Preview by: Justin Amirkhani

The original Twisted Metal games were what happened when you mixed the in-your-face attitude of the 1990s with the startling evolution in game design of the early 2000s. Reviving a series so deadlocked in a time period can be trepedatious at best; it’s never easy to tell whether a modern gaming audience will be able to appreciate the antiquated styling.

Sitting down to play a multiplayer build of the game I got a sense that David Jaffe and company were very interested in keeping the essence of Twisted Metal as pure as possible, and in that they succeeded. Every inch of the game is coated in the same sort of death metal-inspired devil-may-care attitude of the originals.

In the most nonchalant way the game parades its whimsical tornado of destruction and havoc as players race around cities and amusement parks, chasing each other down and blowing each other to smithereens. The only problem is that in the effort to preserve the game’s antiquated sensibilities it hasn’t seemed to evolve as much as I had hoped.

This year we’ve already seen a disastrous example of a game trapped in a bygone era and part of me worries the same might happen to Twisted Metal based on what was shown. While it’s nowhere near as stuck in a period as Duke Nukem Forever the game just didn’t feel like it was delivering a thoroughly modern experience. At every turn artifacts from the gaming world pop up, be they floating weapon pickups, hovering health bars, or the chaotic open-arena level design.

While this adds up to an experience that doesn’t really feel like anything new, it also doesn’t mean that it adds up to something bad. There’s something that can be said for the simple joys of chasing down your fellow player in a ridiculously designed vehicle, while keeping an eye on the static weapon respawn points. It feels old, sure, but it feels solid and familiar which is more than what most revivals achieve these days. The game did impress me with the simplicity of the fun it provides. There’s very little complexity and it’s easy to find yourself slipping into a trance of reactionary bliss. Twisted Metal goes after the primal senses, giving you simultaneous feelings of being predator and prey.

When the game ships there will be a bevy of multiplayer modes to experience, but the core mechanics don’t seem to change all that much. Both the team deathmatch and the kill-the-leader games played during the preview reduced to an all-out barrage of bullets and explosions coming from all directions, making both experiences blur together. But then, Twisted Metal doesn’t relish in special objectives; it’s the moment-to-moment experience that drives the game forward and it felt more than right in the preview build.