Twisted Metal 4: The “Jason Goes To Hell” of the Franchise
Writing is such an awesome creative outlet sometimes, because it is genuinely one of the laziest. You can just record your thoughts with little disregard to a grand overarching plan sometimes. Some neurons firing off in my brain make me perform actions I may not even have control over. Perhaps I am merely the echo of 24 years of an outside environment with no free will. Those existential thoughts can leave you scratching your head at the most unknown hours in the night, as the mild winds on the tail end of a storm whip your siding in a low slung howl.
It’s these winter nights I stay up late, and wonder just what the fuck happened to Twisted Metal 4. This analysis will still try to be as constructive and insightful as possible. Real people worked on this to make a living, and as I said in my Twisted Metal 3 blog, these games kept the franchise alive for better things to come. I mean, think about those odds for a second, if you will. Twisted Metal Black is considered the best game in the franchise by most, and one of the top games EVER on PS2. Twisted Metal Black was the 5th fucking game in the franchise! Could you imagine 5 films into a franchise, and you somehow manage to make the critically and financially best entry? Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars sure as shit wasn’t an example of that.
All of that legacy and greatness had to be preceded by something, and that something was the critically and fan loathed Twisted Metal 4. I want to be constructive here, but the game is just so bad, it’s genuinely hard to play. I want to break down why it’s so bad. I’ll do it from a design, art, and sound perspective like my last analysis, just to keep my ramblings coherent enough.
Twisted Metal 4’s design is…well both from a gameplay and thematic standpoint, awful. Thematically, Twisted Metal 4 feels like a Twilight Zone parody version of Twisted Metal. It’s as if you were watching interdimensional cable, like that 1st season episode of Rick and Morty, and saw a commercial for some other reality’s Twisted Metal game. 4 is the “Jason Goes To Hell” of the TM franchise. It’s a Twisted Metal in name, and nothing else. I feel so bad for the team at 989 for ripping on them, but they obviously had no clue how to handle this universe or characters.
Twisted Metal 3 suffered from some immaturity, but was largely a direct sequel to Twisted Metal 2. In my analysis and retrospective on that, I actually enjoyed my time revisiting the game after nearly a decade. Twisted Metal 4 does not share that same sentiment with me, and that’s largely due to it NOT being much a sequel to anything. It’s almost this weird remake of the TM lore with little to no connection to previous entries. The “World Tour” theme is abandoned for this goofy traveling circus angle.
Before I really dive into this, I have to admit, that if this game followed the World Tour theme further, and continued for where TM3 left off, I think a lot of the gameplay and design issues I’m about to discuss could be forgiven.
From a gameplay view, Twisted Metal 4 doesn’t stray too far from the core of Twisted Metal. I can’t fault the game at all for it’s tournament mode or usual arena style deathmatch format too much. That’s about where the positives end, because the weapons suffer a lot of what TM3 suffered from. They were too slow, too inaccurate, and too weak. Also, the RAIN missiles and obsession with arcing weapons were so painfully annoying. The arcing weapons never landed correctly, were too slow, and too inconvenient for the damage they would deal. The vehicle specials are really no better if I’m being honest. They too share the “shit-it-and-forget-it” design philosophy of Twisted Metal 3, not to mention that specials are reused for several characters. The Thumper and Slam type specials shared by Drag Queen and Trashman and a handful of other characters are the only ones that have any type of difficulty to land on opponents. Because this is an analysis after all, I would dive into this one step further. Vehicle specials are almost categorized and shared. You have flamethrower “Thumper” specials, which are basically short/mid-range hit box columns that deal out high damage if caught in the hitbox. Then there are the lazy “Outlaw” style electrical leeches that are either shot out or attached to vehicles. Next are the “Warthog” style long distance homing projectiles, and lastly are the close quarters “Mr.Slam” style specials. It’s so annoying that the PS1 era Twisted Metal game with the highest vehicle count, and arguably the most polish has some of the worst design variations. I think the only special that doesn’t fit the mould is Super Axel, which still has his classic energy shockwave attack. Oh, and I do want to be fair here, so there is another special type; the “Mr.Grimm”, which is a long range straight projectile capable of high damage that requires precise aim.
The gold standard, Twisted Metal 2, managed to make every vehicle special feel distinct and skillful. I said in my TM3 analysis, that TM2 makes me feel like I really need to practice each vehicle to get skilled with them. TM2 specials can’t be categorized, because each one is unique in their own regards.
The 989 game’s weapon design, dare I say it, was better in TM3, just due to the fact that there were less vehicles with repeat special types, and there were less weapon type pick-ups overall. It kept it simple, but they worked
Now, what about the levels you say? God dammit, I just hate about every single level in this game, and I want to explain why. The levels largely lack a flow to them, and heavily rely on teleporters, boosts, and jump pads to convey a false sense of depth. The levels do not work well for vehicular combat, and are not very optimized for the newer weapons. A lot of the arcing weapons consistently hit level geometry above your vehicle. I think the non-world tour themes really hurt the level design in this particular case as well. The world landmarks gave designers a crutch to toss in a fun easy level gimmick to juice up the value. These levels really don’t have any major fun “landmarks”, although they do attempt it quite poorly.
The Scrapyard level has a crane in it that allows you to pick up enemy vehicles and toss them into traps. While I enjoy the novelty of it, the mechanic slows down gameplay, and leaves you open to attack for such a small reward.
Neon City has somewhat of a decent flow, but relies heavily on a hover transport gimmick that once again slows down combat. It also has no set dressing, and feels nothing like a lived-in city. The set dressing is something else I’ll rip into later.
Road Rage relies heavily on a booster pad gimmick to propel you through a boring highway/road system. The level is barren and boring, with teleporters used as a crutch. Twisted Metal is no stranger to high-way levels, but they had set dressing and vehicle speed to back it up. TM4 vehicles handle like toy cars, which is also something I am ripping into later in this analysis, and it does not lend itself to this level design.
Bedroom has you shrunk down to toy car sized combatants to duke it out in a child’s bedroom. The idea is genuinely really good, and credit is deserved where due. The execution isn’t bad from an artistic standpoint either. The level feels like a bedroom, and really feels like a proto-small brawl level. Small Brawl being the RC spin-off for you non-TM nerds skimming this.
The design flow, dare I say it, isn’t bad. The annoying arcing weapons compliment well with the high vantage points, allowing for long distance hell from above on unsuspecting opponents down below. The toy-car handling also works on a level designed to have you be the size of a toy car, to no surprise. I don’t think it fit’s in theme with the mainline Twisted Metal titles, but the idea is well done.
Amazonia is just a mess with little flow or regard to what it wants to be. The level feels like a spin off of Minion’s Maze. There is some odd gimmick with a big monolith in the center, and a pyramid, but the flow, textures, and layout leave this level looking like the work of a first year university student.
The mediocrity carries over to Minions Maze. What happens when your vehicle handling is bad, and most of your levels layouts are horrible? You end up with a literal maze with some poor attempt at creating a verticality by having ramps leading to routes above the maze walls.
If this were a junkyard with stacked vehicles, and you were running away from Minion during the boss battle, that would be amazing. Instead, we get a level that looks like a spin off of Amazonia, without sharing any assets. The colors, lighting, and poor layout just seem to coincidental.
Minion’s Maze also makes little sense in terms of TMs continuity, and shares nothing from the original games bio on Minion.
Oil Rig is actually one of my second preferred maps due to its grounded theme, verticality, flow, and execution. You have a branching web-like layout with a central converging hub. The teleporters work to keep combat in the center platform. I think my only minor complaint is we get no water. We are on a floating oil rig that looks to be a foggy day, but we missed a great opportunity to make a vibrant skybox and water effects. Oil Rig would work in any mainline TM game, and wouldn’t be a bad level to explore again.
The last level is Carnival, which once again has a bad flow, poor gimmicks, and little set dressing for a level that is supposed to be a god damn carnival. It’s one of the weakest maps behind Amazonia and Minion’s Maze. The Sweet Tooth boss battle is also broken.
The game also includes bonus levels, which are just abstract simple level geometry with basic textures one would use for prototyping. They don’t really offer much in terms of value to the game. I think Twisted Metal 3 had stronger level design with less reliance on teleporters and other weird gimmicks. The set dressing is still really abysmal, and while I get the limitations of the PS1, some damn sprites thrown around levels to spruce up the place would have been a welcomed inclusion.
I wasn’t sure where to stick this, so I’m inserting the section on boss battles after this level portion of the discussion.
The boss battles in this game are such a let down, and one of the major flaws of this sequel’s tournament mode. The idea of each level having a mini-boss is actually neat. I personally love the idea of each level having its own “general” that needs to be beaten in order to move forward. The let down is that none of them “feel” like bosses. They aren’t oversized bullet sponges, their AI attack pattern and behavior isn’t different, and they lack any player urgency. I feel like each mini boss is just another opponent to fight, and not a final showdown between a harder foe. There should have been mini-bosses, a mid boss, and then the final boss. Sweet Tooth is the final boss in this game, and while his special attack leaves the end battle unfairly broken, he is still a small icecream truck model. Why isn’t Sweet Tooth in his fucking giant Dark Tooth monster truck? Not one of these boss battles carry the urgency or presence of a boss battle. I don’t feel scared, but rather annoyed. I think that is a total miss on the designers part here.
On the positive side, I do think it’s cool that we get to play as every character in the game. I love playing as the boss characters more than the main characters, simply because the designs are more interesting.
I’m sorry for dedicating such a large chunk of the analysis doing more shredding than analysing. The levels just do not compliment the usual flow of vehicular combat, and they lack a lot of the thematics and set dressing found in the better entries of the series. As I said before, if the “World Tour” theme carried over, I think I would be more lenient on this entire game.
The last major design element I wanted to discuss was the vehicle controller itself. Sorry Jim, I can’t really say many positives about this either.
I will say that the boost effect is nice and juicy, adds a good velocity to the vehicles, and is a big improvement over TM3. The sound effect for it is a little annoying for it, but that’s not the fault of programming. The vehicles no longer flip constantly, and they flip instantly if you do happen to land on your roof.
Sigh, this is where I actually have issues. I think the vehicle handling in TM4 is TOO stiff. The vehicles have no lean, they don’t power slide, they don’t tip over, and they just lack weight. They genuinely feel like toy cars, and it constantly takes me out of the world. Whereas TM3 was too damn bouncy, TM4 feels like I’m magnetized to the ground. I think for this reason, TM4 is a one-two-three punch of bad thematics, bad design, and lackluster physics.
I don’t think the TM4 physics are broken though. Please don’t misinterpret me, because the game definitely has a programming polish to it that leaves physics bugs a very rare occurrence. I believe you can cause some funky bugs when two vehicles with a “Mr.Slam” style close range special try to attack each other at the same time. There’s actually a d-pad combo to teleport your vehicle back to a safe point on the map if something weird does ever occur to your vehicle.
Without knowing the vehicle physics system in TM4, I can only provide some constructive feedback. Jim, the programmer for TM3 and TM4, probably used something similar to his Rallycross games, which was simulated tires, with real radial friction forces, and a very responsive suspension system.
Assuming Jim used a variation of that, TM4 could tweak the suspension for more body roll, bouncing, and unwieldiness. The tires definitely need better power slide capabilities, with juicy sounds, tire marks, and smoke. I think TM4 needed to just be a slightly polished form of the physics we had in TM3, not the overhaul we actually received. As I wrote in my TM3 analysis and retrospective, I got used to the unpredictable and wonky physics of that rushed entry. It actually grew on me a lot, whereas TM4 is so stiff and boring.
The artistic execution of Twisted Metal 4 is actually pretty darn good. Thematically, I absolutely loathe it, but for a PS1 game from 1999, I personally think it looks good. The vehicles have lighting and primitive reflective maps. The level textures artistically all look fine, and the levels themselves look fine, despite desperately needing some set dressing. The menus and 3D fmvs all have that late 90s charm to them that I must give credit for. I want to make a clear point in saying that the designs may suck from a thematic/tonal view, but they artistically look good. Like Drag Queen’s cartoonish design is still well executed. Minions Maze may be horribly designed from a gameplay perspective, but it is artistically very well executed. The graphical fidelity and quality in this game does deserve credit, and the 989 team did a solid job on it.
Musically, I’m not sure what to think of this game. Subjectively, I think a majority of the music is awful. The main menu music is terrible, and almost every level track is just eye rollingly difficult to listen to. Objectively, the artists featured in the game had a lot of success outside of this game, and thus, perhaps the music isn’t bad to everyone. I think Rob Zombie is fine, but a lot of the other industrial, experimental, and hip hop artists just don’t do it for me. In the context of 1999, I think it’s fitting, as regular metal was getting long in the tooth, and experimental/industrial metal came marching into the mainstream. Hell, even Twisted Metal Black is very much a direct result of that cultural zeitgeist of industrial ambience and metal. You could draw a direct line of influence of industrial music from Quake to Twisted Metal Black in linear path haha. I personally adore the ska direction Rogue Trip went in, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Twisted Metal 4’s sound effects are a big hit or miss for me as well. I don’t want to fully go over every single one I personally observed, but the machine guns and turbo are a major improvement. I found the vehicle idling to be annoying, and most of the weapons still sound very weak when fired. However, the explosions did get a great overhaul, and credit is certainly due there. The RAIN missile also sounds very cool, despite being an annoying weapon to utilize. I find the analysis of sound to be so biased for me, because I don’t like a majority of the game, the sound effects all get on my nerves. Twisted Metal 4’s death screams are just over done, not to throw Jim under the bus in the programming department, but some sounds either loop too fast or they do not fade out gracefully enough.
TM2 and Black are just the gold standard. The menu sounds and main menu music for both will forever be burned into my skull. The rattling chains of the pause menu in Black are something that will flash in my memory on my goddamn death bed. Twisted Metal Small Brawl also really “did” it for me in terms of soundtrack and sound effect, but that is also for another discussion.
I have been writing this analysis on and off for a few days now as I start my new contract with Facebook, and interview with EA Games. Yeah, I can’t even make that up if I tried. Last year in March, my anxiety and depression were so bad, I couldn’t function, and now I’m kicking ass and chewing bubblegum.
Writing on and off has allowed me to cool down in between my rants about this game, and I want to end this with a positive note. As I said in my TM3 post, these 989 games kept the fire burning for better games down the line. It proved money was still in the car combat genre, it put food on the tables of the devs who contributed to this, and in an ironic twist of events, showed what made the Single Trac titles so special. I even want to reiterate that objectively, there is a lot of good in Twisted Metal 4. It’s a well put together package from the days where games had to be shipped in a functional state, with no day one patches. It had style and personality, despite not being everyone’s cup of tea. I think Jaffe said this in one of his interviews, but it’s a good game, just not a good Twisted Metal game.
My own opinion as a fan is that this should be the last entry you introduce to anyone. This is the game you play for historical retrospective purposes only, or some blatant nostalgia.
It’s that oddity on a collector’s shelf of a weird title that proves what happens when you hand off a cult hit franchise to a development team unfamiliar with the subject matter for a quick product to sell.
