Twisted Metal 2

The Good
Twisted Metal 2 is the arcade car-combat classic that would define the genre for most players, being the template from which all of the few subsequent games that compose this small genre spawn from. Basically the game could be considered the same as Twisted Metal 1, but the many revisions and balanced set of features, characters and arenas make it the classic that it is today.

Once again the premise is completely ridiculous but fits the game like a glove. A Twilight Zone-like character named Calypso hosts a car combat tournament with the reward being the granting of whatever wish the winner asks for. The clincher of course, is that just like in a Twilight Zone chapter, the characters get what they want but not in the way they tought of, and most endings deal with the ironic backfiring of each character's dreams. This endings are told via kickass cutscenes composed of voiced over, comic book-like still illustrations in a similar way as MDK2 but without the page-peeling effects. A previous reviewer stated that they pretty much sucked, but quite frankly I find the edgy art and distinct style to make them incredibly cool and interesting, not to mention that the ironic writing in them makes them worth finishing the game with each character.

And speaking of the game, (which is what we all really care about) this time the tournament takes place in a worldwide scale, taking you from L.A. to Moscow, the Amazon, Holland, etc.. The new arenas are more varied in their design alternating maze like areas with open ranges ripe for heavy firefights and including elements such as lava fields, teleporters, pitfalls and other traps and secrets to spice things up even more. They also include interaction points which allow you to burn specific parts of arenas or destroy them with well placed bombs. This mostly serves as a way of revealing cheats and secrets, but also modifies the geography of the arenas or trigger funny eastern eggs (such as removing the clothes from the statue of liberty).

As before the game deals with progressive rounds in each of those arenas where you have to be the last man standing and beat all the other cars as any of the many varied but excellently balanced characters which have their own brand of wacky vehicles fitted with machineguns (able to fire continuously unlike in the original), an exclusive weapon and the ability to load a collection of weapons scattered all over the arenas as power-ups. As in the original the arsenal is varied enough to adapt itself to many strategies, giving you homing missiles, area-effect weapons, dumbfire superpowered missiles, etc. not to mention the outlandish exclusive weapons to each character that allow them to turn into tornados, grab a character with a claw, or slam into the ground and create damaging shockwaves. There's also a powerbar that allows you to unleash a series of special moves like backfiring attacks, jumps, forcefields and other niceties to add to already inmense variety and due to the this gigantic arsenal, the amount of characters in the arena (5-6) and the usual sturdiness of the cars, the game develops into furious, heated multi-pronged confrontations were the metal clashes continuously and the explosions go off left and right. Music to the action gamer's ears.

The controls handle fantastically and allow precise gameplay and even interface customization (by switching the many displays on/off or alternate versions of themselves via the select button). The physics for the game are already legendary for their level of ridicule, but they fit the game perfectly (since sim-like physics would have killed the level of all-out fun) and manage to still live by some rules that make the cars with bigger mass more prone to flip-overs and slow acceleration, and other assorted effects to remind you of the "car" aspect in car combat.

Besides the story, you also have a single challenge mode, and the multiplayer component of the game is excellently developed, providing both competitive and cooperative 2-player split-screen gameplay that runs virtually lagless and offers even more action and mayhem for your money.

All in all the game manages to jam the right amount of variety in features and gameplay while using a gameplay model that keeps the action up at every moment with lots of vehicular mayhem, explosions, and a bitching rock soundtrack that sets the right mood for the fiery combats.

The Bad
Really bad graphics, with simple low-res textured polygons and virtually no special fx save for some particle ones. The pixellation of the graphics is extremely evident when you take a look at nearby explosions or if you crash into walls with everything becoming an ugly distorted mess that really REALLY looks like ass.

The level design is also very inconsistent, with an uneven mix of wonderful, varied examples and flat, boring arenas that are solely for filling purposes, thankfully SingleTrac included some of the best arenas from the original as secret locations to make up for the misses, but still...

The Bottom Line
The classic car combat masterpiece in full glory. An exceptionally fun game filled with varied and perfectly balanced features merged into a heavy metal concoction of pure, raw action.

I bought TM2 eons ago and it's still to this day a fantastic game to whip out in multiplayer sessions. Fully recommended for the hardcore action gamer.