Twisted Metal: Black

Moby ID: 4456
PlayStation 2 Specs
Buy on PlayStation 2
$16.00 used, $171.98 new on eBay
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Description official descriptions

Twisted Metal: Black is the fifth game in the car-combat series. Only on the PlayStation 2, the game includes old favorites and a lot of new characters. The game has a very dark and gothic theme to it, with the music to back it up. Detailed graphics, day/night cycle, particle effects, and a constant 60 frames per second. The game also boasts a multiplayer mode, with 1-4 multiplayers, over ten arenas (some specific to multiplayer), and a cooperative mode, so instead of fighting each other, you can work together. The game's soundtrack consists of techno/gothic music, with some industrial, and acoustic guitar bits, especially the ending credits, Paint It Black.

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

223 People (146 developers, 77 thanks) · View all

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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 28 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 39 ratings with 5 reviews)

Interesting presentation... But a terrible game!

The Good
I really like the stories in Twisted Metal. They're all dark and delightfully twisted. It's a world where good people are punished in ironic fashion (or sometimes just outright screwed over!) and the wicked are rewarded with further opportunity for evil. It's wonderful fun, if you like the gruesome and macabre.

The Bad
Good Lord, everything else, though! The stories may be interesting, but the game itself is awful. (And the stories were cut from the PAL release, which is like scraping the icing off a supermarket sponge cake.) The cars feel floaty; it's more like controlling an RC car than driving an actual car. The destructible environments, most notably in the Suburbs level, are not satisfying; it feels more like knocking over cardboard cutouts (not even that, really) than any serious destruction. The drivers all have too much health, making battles take much longer than is fun; this is a major problem in the story mode, as the AI favours cheap hit-and-run tactics, making it difficult to even land one hit, let alone the twenty or so you'll need to finish them off. The game simply isn't fun.

The graphics are nothing special. The cutscenes are down through still images, and have that icky plastic look characteristic of mediocre CGI. During the game, everything seems small and sparse, and above all brown. It's very visually unappealing. The soundtrack is uninteresting and the sound effects are merely perfunctory.

The Bottom Line
It's basically the Battle Mode in Mario Kart expanded to be a whole game. Sounds awesome, right? Too bad it's badly done. That few other games attempt this is surely why Twisted Metal is thought at all fondly of. Watch the cutscenes on YouTube instead. If you must play the game, make sure to avoid the PAL version; this version is an utter rip-off.

PlayStation 2 · by Joseph Andrews (15) · 2016

Paint It Black!

The Good
For car combat games the Twisted Metal series was always the high mark. Even though the series had slipped on a few releases it was always good play and this game really sets a new notch for these types of games.

For action games I look for two things: level design and weapon variation. The levels have to be the best part of this game. There is nice mix of levels here. Some are small and others are sprawling. I especially loved the tight confines of the drive in theater and the danger of the one on the top of the skyscrapers. The progression of the levels provided a good variety to fight through and keep you interested in the game. Each level had a cool trick or hidden area to learn in order to make your progress easier.

As for weapon variations, in this game you could pick different characters to play who drove vehicles with different ratings. Each car varied in speed, strength and agility and each vehicle had its own special weapon. This was in addition to the weapons and power ups sprinkled around the levels. There was enough variation among the cars to make most worth a try. Some were similar but it was fun to go from playing a slow lumbering semi-truck to the speedy motorbike.

I also loved how the physics of this game worked. You could enjoy the fun of flying off a cliff or plowing through houses without worrying about damaging your car. Some players might not like the fact their car is immune to the laws of physics. But I found that this design decision let me concentrate on the challenge of the combat rather than the reality of driving.

With a fun multi-player mode and some stuff to unlock this game has a lot of play in it.

The Bad
Well the combat is quite hard even on the easy level. It takes a while to learn how to survive and even then its tough! While I enjoy a hard game, I found this game to be frustrating at times, especially against the final boss.

I would have liked it if there were a few more health packs around the levels but this might have disrupted the designer's game balances.

While the dark stories suit the tone of this game, they are pretty cornball. I'd have rather done without them. Also the cinematic scenes are really cookie cutter. The introductions for each character are essentially the same with a bit of cut and paste with the faces.

The Bottom Line
With great car and level designs and a multi-player option there is a lot to do in this game making it a good addition to your collection. Plus this game is now quite cheap in the Greatest Hits edition, so pick it up!

PlayStation 2 · by woods01 (129) · 2002

This game is addictive

The Good
The fact that you can drive around blowing stuff and cars all around you is what makes this game fun to play. Plus it's the type of game that you could get very addicted to if you keep playing it

The Bad
The one player story mode is not that great to play. Just play through eight levels of increasing difficulty and that's it. However this might be because the version I have (the European version) has had all the story mode FMV sequences cut out, and without them, the game seems a bit incomplete

The Bottom Line
Despite the lack of story in story mode (at least in the European version), this game as I have said is very addictive if you keep playing it

PlayStation 2 · by Grant McLellan (584) · 2002

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

The European version of the game had all the story mode FMV sequences cut out.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by JPaterson.

PlayStation 4 added by Flapco. PlayStation 3 added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Grant McLellan, Victor Vance.

Game added July 9, 2001. Last modified June 9, 2023.