Early in the
Playstation era of
console gaming,
SingleTrac developed a game called Twisted Metal. It's a
juiced-up,
cartoon demolition derby with
teeth. You pick one of an
assortment of
whacked out road
vehicles, including an
insane ice cream man and a
monster truck, and engage in
combat. Every car comes standard-equipped with
machine guns, it's own
special weapon, and no
airbags or
seatbelts. The game plays like a
vehicular gladiator arena, with one of several interesting levels to choose from, each with its own assortment of
fragile objects and
pedestrians at your
mercy. The last car (or cars, should it be
co-op) wins.
Although the
graphics of this
game are nothing
spectacular, it has what counts, playability. It's
fun.
The two player mode is
spectacular. You soon forget about the limitations of split-screen gaming as you and your buddies
race around wildly, trying to
beat the
chassis out of each other. You even begin to appreciate the ability to look at your opponent's screen as you watch yourself
careen into him wildly with a ram attack while firing a
barrage of
missiles,
freeze rays,
napalm, and bullets in his
general direction.
Twisted Metal 2, also by SingleTrac, followed and improved greatly on the game. After that, things only went downhill as SingleTrac went
tits-up and another
studio got the production license, going on to create Twisted Metal 3 and 4, which resemble
fan fiction novels in the way that they've got some elements of the
original two games, but they're not as much
fun and it's
evident that the
developers just didn't have the
love or the
talent of the original
developers.
Fortunately for fans of the original two games, most of the people from SingleTrac banded together to form a new
studio and have just put out
Twisted Metal Black. Now I have a reason to buy a
Playstation2. Anybody wanna
loan me 300
bucks?