Twisted Metal is amazing! I was a fool for being turned off by the series as a kid. The weird metallic flaming clown face on the box art always gave me this weird feeling. Plus at that age the box art on games, or just about anything, was at times, enough to push me towards or away from a game.

Yeah... I'd rather get the game with the oversized koala thing wearing sunglasses whose sitting on a motorcycle on the box art.

But I was browsing amazon for cheap PS2 games, because that's what I do in my free time, since I'm still trying to create the PS2 library to slay all PS2 libraries. Seriously, the PS2 has an infinite amount of awesome games. My PS2 library is just under 60 and I still have some games that I'm hunting for. Anyways, I saw Twisted Metal: Black... for $3.95. I think to myself; 'that's that weird car-combat series of games with the funky box art with a fiery shark clown... eh, might as well, it's just four bucks... although the box art for this entry in the series is like the psychotic surreal remix version.' Well the shipping and handling was a bit steep, don't remember exactly but it was over five dollars, but I was still eagerly awaiting its arrival.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiigggghht... because this is much more appealing than the flaming t-rex circus clown backup man.

Well I shipped the game to myself in college, but my PS2's back home. I wouldn't be able to play it until I go back home anyways, so I just put it in my desk drawer. So, I've been home since last friday, I have this week off for some reason (my college is weird), and after having put quite a lot of time into Twisted Metal: Black, I'm shocked.

Shocked at how it seems this series is almost forgotten nowadays. Now, I will say that I think I have played the earlier games, Black is the fifth game in the series, a little bit. I vaguely remember playing the first two for a wee bit at a friends. Or maybe I just saw him play it a little? Either way, I was familiar with the gameplay, sort of, and at least I knew it was a car-combat series. But still, as I said to begin this article, Twisted Metal is amazing. I don't think the series was ever super popular, but with seven games in the series it had to be doing well commercially, right? Even so, I did hear about a rumor that a new next-gen Twisted Metal recently, to say I'm excited is kind of downplaying it.

Alrighty then... you stay far away from me.

Now I did some research and it seems after Black there were only two other games, one for PSP and one that came out back on the PS1. The latter sounds weird and it was criticized as such. It's clear that Black was the last hurrah of sorts, as anything after it seemed to just vanish like free pizza at an anime convention. The second one seems to be the fan favorite of the series, while the third and fourth are given props, of course the original is shown respect as well.

Black is considered by some to be the tightest gameplay-wise, but most seemed 'indifferent' towards the new creepy, dark sort of aesthetic. I say indifferent as fans still enjoyed the game, and not many were turned off by the new vibe, rather the turn in cosmetical attention to a gritty, slightly disturbing atmosphere seemed to not affect the reception of the game greatly. The change was noticed and is always mentioned, but it's never brought up as a negative point. I for one really dig the aesthetic.

I say 'AWESOME!'; but some fans said 'errr, what?'.

Anyways, Twisted Metal is amazing, third time saying that, and if you have a PS2 and are like me, trying to build a killer library for it, this is a much worthy addition. I could talk about the game itself; how it's simply designed in overall structure and gameplay, and how that simplicity greatly helps it (menu's are clear and your goal is always the same, kill the other cars); or how the controls, to a newcomer like me, seemed absolutely horrid at first, seem extremely natural after a few rounds (protip: try each of the three schemes and see what fits you best); or how the manifestation of its digitally coded visuals and audio through a TV are still impressive today (it looks and sounds pretty damn good).

It's a very interesting game and one that I know I will be putting a lot of time in. The challenge is steep but nowhere near impossible; in fact the difficulty is pretty much set at the perfect level. All-in-all, Twisted Metal: Black is so great that it inspired me to write this specific article; that's right, instead of waxing poetic about my lamentations on Bioshock 2; praising Bayonetta for it's clever references; talking about the reasons, both from a design and gameplay perspective, on the inclusion of the fishing mini-game in Muramasa; bragging about how I so easily beat SYNSO 2... my pen, or rather my laptop keys, were brought out of writers retirement to write this. Oh, I play Roadkill.