Twisted Metal (PS3)

[Mabster]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

I plan on putting some hours in tomorrow now that I'm back home from a weekend at the "snow" and tomorrow's Presidents Day. I jumped on for one game of DM tonight. My skill rating is like 22%, ouch. I accepted the clan invite, saw Blzer was in the middle of a team DM and was surprised to see only two others had joined the clan.

Where'd everybody go? Come on OS, represent.

[Blzer]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

I plan on putting some hours in tomorrow now that I'm back home from a weekend at the "snow" and tomorrow's Presidents Day. I jumped on for one game of DM tonight. My skill rating is like 22%, ouch. I accepted the clan invite, saw Blzer was in the middle of a team DM and was surprised to see only two others had joined the clan.

What's funny is that I found your room and was trying to join you, and once you guys returned to the lobby, you exited out. I was like, "Did he intentionally leave after seeing me there?" Haha!

Where'd everybody go? Come on OS, represent.

Seriously, right? Part of a reason I'm excited to buy a game is because I know how many other people are excited to do the same. That's what got me to buy Fat Princess. As it turned out, only a select few of us bought it, and I seemed to be the only one to hang on and play it for a long time. Where is OS with this amazing game?

[Eton Rifles]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

I think a lot of people were turned off by the demo. Also, Multiplayer was the focus of this game and traditionally TM was a single player focused game. The complex controls I think weed out the casual's.

[BlueNGold]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

I think a lot of people were turned off by the demo. Also, Multiplayer was the focus of this game and traditionally TM was a single player focused game. The complex controls I think weed out the casual's.

I was turned off by the fact they took the demo down before I even got a chance to play it.

If this had released around a "dryer" time of year for new releases then I might have blind-bought it, but since games like UFC 3 came out and The Show is a month away, I decided not to. I'll just wait for a price drop or something if I still really want it.

[Blzer]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

I think a lot of people were turned off by the demo.

I never tried the demo, but apparently people had trouble connecting online. I still have that issue, but creating the right filters, I still get into games. There's also another beef with the hosting control that I will get into momentarily.

Also, Multiplayer was the focus of this game and traditionally TM was a single player focused game. The complex controls I think weed out the casual's.

Again, I'm really starting to wonder if people ever played the original Twisted Metal games, especially when you (I mean anybody in general, but since you did post it) start talking about the "traditional" TM format. I would like to lay down the framework of TM1 and TM2 though, just in case anybody truly is out of the loop, misremembered, or would like a blast from the past:

• TM1 had six unique stages; TM2 had ten (all in different locations around the world with interactive/dynamic environments).
  
• For the campaign mode (only one player in TM1 and could be two player in TM2), you choose a character (vehicle attached to the character), and play demolition derby in each level.
  
• TM1 had a boss battle where you fight Minion in the end; TM2 has Minion in an early boss battle, and in the last level you have two boss battles against Sweet Tooth and Dark Tooth.
  
• If played well, one could finish the campaign for TM1 in under 45 minutes. TM2 took closer to 90 minutes, but they were still that kind of game where you would play in a sitting (maybe with a friend), and come back a couple of days later to do it again.
  
• Complex controls are one thing (since there are a lot more things to do), but in terms of similarity dating back to the first TM, there is very little difference. Aside from the expansive controls with the D-pad, the controls are the same with two exceptions: 1) turbo is done by double-tapping square instead of pressing triangle; 2) the machine gun/weapons were swapped on L2/R2. Include dual analog control, and everything else is the same.

Now, fast-forward to today's TM, and you have a single-stranded story mode which involves three different character perspectives. So maybe you don't get to pick your character, but you still get to pick your vehicle, which for all intents and purposes is really the whole point of it. Not only that, but you can switch vehicles after each event; heck, you can even pick two vehicles per level, so if you think you're running out of health or just want some diversity, you can run into the garage and start up with that second vehicle.

The campaign is incredibly longer (my friend and I played for a few hours, and maybe got halfway through), the events have much more variation to them, and there are cinematic sequences in between most events if that gets some people's rocks off. I could personally do without them, but I like that they're in.

Some of the HUD is a little wonky in terms of being able to understand when you have access to what or how something works (took me forever to understand the sniper and the remote bombs), but man, when you get things working right, it can be a thing of beauty. I was playing as Reaper last night, and I had a sequence on Diablo Pass (a long suspension bridge) where I had a Road Kill chasing me from behind. So, I started to wheelie and flame up my chainsaw, I hopped over a moving vehicle in traffic and did a backfire freeze in mid-air, and in my immediate distance I saw a Darkside coming head-onto me so I swirled a 180 in mid-air and as I hit the ground, used my shield as he rammed into me, and threw a flaming chainsaw right into the frozen Road Kill, destroying his full health on one hit, killing him. With Darkside now in front of me, I went in reverse, used my Alt Special (a first-person RPG kind of thing), and fired one at him, killing him as well. Then I high-tailed off the bridge and picked up some more supplies.

The sequences in this game can be amazing. Furthermore, unlike the previous TM games, most all environments are not only destructible, but there is zero collision damage when running into buildings. Even falling off a cliff or building doesn't kill you these days. It takes away about 35% of what your full health bar would have, but you're still given second chances. That said, you can work, be reckless, and string up awesome hits/defenses in combat if you know what you're doing.

As you said, this game might be a lot to take in for a "casual gamer," but I think a lot of OS was looking to invest a little bit of time into this game (well, at least a couple of people). This game does have a couple of flaws and things I would like to be worked out in gameplay, especially with regards to the scoring system, but they do a lot of things right, and a lot of other things that I never would have thought of but they did anyway. Small things like being able to tight-turn and swivel without having to accelerate helps ramp the control a whole lot for attacks coming from behind you, etc.

Now, if there is one gripe that I have with the online system (aside from the connection issues themselves), it's with the hosting. The host of a game is required to select the map and start the match. If he/she doesn't ever go out of the way to change the map themselves, you'll be stuck playing the same level over and over. In most cases this is fine, because the levels are that good anyway... but diversity is always a good thing too. Anyway, the other problem is starting. Countless times I find myself sitting in the lobby waiting for them to start the match. However, I'm not sure if I entirely blame the hosts, because there is little indication to tell you whether you are the host. First of all, just as I said, the game doesn't say whether you are the host. It doesn't give you a pop-up notification when it happens, there isn't an arrow pointed to your name, and it's not highlighted anywhere on the screen. All that's different is a little tab that says Start right next to all of the other common tabs that you see like Players, Results, Chat, and Quit. If you're not looking for it, you won't see it. I once sat there in the chat, complaining that it had been five minutes waiting for a host. Little did I realize I was the host once I saw the Start tab. It was kind of funny, but that's pretty much what happens. I can't even guarantee that I was the host to start the lobby session; it might have just popped up seconds before I noticed it, since a previous host may have left.

Anyway, I apologize for all of the ranting, but I believe this game deserves some defense when no one else is prepared to give it. I believe this game isn't far off from its original roots, and David Jaffe did everything to make sure of that. I think that people who watched videos in the beginning knew what they were getting into when they played this as well, or if they've played other TM games. I will say that I did not play the demo, so I have no idea what it is that you all experienced. If it's the online connection issues, then I completely understand your frustration. If it is the controls and you are coming from having played this long ago, I honestly can't see where the problem lies. If you want a single player experience akin to the previous TM games, you have a longer, more diverse version of that (with the same stories playing over and over should you choose to repeat it). You can do it co-op for up to four players. I believe you can even play online that way as well. I can think of another rebooted game that's coming out which left that kind of play out (*cough* SSX).

At any rate, if more people would like invites to the OS clan, please let me know. I might be back online again later today around 5:00 PM ET, so I hope to see a couple of you on there!



EDIT: By the way, I wasn't really asking so much why people didn't buy it, I'm kind of more curious as to where the drawbacks came from. Also, I want to know where the people are who did buy it, as we have four clan members and three that have been invited and pending acceptance. The inactivity with this game within its first week from OS members is a bit mind-boggling to say the least.

[42]

That was an extremely long post. -_-

[bluengold34_OS]

Dear god, my eyes are bleeding:-D

Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

[BlueNGold]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

That was an extremely long post. -_-

[Mabster]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

What's funny is that I found your room and was trying to join you, and once you guys returned to the lobby, you exited out. I was like, "Did he intentionally leave after seeing me there?" Haha!

I totally joined the clan just so I could reverse stalk you and stay out of your rooms. You caught me!

But no, I really wanted to play last night but I just couldn't see straight and needed some sleep. I shut the system down from the final score page and never saw you.

BTW, excellent long post even though most can't find the time to read it. The only thing you didn't mention about today's version is the offline challenge mode where you can set up different types of matches against bots.

And yes, I'm also picking up that other redux next week(*cough*SSX).

[Mabster]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

Just read on the in game announcements tab that they are implementing an auto-start feature as a fix for the host not knowing they are host.

[Blzer]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

That was an extremely long post. -_-

Strangely, I was going to keep typing, but I had to leave.

[Blzer]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

My ranking went from 96.0 yesterday to 83.8 today. I think it's a percentage or something, but how did it lower so drastically?

[ScoobySnax]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

Is this worth a buy?

[Blzer]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

Is this worth a buy?

In my book, yes. Depends on how much you like the series.

By the way, I wish it was in the stats because it's almost embarrassing, but I keep being killed by the Health Semi trucks! Reaper has such low health and is kind of tough to control on turns that I always seem to go head-on right into it. I must've died at least 30 times from it already. How ironic!

Oh, and now my ranking is in the high 70s for some reason. I didn't have a good night tonight when it came to a high K/D, but I didn't figure it would be that drastic of a drop.

[Blzer]

Re: Twisted Metal (PS3)

My skill rating keeps lowering, yet I have no idea why or what that percentage exactly means.

Here are a few stats I've compiled so far for online play:

Games Played: 97
XP: 63175 (ranked 233 in the world)
Level Rank: 23
Skill: 75.33%
Kills: 622
Assists: 187
Suicides: 23
Deaths: 573
Damage Done: 154204
Damage Received: 104572
Longest Killstreak: 11
Time Played: 0d 16h 26m

My ratios started off incredibly low, so I expect them to continually increase.

I want to get another good couple of hours of gaming in tomorrow before Vita starts taking over my next week, SSX over the next, and The Show over the next lol.