- New Posting Schedule Announcement -
My work schedule has seen some changes recently. This will alter when posts covering new episodes of Ghost Game will go live. The episodes usually air Saturday nights/Sunday mornings, and my posts about them tend to go live Sunday nights/Monday nights. I won't be able to post anything on Sundays or Mondays from now on with my new schedule, so I'm going to start posting Ghost Game content during the following week on Friday nights. Things won't change much, other than the gap of time between new episodes airing and my posts going live, but I felt it was important to bring this up so there wouldn't be any confusion in the future. I didn't want to make an entire post just to make this announcement though, so I've got a game review I've written today to give you some new content to read this week. I've also written it in-character to make it feel more authentic than the last game review I wrote. With that out of the way, onto the review!
๐ฒ๐๐๐ ๐ฝ๐๐๐๐๐: ๐ฟ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ธ๐๐๐๐: ๐ญ๐๐๐๐ (๐ป๐๐๐๐พ๐๐๐๐๐๐ 2) ๐ฅ๐ซ๐
๐ฏ๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐๐๐,
Twisted Metal is a video game series that's near and dear to my cold, black heart. As you probably are already well aware of, I do enjoy a good helping of chaos and destruction. And friends, Twisted Metal is a video game franchise that's built upon those very things. Each game in the series has its own unique flavor; its own tone, personality and setting. Some are more wacky and silly, like Twisted Metal: Small Brawl, with it's pint-sized remote controlled car combat and levels themed off everyday locations such as kitchens, treehouses and playgrounds. Some are a little more serious, with a hint of craziness for good measure; Twisted Metal 2, for example, has levels based off locations all around the world, vibrant use of color and a 90s comic book inspired art style. And then there's Twisted Metal: Black...
Twisted Metal: Black is a game unlike any other in its own series, and even unlike many other games in general. It's a game with a dark, brooding atmosphere that isn't for everyone, and I absolutely love it. Gone are the wacky characters and over-the-top vehicles that were traditionally associated with Twisted Metal, like Grasshopper, Thumper, Hammerhead, Crimson Fury, and even Sweet Tooth himself, as we once knew the character. In their place are disturbing characters with crippling mental illnesses, new vehicles with plenty of rust, damage and practicality in their designs that feel realistic, and a world set in a bleak, grim and depressing universe that gives the Batman Arkham Asylum graphic novel a run for its money. It's not a tone that everyone will enjoy, in fact, I know a lot of people out there that don't enjoy Twisted Metal: Black purely for the complete 180ยฐ turn it took the franchise in. But, for a Dark Evolution Digimon like myself, I can't get enough of it. I like my coffee like I like my Twisted Metal, black. ๐ โ
The characters in Twisted Metal: Black are very disturbing, yet memorable, in a way that compliments the game's tone perfectly. Each of them (except for the unlockable characters) are former patients of Blackfield Asylum, a remote mental institution in a desert in the middle of nowhere. The asylum comes off less like a mental health center and more like a prison, complete with the patients being referred to as inmates. A mysterious man known only as Calypso breaks each of them free, grants them weaponized upgrades to vehicles of their choosing, and offers them a chance at granting a single wish of anything they desire. To have their wish granted, they must win Calypso's free-for-all, battle royale, vehicular combat contest known as Twisted Metal, which takes place in a town near the asylum called Midtown. The twelve asylum inmates set out with their gun-toting cars to eliminate their competition and win their ultimate wish.
Many of the inmates suffer from complex mental illnesses and trauma as a direct result of horrific events they experienced. As Mr. Grimm says during one of his cutscenes, "They say the mind bends and twists in order to deal with the horrors of life. I think my mind bent so much it snapped in two." The same could be said for the entire Blackfield Asylum rogues gallery. Needles Kane (the driver of Sweet Tooth), is an ice cream truck driver turned serial killer clown who killed countless innocent people. During his execution by electric chair, he was cursed by Preacher (the driver of Brimstone) to have an everlasting flame engulf his head as punishment for his sins. (On an unrelated note, a man with a soft spot for sweets AND murder? I think we'd get along famously! ๐) Agent Stone (the driver of Outlaw) was traumatized for years and sent to prison after letting his anger get the better of him. During a tense operation involving a terrorist doomsday cult taking refuge in an apartment complex, Agent Stone, working with a SWAT team, was positioned on a nearby rooftop, sniper rifle in hand. Bitter about how the justice system would likely let the terrorists walk free, he shot everyone he could against his commander's orders, including a woman and her child. He didn't realize what he had done until it was too late. Bloody Mary (the driver of Spectre) spent months trying to pour her heart out in grade school to a boy she fell in love with, only to be called an "ugly fat cow" by him and shoved into a puddle of mud. It was an event that would lead to a downward spiral in her life that eventually lead to her best friend Kristen's wedding. There, while attending as a bridesmaid, Kristen threw her the bouquet of roses she was holding, which made Mary lose her mind and kill everyone there. Billy Ray (the driver of Junkyard Dog) was working on his farm one day when a biplane spraying some sort of chemical flew right over him. The chemicals burned his entire body, and the pain disfigured his face and made him black out. When he woke up and returned home, he saw his wife cheating on him with the pilot who sprayed him with chemicals. He overheard them talking about cashing in on his life insurance policy and went insane, killing his wife and swearing revenge on the pilot who fled the scene. These are just a few of the phenomenally twisted stories you'll find in Twisted Metal: Black. The game's writing is absolutely off the charts, with gripping characters and stories that are rich with emotion, horror and tragedy. They add so much to this game's gloomy atmosphere and they will stick with you forever.
In addition to a wonderfully dark atmosphere and narrative, Twisted Metal: Black features fantastic gameplay. As much as I love the older Twisted Metal games, they didn't always control the best. SingleTrac's games, under the leadership of David Jaffe and Scott Campbell, focused on realistic driving physics that gave the cars a good sense of weight, but made them clunky to drive. Twisted Metal III and 4, made by a new developer (989 Studios), repurposed the physics engine from Rally Cross, a PlayStation racing game. The results weren't too bad, leading to much smoother car control and bouncy physics when ramming into cars, but the feeling of weight was lost in the process. Incognito Entertainment (made up of former SingleTrac developers) finally managed to find the perfect balance of control AND weight, and Twisted Metal: Black, as a result, is a big step forward for the series. Vehicles feel heavy while simultaneously controlling smoothly. You can turn and stop on a dime, using your boost creates a great sense of speed, d-pad button combo moves are simpler and easier to remember than they were in Twisted Metal 2 (especially jumps, which only require pressing L1+R1 to achieve), and best of all, vehicle ramming feels fantastic, with a real sense of weight behind the impact. The pace of the game is extremely fast and frantic as well, much faster than the original PlayStation titles, and the new controls help to make this speedy gameplay easily manageable. In addition to huge polish given to the controls, the game features lots of cool new weapons not found in previous entries in the series. A few of them include Zoomy missiles that shoot out a ton of small homing missiles in a row like a machine gun (similar to Sweet Tooth's Special weapon), Reticle missiles, which require you to keep the enemy vehicle in your sights for a duration of time to increase the number of missiles fired at them (which will backfire and shoot nothing if the timer hits zero), Satellite missiles that go flying into the sky and rain back down in front of you at your command, and my personal favorite, the Gas Cans. Gas Cans are hurled through the air when fired, and you can press the fire button to drop them onto the ground and explode. The colored triangle over enemy vehicles will turn red when your Gas Can is over them, a helpful visual aid to nail some satisfying long distance hits.
Twisted Metal: Black also features a nice selection of battlegrounds to choose from, some of them being absolutely massive compared to levels featured in past Twisted Metal games. Suburbs and Freeway are ginormous levels that make Cyburbia from Twisted Metal 1 feel small by comparison. They have lots of areas and landmarks to explore and gather weapons from, as well as interactive elements like destructible houses and buildings. Suburbs even has a Ferris wheel that will get sent rolling through town if blown up, and Freeway has an actual day/night cycle that looks amazing. Drive-In Movie is even more chaotic than Holland from Twisted Metal 2, with 8 opponents in an even smaller area to battle each other in. It's a real challenge surviving the onslaught of missiles and bombs with every vehicle so close together. Downtown is a really nice updated take on the River Park level from Twisted Metal 1, adding a hidden rooftop section accessible via elevator platforms, traffic cars, and a large number of pedestrians into the mix to make it feel more fresh while still being a nice homage to the original game. In fact, quite a few levels in Twisted Metal: Black feature traffic and pedestrians, which breathe a lot of life into the game's world. And I must say, the atmosphere of the Snowy Roads level in particular is impeccable. The ominous music paired with the blinding white snow, the abandoned restaurant to the north of the map, the big thundersnow cloud slamming lighting bolts down onto enemy vehicles (you can have your 500 million dollar jackpot, or Powerball, or whatever the heck it was, but I'll take this, baby!) and the dangerous cliffs you can fly right off if you're not careful give off a similar vibe to that of the Antarctica level from Twisted Metal 2, with a ghost town twist. Twisted Metal: Black does a great job at taking level design concepts that worked very well from previous games and turning them into something new and more fitting of the game's dreary tone.
The last thing I'd like to talk about with Twisted Metal: Black is some of it's other content worthy of praise. The graphics sport desaturated colors, but at the same time have a lovely attention to detail that you'll find in every vehicle, level, HUD element and menu. The soundtrack by Michael Reagan and Gregory Hainer fits the atmosphere of the game perfectly, and is another element of the game that's crucial to its tone. The tracks from the aforementioned Snowy Roads level give off a vibe of terrifying isolation and pair wonderfully with the actual emptiness of the level. The Suburbs level has a track that's a fantastic remix of the grand, epic tune from the final level of Twisted Metal 1, Rooftops. Not to mention, levels such as Downtown, Skyscrapers and Drive-In Movie have frantic, fast paced tracks to reflect the close quarters nature of the level design, reminding you you're never too far away from your enemies. Twisted Metal: Black also features a variety of game modes to keep you entertained for a long time, either by yourself or with friends. For single player you've got the classic Story mode, Challenge mode from Twisted Metal 2, and a new Endurance mode similar to survival modes found in fighting games. The goal is to kill as many enemies in a row as possible on one life in 1 vs. 1 battles. Multiplayer modes include Deathmatch for 2-4 players, 2 player co-op through Story mode, and Last Man Standing for 2 players, where each player picks a team of cars to fight each other with (one at a time). If you're lucky enough to have the special Twisted Metal: Black Online disc and a PlayStation 2 broadband adapter, you can even play the game online with up to 8 players. The variety of modes present in Twisted Metal: Black is very welcome and will keep you hooked for a long time, especially if you've got friends to play with.
Another great thing about Twisted Metal: Black are the secret unlockables. Each of them is unlocked through cryptic Easter eggs or finding Black Cubes hidden throughout the levels that make exploring them worthwhile. For example, unlocking Yellow Jacket, one of the secret vehicles, requires you to shoot down a plane in the Junkyard level. Upon doing so, the wreckage forms a tunnel that leads to a room where you can find a series of control panels. Shooting one of them reveals Yellow Jacket, which unlocks it. Skyscrapers, the second to last level in Story mode, is unlockable for Challenge mode and the multiplayer modes from a Black Cube. You can find this Black Cube floating way off of Warhawk's Rooftop, the final level in the game. If you go to the helipad in the center of the stage and line yourself up between the two hangers that spawn Tankers on the adjacent building, a quick Turbo boost will give you the speed necessary to reach the Black Cube, at the cost of one of your lives. The Black Cubes and hidden vehicles add a lot of replayability to the game. Personally, I like to turn on the God Mode cheat when looking for the Black Cubes, as they're only obtainable in Story mode and it helps take the pressure off of searching every inch of the level to find them. Speaking of which, Twisted Metal: Black has some really nice cheat codes that make the game a lot easier for those new to car combat games who are trying to learn the ropes. You can make yourself invincible, make your weapons kill everything in one hit, give yourself mega upgraded machine guns, trade the weapons you're holding in exchange for health, and of course, with God Mode you become invincible along with having full upgrades, infinite ammo, and infinite turbo. In addition to cheats, the game also offers three difficulty modes (Easy, Medium and Hard) to give every kind of gamer a challenge level they'll feel comfortable with and enjoy. You can play through the game and watch the cutscenes on any difficulty too, not just Medium and Hard like Twisted Metal 2 forced you to, making the game a lot more accessible for new players. The PlayStation 4 port of the game also outputs to a 1080p HD widescreen resolution that makes Twisted Metal: Black look much nicer on modern displays. It also features Trophies for various milestones and unlocks you'll achieve and collect throughout your time playing, another nice modern touch.
All in all, Twisted Metal: Black is an amazing game that I highly recommend if you have a PlayStation 2 or 4 to play it on. You would think a game so gloomy, sad and depressing would be no fun whatsoever to play (unless you're me, it sounded fun to me the moment I heard about the game ๐), but somehow, some way, Twisted Metal: Black pulls it off. With gripping, emotionally charged, tragic stories, graphics that still hold up well due to the timelessness of the game's dreary art style, fast-paced and responsive gameplay, and a wonderful soundtrack to accompany the rest of the package, the game is worth giving a try, especially if anything mentioned in this review piqued your interest. I hope you enjoyed this week's post, I'll have my usual Ghost Game content return either Friday or Saturday next week and cover the new episode that's airing soon, so stay tuned for that! I'll see you all then, or perhaps even sooner...you never know, I might be right behind you with a Dead-End Skewer at the ready while you're reading this... ๐
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐๐, ๐ฒ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฒ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
