And so, road warriors would rise from the rust...

User Rating: 7.5 | Twisted Metal PS
All the way back in 1995 a new genre had arrived, a game where you drive around racing, doing the odd stunt and firing off missles like in a first person shooter. Imagine being able to blast cars to friggin crap, run down citizens, and wreck up the city? It sure does sound like that time when you want to destroy and Twisted Metal does so with not many flaws. Calypso, a burnt faced host grants one wish (anything) to whoever can eliminate the competition. Everyone has their own special weapon, handling, vehicle, and driver. Your arsenal is full of machine guns, rockets, hazardous weapons, and...a flameflower. The only weapons that feel unwelcoming is the hazardous weapons (oil and tire nails, thats all I remember) they just lag in effectiveness, everything else has a good balancing but these don't. You can also perform physical rams into other cars which is completely necessary for this game. The AI is good, they know when to run, retreat, and restock on weapons and the handling is variated but ultimatley sloppy, its always too easy to get hung into a corner of the wall and you drive like on a dried up pool of oil no matter what vehicle you use. One thing to keep in mind is that Twisted Metal is meant for replayability, six of the same levels is what you compete in but the levels have lots that you won't see on your first run but the passwords, their the same for every character what an easy cheat. As you can see though, this game is a great multiplayer game. Now for the graphics, yeah... the art put together feels sloppy, with somewhat inserted graphics, some really stretched textures, and the fact that it is difficult to identify a piece of destroyed scrap car from a still active car. But the sound, is good; its got nice tunes and crisp sound effects. Overall, Twisted Metal is a bit scrappy but it is in ways also part of its style and the whole new invigorating gameplay makes you feel like the driver in a smash up derby, definitely something that most should check out.