Dave, I trusted you and you let me down....I'd rather play TM4 than this. Yes I went there....
I waited many years for this game. The first PlayStation game I ever bought was Twisted Metal 2 and I subsequently bought every Twisted Metal game except for Small Brawl. I love the series, which is why it pains me so much to give this such a low score. I remember sometime last year Dave Jaffe was asked when this game was going to be released, some people wanted it released in 2011, but Jaffe was pushing for a date in 2012. He should have waited until 2013.
The single player portion of the game just outright sucks. As usual when I play a game for the first time I play it on normal difficulty to avoid potentially being so frustrated that I avoid playing the game again. I am nearing that point and I'm so close to the end. I'm not stuck trying to defeat a boss or trying to hold my own against a legion of AI characters that all want me dead. I'm stuck on the (hopefully) last "racing" level of the game. I realize that this isn't supposed to be a racing game which is probably why it is so poorly executed. If you haven't played one of these racing levels I will describe the objective: Race thru all the check points and be in first place when you cross the finish line. Sounds simple enough right? Want to know your best chance of getting first place is? Getting the fastest car available to you, having lightning quick reflexes and spotting a tiny blue icon on your radar to know where you need to go next. Except the checkpoints aren't easily obtained as you have to hit exactly where the check point is. In most racing games they give you a little leeway so if you go a little off the road to cut a corner they still count it. Not here, this is worse than Gran Turismo. Still if this were purely a racing game that may be easy to do, but when cars are slamming into you, exploding you off course with rockets and when your car is on fire and stuff is flying all around you its quite easy to fly past a turn or miss a checkpoint. Miss a checkpoint? You're best off restarting the level, trying to retrace your steps to find the checkpoint and continue the race is futile. This is the most annoying part of the game as it requires you to drive perfectly at top speed all while being thrown and pushed around by other contestants. I appreciate adding something new to the series I just wish it played better. It seems like something that was tacked on to make the game longer. I'm sorry that this rant is so long, but this is the biggest turn-off for me.
Juggernauts......It's a cool concept, they are heavily armored and spit out new contestants to battle and they constantly hit you with a barrage of rockets and machine gun fire. Problem is they aren't shown on the map. On a couple maps this isn't a problem as the maps aren't too large. On one map however you have to destroy 2 juggernauts on a huge map, I never quite managed to find one of them, they always seemed to be somewhere I couldn't easily get to and usually when I did get near them the other cars would gang up on me and prevent me from destroying the juggernaut. While nowhere near as difficult as some of the races it definitely tested my patience.
The cut scenes are pretty funny though.....they are supposed to be funny right? If you're a fan of Twisted Metal, you know that Dave Jaffe intended that the original game have live action ending much like the ones in this game. If you're as big a fan as I am, you've seen them. Yeah they aren't that great, most of them border on awful. The same applies here. I think Zack Snyder was given a handful of sweaty money and the cast of 'Days of our Lives' to direct these. Some of the visuals are really cool, but once you turn your brain on and listen to what is going on, you quickly begin to find the X button to skip the video.
The visuals of the game are nothing to talk about, pretty decent, but nothing spectacular. The sound design is good and the soundtrack is the best thing going for the game. Listening to some Sammy Hagar while laying on the machine gun makes you feel pretty good. I won't go too much into this portion of the game as the visuals and sound of Twisted Metal never really served as the core of the game, its always been about game-play.
I have only written reviews when I have been thoroughly disappointed and this is sadly one more review I have had to write. This game has a lot going for it, especially with the online multiplayer. I think that will shine through the lacking single player. If a new Twisted Metal game were to come out I would make a couple suggestions: Tone down the difficulty, and keep to the death matches. Racing belongs in racing games.
Until I get a chance to play online I rate the single player portion of this game the following:
Visuals: 7/10
Sound: 8/10
Game-play: 4/10
Re-playability: 1/10
Total Score: 4/10