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Twisted Metal's PSP debut is an awesome one

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 33 / 34
Date: October 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Twisted Metal: Head On (2005.)

INTRODUCTION:
When Sony launched the PSP in 2005, it wasn't surprising at all that Sony wanted to keep plenty of the classic franchises it had since the glory days of its first system. One such franchise was the Twisted Metal series. When I purchased my Playstation Portable, I was stuck with the tough decision of what game to start with. I had played the Twisted Metal series often and enjoyed the games, but never owned one before. With no better choice to make for a starting game, I decided I'd give the series' debut on the PSP a try for my first game on the new system. So, how does the first portable Twisted Metal game fare? Find out by reading on!

OVERVIEW:
Twisted Metal: Head On is another entry in the classic demolition derby Playstation series, and the first game in the series for the PSP. It features several different gameplay modes, single player and multiplayer alike.

REVIEW:
I have always loved this series, and I thought it was high time I laid down the cash and bought one of the entries in the series. Requiring a game to play with my newly-bought PSP, I killed two birds with one stone and picked up this game. And I must say, I am impressed. When it comes to demolition derby-styled games, Twisted Metal has always reigned supreme, and in this installment, it is no exception. Read on for some pros and cons of the game.

-THE GOOD:
This was my first Playstation Portable game, and as I have probably indicated so far in my review, it has given me a very favorable view of the system. Essentially, the game plays just like its consular predecessors. You choose from one of a colorful cast of characters. There's a demented clown driving an ice cream truck, the Grim Reaper himself on a motorcycle, a monster truck, a police car, and plenty of others. No two vehicles are really alike, meaning every character presents new thrills and challenges. With so many different stats held by the characters, you're bound to find a favorite. And once you choose your character, you and several others battle it out in one of many locales. The stages range from small to large, and every one is diverse, and has its own secrets. The game features three modes of play, as well as wireless multiplayer games that can handle up to six combatants. There is also a ton of stuff to unlock, including new characters and battlefields. All in all, if you want the ultimate demolition derby experience video gaming can serve up, the Twisted Metal series rarely fails to please - and the series' PSP debut is no exception to this rule.

-THE BAD:
This game doesn't have a whole lot wrong with it, but there are flaws here and there. A major flaw is that the game won't hold your attention forever. It's more likely to keep your attention if you have someone to do multiplayer with, but since PSPs are so expensive, that isn't likely. Also, the button combinations you have to enter for special moves are a pain. Why couldn't they just assign a button for this sort of thing? Having to memorize the combinations is a huge pain. If I wanted to memorize combos of buttons like this, I'd play a fighting game. Controls are complex at first, especially if you haven't played this series before. Fortunately, flaws in this game are limited.

OVERALL:
Overall, this game rocks. If you buy a PSP, make damn sure you add this game to your library. Twisted Metal is an a league of its own when it comes to games like this. This series has always held its own, and the PSP's debut installment of the legendary series is no exception. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

EDITION NOTES:
This game is still fairly new, so you shouldn't have to look too hard if you want to buy a copy of it. Most stores that carry video games are likely to have this game new and in stock.

This Game is a Must Get For Twisted Metal Fans

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: April 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is a very fun game for Twisted Metal fans and people just getting into the series. This game has awesome graphics just like the PS2 (but a lot more fun than Twisted Metal: Black).

There are three different single player game modes. Story mode is where you pick a car and use it for 11 different levels to destroy the other people's cars. Challenge mode is where you make all the rules and choose the opponents. Endurance mode is where you see how long you last. There is also a multiplayer mode for this game.

The characters from all the old games are back like: Sweet Tooth, Axel, Warthog, Outlaw, and many more. Each have their own characteristics (speed, armor, special weapon, and handling). There's bound to be a character for everyone.

This game is a fun game and an easy game to learn so I recommend it for people just getting the PSP also. Some people may not like the game so I recommend renting it first (gamefly.com *Please Refer Me).

Road rage in a good way!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: March 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is amazing! The graphics here blow any Nintendo handheld system out of the water. This actually looks BETTER than the console versions of Twisted Metal. Don't let the small screen size fool you, you can really tell what's going on here. It's smooth frame rates all the way, with no skipping that I could see. The cars respond well, and the sound rocks (as long as you're using the headphones...the little built-in speaker stretches it a little thin). Great fun!

Could have been much better! Honest review

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: April 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Guys, first of all nobody can say anything about the graphics. They are great and don't think that the screen is too small to enjoy the graphics, because believe me, it is more than enough.
However as a person whose one of the first pc games is Twisted Metal, I expected much more from the game. I remember myself playing Twisted Metal for hours and it was so much fun, but the psp version is nothing like that. First of all, it is extremely hard to control your car. The use of analog helps a little, but it is definitely not enough. You look at the mini radar and see that your opponent is on your left and when you turn left, it is so fast that you turn too much and actually lose track of it. At the same time, the A.I is not enough. I mean when you play easy, they basically do not even shoot at you and when you play hard, they can hit you from the far end of the map where you can't even see them. They rarely go for the health pick-up and when you are on their tail, even if you are playing in hard, they are not smart to use dynamites! It is always the same thing, you follow your opponents, use whatever guns you have when you are out or in need of health, you basically stop following them and go to pick up health and guns. And after a while you get so bored and you don't play the game anymore. If I can recall correctly, in twisted metal 2, when you were out of guns, your opponents would try to follow you and destroy and they would actually try to prevent you from getting the health. There is nothing like that here!!!
To sum up, I can very honestly say that this game is fun in the beginning, but after two days you will get bored and it doesn't matter if you are huge fan of the twisted metal series(I used to be one myself), it will just disappoint you. If you don't care about the money, you can definitely buy it and kill some time with it, but to me, it is not worth the money!!!

FUN

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: May 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is the best car destruction game ever and it is on a portable. I have beaten the ratherown special wepon short career mode with nearly every character. Each character has its own specials. The point of this game is to gather wepons in the arena and shoot at the other cars. The last car standing wins. The grahics are amazing, maybe the best out of any Twisted Metal game. This game, as many others have said, is mostly everything good from the first Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal: Black.

...Just Not The Best

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: January 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Twisted Metal has been pretty much wickedly popular since it came out, most people loved it, at the time I despised it, but when I saw how it looked on the PSP, I bought it. I didn't like the older games because there was too much action on the screen for its own good; I couldn't see what was going on. However on the PSP, it's not the same.

Graphics: 8.5/10. The graphics are superb in almost every way, except the fact some things are a bit bland ( when driving through water ) but when you shoot any missles off, the smoke effects and explosions are super fly.

Sound: 8.5/10. Some character voices, meh, nothing special, nice music ( kinda ) but the cars sound good, the explosions do too, basically everything sounds good, but it's VERY repetetive and gets boring. You may find yourself playing on mute often.

Control: 8/10. Fast and chaotic, yet reasonably controlable. You can use the analog nub or the D-Pad to move, I use the analog nub, it is EASY but yet HARD, because at times it can be very hard to turn in the same direction you want or back up i ntime of dodging something. It's very hard to hit someone with a power missle, too, from short or far range.

Fun: 7.5/10. Sure it has Infrastructure online play so you can play with anyone anywhere ( near a "hot spot" of course ) but the gameplay is limited. There aren't many cars, ( no unlockables as far as I've seen ) a horrible "story line" ( not much of a story at all ) and it is just repetetive. A good game every once in awhile, but there are many better games for the PSP.

Insane vehicle violence

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

*** This is an update to my previous review based on new info ***

This is a very fast, fun, madcap game where you drive a monster garage-type vehicle around attacking everything in your path. Although the basics are pretty obvious - drive around, pick up ammo and shoot stuff - the game is actually pretty intricate, and loads on the complexity with special key sequences, mini games and mystery objects than endow special powers to the holder. Although this gives the game a lot of depth and potential, it jacks up the learning curve for us mere mortals.

The single player mode apparently has a story to it, but I haven't found one yet and I'm on the 3rd level - but that does not matter too much, the game is fun anyway! The character descriptions in the manual read suspiciously like they've been translated from Japanese, not in terms of their quality but in terms of their weirdness! If the story really does unfold as I progress that will be good, but for now, this is a stateless death match type game for me.

On the negative side, I really get the feeling that I'm missing a lot of the potential of the game because I keep on dying too quickly. It's only by playing it again and again that you get to learn what all the various power-ups do and learn appropriate circuits to run on the maps. I'm a FPS death match veteran and I've never come across such complicated, multi-level ways to destroy other players. Note that I wrote "destroy" and not "kill": there's no blood or guts in this game as far as I know, just mechanical mayhem and twisted metal (yep, that's the title). However, the game is good enough to keep me coming back to it to try and learn this stuff - for now anyway. Update: If you get enough power-ups they carry over from level to level and it's possible to survive a lot easier. This makes for a hard start but at least I'm not dying so quickly!

Just like the rest of the game, the violence is completely over the top. Your whole car can get frozen like an ice cube, flamed with napalm, rammed, electrocuted, drop huge distances and yet recover if you grab a blue cross health pack. Everyone's health hovers over his or her car and there is a certain amount of satisfaction in pursuing the guy who's low on it and nailing him. Unfortunately, everything happens so fast for me, I'm never really sure what I'm nailing him with! It might have been a fire missile, or napalm, I'm never really sure. The only weapon that doesn't seem to do much damage is the machine gun that's standard on everyone's car. When you begin this game I recommend getting the heavily armored vehicles so you survive long enough to learn how to play.

Graphics-wise, the game ranks high, but not as high as say Ridge Racer. The menus and loading screens are a little low-res (and very green) but the actual game play is native resolution and looks great although a bit blocky - not realistic - but still great. Having said that, nothing in this game is really meant to be realistic anyway!

Twisted Metal has three types of multiplayer, online, LAN and peer-to-peer, of which I've only played the online one (can't find a fellow PSP player yet around here!). The online connection hooks up to a server on the Internet and there are 4 lobbies, North, South, East and West, which seem to relate to your geographic location, but you can choose any of them. You then pick a game from the ones running or start your own. I found this particularly hit and miss. Sometimes I'd connect and get to play, other times, the game would bomb out with an error saying my wireless connection wasn't working properly. As far as I can tell, there's no problem with my connection and the issue was something to do with the game itself. UPDATE: The "Message of the Day" on the server now says that they are upgrading the servers to improve performance. I got on last night without a problem and played some exceptionally fun games.

Anyway, if you do get a game going, it is very fun. There's a huge number of options for the game creator (wow, it's easy to forget this is all for a portable game system and not a PC) such as changing what type of weapons are allowed, setting games to be coop, last man standing, team-based, etc. In this respect, if you like online shooting games, you'll really like the opportunities this game provides. For me, the online play was THE reason I bought this game. I love multiplayer and wanted to use the WLAN on my PSP.

Although this game is fun, it doesn't get 5 stars from me for three reasons:

1. The online multiplayer kept on kicking be off for unknown reasons (others have found this problem too) UPDATE: This seems to be fixed now.
2. The graphics are good, but not amazing.
3. It's a little too complicated and has a steep learning curve.

However, it does get 4 stars because it is fun and I love the online multiplayer.

Twisted Metal is back on the PSP

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: May 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Having been a long time fan of the Twisted Metal series, I have enjoyed the 1st 2 games the most out of all the others. With Twisted Metal: Head on, the game seems similar to both Twisted Metal 2 and Twisted Metal Black in some ways. The controls work well on the PSP and the graphics and sounds are great too. Throughout some of the levels, there are minigames in which you can unlock hidden characters and new multiplayer levels. The story mode is the main part of the single player game and it is fun to see the ending movies of all of the characters. I haven't spent too much time playing online, but the time I did play was a blast. Overall, if you are looking for a new game for your PSP and want a blend of racing and shooting then this is the game for you.

Greatest Twisted Metal Game Since 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

FINALLY, a Twisted Metal game that doesn't suck. The very first one I ever played was TM2 and I loved it. Then came 3, 4, Small Brawl, and Black. I didn't like them at all. But now we have Head On which is an awesome game. I had a lot of fun with this game and has a hard as hell ending boss (Tower Tooth, who I still haven't beaten). This game has pretty much all the characters and levels from TM2 only they're much better designed. Buy this if you own a PSP and you're a fan of TM2. Update: To the guy above me, you said story mode is beatable in 25 minutes. First of all, all the games can be beaten in 25 minutes. Second of all, you said "it takes way too long to kill a single enemy" though you said "story mode is beatable in 25 minutes". You make no sence.

Twisted Metal: Head On

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is really fun, there are more charecters than ive ever seen and some of them are new. This is the second best game in the whole twsited metal series(only behind twisted metal 4)This game is extremely fun because when you beat certain levels you can get new cars, or if you beat a mini level you can unlock some too. The game really never gets old because the levels are huge so you can just explore the levels and find cool passagways. You can get into buildings by destroying the doors or in Russia you can destroy the control panel to a tank and it will shoot a missil that will destroy a building and unlock cool hiding spots. Once you beat the game you will unlock dark tooth who has maxed out stats.

Here are some codes if you want to use because you are having trouble:

Invincibility: Press Right Left Down Up and then hold R+L together.
Infinite Weapons: Press Triangle Triangle Down Down and then hold R+L together.


Hope this helped.

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