplay is sooo goooood that is hard to say that this game is bad or good.. it feels awesome to play, and has a great online and offline modes which will give you hours and hours of entertainment. Hopefully this game will make some millions so Sony will be willing to drop some DLC, Jaffe said it will depend on the sales... ppl buy this game please, lol, I want more drivers, cars and maps (remakes could be sweet, imagine Paris or New York from TW2!!).OVERALL (5/5)It has a big learning curve, is not easy to get used to the controls, but once you dominate them (after some 20 minutes of play) you are in. If you want a fast paced multiplayers this is your game, if you want a state of the art kind of game then no too much.

I have been a fan of TM since I first played TM IV back when I was about six years old and from there on the excitement of playing Twisted Metal has never been lost. Of course you can't just jump on the Multiplayer and from 10 minutes of learning the controls you can beat anything, no you have to actively play this to be pretty good. This is by far the best vehicular combat game out there on any platform yet, I say that with high intentions because you can't find another game like Twisted Metal. Just two things kind of dropped my hopes where that for the campaign mode it was only three main character that you could only know there background story as opposed to before where depending on who you play the ending would correspond to your character; this one they dropped the ball but still overall the campaign was challenging yet fun. Another thing that wasn't good but thankfully fixed were the online servers, finding a game when it first launched was difficult. Matchmaking was up to par but once you found a game it was a blast. One more thing was the servers should fixed is whenever you're in a party or clan you should be put on the same team so that way it wouldn't be much confusion. Game play is just the older games, with some new players to choose from and bringing classics back from the original Twisted Metal. Graphics of course, very high quality for the PS3. If you're into shooters or racing you should really try this game out, to me this is a must if you've been a PlayStation owner since the first one came out!