Twisted Metal Multiplayer Hands On: Jaffe’s Last Laugh

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Twisted Metal Multiplayer Hands On: Jaffe’s Last Laugh

After Twisted Metal made its bombastic debut nearly a year ago at the E3 PlayStation press conference, developer Eat Sleep Play promptly descended into a self-imposed near-silence. Now that Twisted Metal has finally emerged from its shadowy confines — headlights gleaming like accusing eyes, an angry puff of steam boiling from its cracked radiator grille — it’s clear that David Jaffe, Scott Campbell and the boys have been busy. Really busy. Even in its early pre-release state, the PS3 rebirth of PlayStation’s longest-running series plays true to form — it’s fast, ferocious, and fun. Underneath the glistening new HD graphics, blistering frame rate and overhauled combat system lies the vehicular equivalent of Mortal Kombat…that is, if Mortal Kombat included 16-player online battles waged with helicopters and nukes and psychotic clowns driving semi trucks and God knows what else.

Twisted Metal Studios Tour 2Twisted Metal Studios Tour 6

Twisted Metal Creative Director David Jaffe is fond of comparing the game’s combat feel to that of fighter jets. The comparison is apt because the vehicle handling and physics are so deliciously exaggerated. This ain’t no GT5; in Twisted Metal, cars turn on a dime and blast from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye. They swoop in for the kill, jousting their quarry with rockets and napalm blasts before the element of surprise is lost and the hunter becomes the hunted. In the midst of a lively multiplayer match, Twisted Metal feels like barely controlled chaos, a symphony of destruction swirling with danger and buzzing with death.

Twisted Metal: Axel (exclusive pre-order item)Twisted Metal for PS3

As you might expect, the arsenal has received a hefty upgrade for the game’s PS3 debut. The devastating new Swarmer Missile and Shotgun join returning weapons such as the Homing Missile, Napalm, and Ice Blast. Each vehicle’s special attack also comes with an alternate fire mode that can inflict even more damage if timed correctly, lending the combat an additional layer of depth. For example, Axel can either emit a wide-range shockwave or transform into a grinding, spiked gear to roll over the opposition — what Jaffe described as a “violent Oreo cookie.” Another nod to modernity: You can now freely aim your projectiles with the right analog stick to hit enemies above and below you. Jaffe even dished on a new Sixaxis-centric combat mechanic he’s currently calling the Turbo Ram. “If you have enough turbo, you can shake the controller forward and drill the crap out of an enemy in front of you,” he told me. “It feels almost like an uppercut in a fighting game.” Though the version I played stuck with a classic-style driving control scheme, with gas on the Square button and brake on the X button, Jaffe promised that the final version of the game would include a more modern scheme with gas and brake assigned to the L2 and R2 triggers.

Team coordination is also shaping up to be a major focus for Twisted Metal’s frantic multiplayer gameplay. Talon Helicopters can use their winch to pick up teammates for a better firing angle; Junkyard Dog tow trucks can drop repair kits to heal their teammates; and the mighty Juggernaut semi truck can open its rear door to allow teammates to drive inside, where the drivers can man high-powered turrets and dominate the battlefield. But Jaffe promised that the new tag-team maneuvers are strictly optional, and that crafty players can exploit weaknesses in seemingly unstoppable vehicles. For example, the devastating Juggernaut semi truck can be outmaneuvered and flanked by nimble Reaper motorcycles, riddled with sticky bombs, and blown to pieces.

Twisted Metal for PS3

During our talk, Jaffe kept our conversation firmly squared on Twisted Metal’s online multiplayer offering. But he did provide a rare peak into the game’s secretive single-player campaign, which will grant you one life but enable you to store up to two or three cars in a garage on each level. If you face impending death during the single-player Twisted Metal tournament, you can venture back to your garage and pick a new vehicle…if you can survive the journey.

With its hyperkinetic visual style and blistering land-and-air multiplayer combat, Twisted Metal is shaping up to be a wet, sloppy kiss to fans of the classic games as well as a daring remix of online multiplayer conventions. And with a shiny new release date of October 4th, 2011, Jaffe’s twisted vision is one step closer to becoming reality. Read on for highlights of my full conversation with Jaffe, and leave your burning gameplay questions in the comments.

On the Name

“Twisted Metal is the final name. The series has been out of the spotlight long enough that naming it ‘Twisted Metal 8’ or whatever would be problematic. You’d have people saying, ‘well, I didn’t play the first seven…’ Calling it Twisted Metal is like planting a flag in the ground and saying that our heartbeat is still strong. The essence of Twisted Metal is still here. To call it anything other than Twisted Metal would feel wrong.”

On Realistic Driving Physics and the Lack Thereof

“Every time we start a new Twisted Metal game, Scott [Campbell] and I talk about doing realistic cars, and it’s a disaster. We’ve never thought of this as a driving game. They happen to look like cars but they’re fighter jets.”

On Creating a Twisted Fantasy

“First and foremost, we imagine the fantasy. A great game designer will tell you that’s stupid, that you should start with your fundamental gameplay mechanics, and he’d be right. That’s just not how we do it. For us, the fantasy has always been to be in a car chase going down the freeway, with semi-trucks flipping and crashing, while I’m in a helicopter holding a sniper rifle shooting a bazooka down, and cars are racing through the explosion. That’s what we start with, and every generation of hardware gets us closer and closer to that vision.”

On Balancing Helicopters

“Helicopters were about delivering the fantasy first, and then figuring out how to tune it. The helicopter has a lot of access to a level, it’s fast, but it doesn’t have great armor. We balance it with risk and reward..other cars can use the right analog stick to look up and shoot whatever they want. If I’m on the ground and you fly over me, I can launch a Power Missile up at you and take you out in one or two hits because your armor is so weak.”

On the Companion Gunner

“The companion is fantasy. You are the car, just like in every Twisted Metal. You see your driver more, and you see your gunner a lot more. Some [of the gunners] actually tie into the single-player story. We still have weapons that come out of panels and things like that, but we thought it was fun and cinematic for a guy to lean out the window of a sportscar and fire a shotgun. It just feels more relevant and cool and movie-like. The gunner isn’t really a different mechanic, it’s presentation.”

On the Number One Goal for Twisted Metal

“I don’t have a number one goal. I have two goals. On the fiction side, I want people to fall in love with this dark, twisted, weird world as much as we do. On the gameplay side, Twisted Metal is a fighting game combined with a shooter. I want gamers to discover what hardcore Twisted Metal fans have known for a long time — that Twisted Metal is a great pick-up-and-play game, but it has a lot of layers and depth. To us, it’s in the same league as classic multiplayer games that build a community for years and years.”

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169 Comments

19 Author Replies

  • When will playstation store be online?

  • everytime i get a reward on ps home then go back to home later it frezzes on a black screen and i have to power off and on the ps3

  • wowww awesomee, cant waiting for that (:

  • Hell yes, kick butt baby!! sweeeeeeet tooooooth!!! we love you :)

  • Woaha! Sid Buddy missed ya! ;D What a joy to read blogs these years

  • i cant play any games its all in my download list

  • This game is going to be awesome, I do think it would have been better to have the characters unique to their cars as in previous titles. It could work for online. As for getting online and stealing someone else’s car, that would be kind of cool if you implemented it right. Like If your car was getting ready to blow up, if you timed it right you could jump from your car to a weakened opponents car and try to steal it or something.

  • it said the blog was live yesterday nothing new exspet 2 to 3 things why to go you moved from 2 updated to 3 updates lol

  • this game is going to own so bad! I’m so excited for it. Day 1 buy
    David Jaffe is an incredible video game designer (GodofWar anyone?)
    Twisted Metal is going to be the best online/offline multiplayer party game that comes out this year.
    Bar none.

  • Genius. Now make the multiplayer work near near-flawless from day one and you’ve got your big hit Jaffe!

  • looks good I havent really played twisted metal since the 2nd one as 3 and up for some reason I just didnt like. but this one looks very promising! Its on my list

    • Yep, Jaffe worked on TM1, TM2, and then TM Black for PS2, so this is his big return to the series with an all-new game.

  • i like the vedio of that chinse game thats my dream game id love to play god of war with you opps i cant its in my download list that i cant access

  • and is the rewards programe still around lol

  • I’m completely hyped for this. I haven’t played a TM game since the 2nd one on PS1. A small concern though: Is the framerate going to be improved at all? Or is that just a result of watching the video online (different refresh rates etc). I got the impression that whenever something explodes or there are more than 2-3 vehicles on the screen, the frame rate drops down to the 10s…

    • Game played nice and smooth when I went hands-on. Smooth framerates are tricky to show in web videos because of bandwidth issues, but you don’t have anything to worry about based on what I experienced.

  • look like epic game from ps1 day play it long time ago

  • awesome that you guys dont have to update about PSN outage anymore :)

  • So Sid Shuman,
    Any idea for us when the store will be up?

  • When will the service running I want to play for what stupidity and laziness

  • When will the service running I want to play for what stupidity and laziness??

  • Oh yeah, that’s my headset. Tritton AX Pro FTW.

  • I just Youtube’d this game and google’d it. It looks really really fun

  • I just Youtube’d this game and google’d it, looks great.

  • ^ Stupid glitch. :/

  • Oh, and Sid. Thanks for the info! :)

  • I just want to know whether this game will have 3D support or not. As a 3D enthusiast, it’s a selling point for me when buying a new game.

  • DeMon_KniGht_316

    Awesome

  • AWESOME! Thanks David Jaffe and the whole dev team!! : )

    The only thing thats bothers me is that I don’t have that much time to play so I don’t buy too many games, for the next 7 months I plan to buy only 2 games, 2 of the best ever, TWISTED METAL and UNCHARTED 3 but they’re releasing like only 2 weeks from each others! lol : ))

  • Still so far away… tear.

  • I can’t wait to play I own all twisted metal games I’m a huge fan of the series

  • Someone said that the playstation store would be online. By the 31st. Is this true?

  • This game and Starhawk are day one purchases. More Sony exclusives please.

  • when can we expect the demo ?

  • If we dont get a demo soon, can we at least get twisted metal happy meal toys from mcdonalds or burger king? ;D

  • looking sweet

  • Swedish-Gangster

    can we finally get the other twisted metal games on psn? especially twisted metal 4

  • AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THE TITLE COULDVE BIN ALOT MORE CREATIVE.LIKE TWISTED METAL: GENESIS! (OOH WAIT THATS A SEGA SYSTEM..LOL) OR TWISTED METAL:MADNESS…OR TWISTED METAL:OVERHAUL – YEAH THAT SHOULD BE IT. ALL JOKES ASIDE THIS GAME IS AMAZING!!! I HOPE THERES A COLLECTORS EDITION OR SOMETHING..IM ALL ABOUT THE PRE ORDER “SWEETNESS” – PUN INTENDED

  • Swedish-Gangster

    twisted metal black was one of my favorites, partly due to the character videos/stories

  • O_________________O
    Oh sweet jesus.
    There goes any life I had planned after the release of TM.

    I can’t wait to get onto the semi.
    David and the team do an amazing job at putting gameplay and the players first in their minds when creating games.

    I wonder which characters will be selected/created in this TM.

  • I play & own all 7, this is a no brainer for me, of course I’m gunna buy it! :D

  • I hope the single player kicks ass.

  • i wonder is the story still on calypso or is it changed to sweet tooths back story im not geeting it i only played twisted metal 2 and i enjoyed it.

  • This looks absolutely fantastic. It’s been a bit since I’ve played a Twisted Metal game, as I’ve practically played them all to hell and back. The majority of my childhood was spent owning and being owned by friends and family in all of the various Twisted Metal games.

    That said, I’m sure this will be the same. A great look at the game and some of its features was compiled here, and serves the purpose of getting people hyped up really well.

    Can’t wait!

  • looks like fun

  • WOW! JUST WOW, Perfect time for release, I should done With Mortal kombat by the time this comes out!

  • I LOVE TWISTED METAL!!!!!!! but as a side note is there anyone out there that is willing to help me get to level 50 in assassins creed brotherhood??? PSN:LOSTHeroes13 add me if your willing thanks :-D

  • looking good I myself had never playde twisted metal but this game makes me want to check out what im missing out on.

  • damn so I’m so going to be broke when this game comes out and be sleep deprived lol , there are to many good old franchise coming out.

  • Game looks awesome cant wait.

  • i want psn store now plz i cant play fifa 11 cuz i bought my online pass on the store so i cant play plz plz hurry already

  • black-goldcity6

    i remeber playing this when i had a playstation1

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