PS2 - Twisted Metal Review

After a successful promotion in the US last year (2002), the eternally demented car combat Twisted 2 owners?MetalTM series, will be available to play online with other PlayStation with Network Gaming access across Pan-European territories. Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM is an ideal introduction to online gaming on a console as it offers immediatly accessible gameplay and instant gratification but this time against far more intelligent and challenging opposition.

Game synopsis:

Enter an online arena of frenzied car combat across twenty huge 3D battle zones with turbo-charged vehicles, awesome weaponry, grisly violence and macabre mayhem for those of us who know no fear!

Characters and Story:

Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM does not include a storyline. The game is car combat in it's purest form. However the gameplay does not differ from the original Twisted Metal: BlackTM version. The story was about a mysterious man named Calypso that breaks out a group of deranged and cursed individuals from an insane asylum so they can compete in his car combat tournament. All of the characters have a ghastly history as to why they're in the asylum and many of their horrific lives intertwine in some fashion or another. Basically, all the characters have gone through hell and have scores to settle.

KEY FEATURES:

• Fast paced multi-player car combat set in dark, gritty environments and inhabited by serial killers and psychopaths.

• Removal of in-game video clips to lower the age rating.

• 8 game modes including Death Match, Last Man Standing, Fox Hunt and Collector

• 20 levels – all levels featured in the current Twisted Metal: BlackTM product.

• All the playable vehicles (15) from the multiplayer modes in Twisted Metal: BlackTM.

• Up to 8 players online.

• Game modifiers available in ALL game modes e.g. single weapon, single vehicle, power relics, unlimited weapons, handicap and friendly fire.

• Twisted Metal: Black OnlineTM will use same set of pickups that exist in the original game. Pickup regeneration rates will be based on number of players currently playing in a level. As more players connect to a game, the pick-ups will regenerate at a faster rate.

• All of the vehicles will be available and can be selected by the player if the game mode allows. No vehicles can be locked out.

• The maximum number of specials that any vehicle can stockpile is 5.

• More than one player may select the same vehicle.

• Pedestrian and fodder vehicles in the levels are not supported.

• Each level has unique environmental interactive objects that will have to be synchronised. Some objects have been removed from the level due to synchronisation issues