David Jaffe fooled us all. EatSleepPlay was working on a new Twisted Metal, and Jaffe was indeed at the show. There’s no conceivable way I could be disappointed by his misdirection, as the end result was something we all wanted anyway; a true Twisted Metal sequel with parts of the original Singletrac crew at the helm. If it was ever going to come back, these were the guys who needed to do it. Twisted Metal and its first sequel defined the PlayStation experience in its infancy, and a revival couldn’t have come at a better time.
While Sony’s press conference indicated a full, faction based campaign, the demo running at Sony’s booth offered a taste of multiplayer team death match. I selected the ambulance as a character, and then dove head first into a rush of nostalgia. The control setup was nearly identical to games past; X was quick turn, square was gas, and the shoulder buttons were used for weapon cycling and machine gun/weapon fire. Weapon pickups were scattered all over the map, and nearly every asset seemed to suffer some sort of real time destruction.
What was new was old, with a few exceptions. Realism certainly wasn’t at the forefront, though steps were clearly being taken to add detail from the added horsepower of modern hardware. Machines were no longer guns bolted to the front of my car, but rather a handgun used by the passenger in the vehicle. Human weapons were also employed in the case of the sniper rifle, which was used to head shot (one hit kill) an opposing driver. Weapon attacks were a bit more friendly to homing capabilities, though I still found the napalm incredibly hard to get right.
Special attacks, the weapons specific to each car, now carry an alternate fire via the triangle button. For my ambulance this shot a gurney out the front of the car, which I then controlled like a missile as I tried to pilot it into someone. Sadistic to be sure, but it goes right along with the series’ modus operandi.
A question I chose to ask regarded the helicopter. I wondered if one aerial vehicle in a sea of cars would break the game, but I was told certain concessions were being made to handicap the chopper. It didn’t have the option for turbo, and cars could still auto-target it despite its position on the Y-axis. Tweaks are still being made (the game isn’t out until at least 2011), so expect balance issues to be ironed out during that time.
Though my time with Twisted Metal was brief (two sessions in ten minutes), I couldn’t help but walk away with a smile on my face. I’m glad it’s still an arcade style car combat game, but I hope the guys at EatSleepPlay do more to rework the Twisted Metal formula for game design circa 2011. Straight combat, even with a host of variables to increase spontaneity, wears thin fast, but I’m sure different modes (and the breadth of the single player campaign) will be unearthed in the coming months. Check back with us regularly for more updates!
