Twisted Metal Demo Impressions (PS3)

Twisted Metal (PS3, Releases Feb 14, 2012)

Seriously, how cool does this look?

Quick Demo Impressions

                I’m not afraid to say that about half-way through my first online deathmatch with the new Twisted Metal demo, I was giggling like a demented clown.  These days, I play a bit of Halo, COD, and Battlefield 3 for my multi-player fix, and I enjoy them, for the most part, but I never really get engaged with the action to the point that I want to get any better than I already am (read: mediocre).  Turns out I was waiting for a new Twisted Metal game even if I didn’t know it.

                I loved the PSX era Twisted Metal games and count Twisted Metal: Black as one of my favorite games of its generation, so it isn’t as if the joy that is the new Twisted Metal was a huge surprise.  There is something very appealing for me in the barely controlled chaos of vehicular combat.  I get far more of a visceral thrill from ramming a vehicle that I’ve just caused to stall and hitting it with a succession of missiles as it flies away from me than I do from camping with a rifle and waiting for some poor fool to come into my crosshairs.  The almost choreographed ballet of explosions and crashes and missiles and bombs and special weapons is incredibly satisfying. 

                But, enough with this general love fest.  How about some specifics?

• ·         Graphics:  The game looks great and moves smoothly.  I noticed a slight bit of slowdown in the middle of massive firefights, but I imagine the demo split off a while ago and the slowdown is rare enough that I can’t imagine it will be an issue in the final games.  With a limited amount of levels to look at, it is hard to comment on the art design, but it is likely safe to say that the game isn’t as stylized as TM: Black.  Not as stylized, but much brighter and more colorful.  The buildings all have a real-world design and everything appears to be destructible.  I didn’t run into instances of triggered environmental effects like those featured in TM: Black, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in the full game.  I found those really appealing, so I hope they make the cut.  (Clarification: I’ve been keeping myself in a Twisted Metal news bubble because I want to come to the experience with fresh eyes.  It is very possible that the company has released tons of footage of scripted environmental elements all over Youtube).  Also, the vehicles look great and I can’t wait to see the ones not present in the demo.

• ·         Controls:  I have some issues here.  If you could train a chimpanzee to control the game using both hands and both feet, he would still envy the monkey players with prehensile tails.  Seriously, this game requires the use of every button on the Dual Shock and you will often be using most of them simultaneously.  Undoubtedly, the game is going to have a serious learning curve. Did I mention the game even makes use of the accelerometer (just for boosting, but, still)?  Sometimes complex controls exist because the designers didn’t put enough effort in to streamlining them.  That doesn’t seem to be the case here.  The game lets you have a lot of control over every aspect of driving and combat, and that requires the use of lots of buttons.  For the record, I was using the Classic control scheme.  The one time I switched to the alternative scheme, I found it to be very unwieldy.

• ·         Gameplay:  The demo includes two modes: Deathmatch and the capture-the-flag variant, Nuke.  I haven’t played enough Nuke to get a good grasp on it as I had trouble connecting to games during matchmaking.  Deathmatch, on the other hand, suffered from no such problem, so most of my matches were played there.  How does it work?  There are lots of other vehicles driving around and you try to kill them before they kill you.  As I said early, the game is visceral, explosive fun.  It has been a while since I last played TM:Black Online, but it is safe to say this game is going to seriously raise the bar for vehicular combat games.  The speed, precise controls, and great physics engine allow for multiple strategies while the ridiculous special attacks keep players from getting too “thinky.”  The cars seem to take a lot of damage before going down and health power-ups abound, so I never experienced the annoying spawn-into-death so common in current gen shooters.  

• ·         Questions:  I have a lot of them, but they are going to be answered soon enough.  Will the single-player “campaign” be meaty enough to hold my interest?  Will online play be smooth?  Are there enough players that still care about Twisted Metal (or can the franchise attract enough new players) to make for a vibrant online community.  Will the complex controls turn off players?  Will I ever master them?  How many billions of matches will I have to play before I win one? 

Happily, I only have a week to wait to get these answers (more, possibly, for that last one).  I’m only interested in a handful of games this coming year and Twisted Metal tops that list.  The demo did nothing but make me more excited.  Expect a review of the full game in a couple of weeks.

Comments

[William McCarroll]

I'm glad you liked the demo. We are still working through some kinks with matchmaking on the network platform, but things are looking up, and should be sorted out by release.

Single player campaign in the full game is more forgiving than the challenge mode in the demo, and there are a handful of online modes, levels, and cars that don't make an appearance in the demo. There are also parties, clans, and leader boards in the full game, as well as a ton of tweakable game settings, so hopefully it will be easy to dial in the perfect experience :)

[Danny Webb]

Sounds great. Now that Kingdoms of Amalur has turned out to be disappointing, TM is going to have to get me through March at the very least. Otherwise, it's back to Skyrim.