PAX Prime 2011 Hands-On: Twisted Metal - Preview
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 27 August 2011 / 4,398 Views
Valentine's Day? Isn't that, like, almost six months away? Why yes, yes it is. I now know I need to get a girlfriend by Valentine's Day 2012 so I can ask for Twisted Metal, slated to hit stores on that very day. That or get really friendly with Eat Sleep Play's co-founder, David Jaffe.
But you didn't click on this preview to see me bemoan the holiday of chocolates and teddy bears, but talk about the return of Twisted Metal and my hands-on experience with the latest build of the vehicular combat game. The demo available on the show floor of PAX Prime was an online multiplayer demo in which players from each team are randomly chosen as targets. While there are points for destroying enemy vehicles, there are much more points for taking out the designated targets.
Twisted Metal is playing better and better with each successive convention demo I've seen (this is the third). This venue was a twisted take on Disneyland. There was a castle in the middle with several winding roads leading up to it and a wide, elevated track that worked like a roller coaster. There were even civilians dressed like giant mice that you could run over. All the maps I'd seen thus far for Twisted Metal seemed very dark, but this one seemed brighter, if more twisted, which means there will be some variety in the Twisted Metal online play. The verticality in this level was never seen in older Twisted Metal games, making for more frantic, exciting action.
As with everything else, the play is getting better and better. Over the course of the match, I used the semi truck (with trailer), the motorcycle, and one of the more standard cars. Why? I wanted to get a feel for vehicles that drive differently and boy, do they. The motorcycle, as you can imagine, has very low armor, but can turn on a dime, accelerate better than anything else, and catch up to any opponent. The semi is the exact opposite: slow to turn, slow to accelerate, but heavy on armor and capable of inflicting significant damage via ramming. As with any Twisted Metal, each vehicle has its own unique special weapons, and the animations for those are a joy to behold, particularly with the motorcycle, where you could actually see the rider reaching for various weapons.
Six months still means Twisted Metal has some development and polishing to be done before it goes gold, but it's definitely looking like David Jaffe may succeed in proving vehicular combat isn't a relic of the 90's and may still have a place in the modern gaming mind.
