August 23–30, 2001

naked city

Peddle to the Metal

Sony gave us free stuff so we’d like Twisted Metal: Black.

by Brian Howard and Patrick Rapa

That’s some Twisted shit: Promotional items from the makers of Twisted Metal: Black.

Everybody knows — opinions can be bought. That’s why movie reviewers are often sent on lavish junkets paid for by the studios. It’s the reason publishing companies routinely send hookers to the homes of literary critics. And it’s why Sony keeps mailing us free crap.

In anticipation of the release of their hip, hot videogame, Twisted Metal: Black (Incog. Inc., PlayStation, $49.99), Sony sent us two business-card holders made of steel and motorcycle chains, two packages of black-dyed candy popcorn, two bags of black licorice, two silver soda cans of water (presumably to cleanse our black tongues with), two metal CD-carrying cases, two discs containing art from the game and at least one press release with each of the above.

Eventually they got around to sending us the game.

In the meantime we had seen TM:B commercials for weeks on television. (Unless you live in an abandoned refrigerator, you’ve probably seen one too. TVs are very popular.) After all that hype, we really wanted to hate this game.

Unfortunately, Twisted Metal: Black really is a lot of fun. This has a lot to do with its "mature" rating and the appropriateness of the corresponding warning "Blood and Gore, Violence." This game is not quite as satisfying to the human instinctual blood lust as the Quake franchise, but it has the same appreciation for unwarranted hate and aggression. Driving a little weapon-loaded car around a near-apocalyptic landscape is neat, and this game simulates that well. You could spend all day shooting rockets at cars. That’s what mature means.

First you choose your character. Each one has a grim little movie wherein he or she sits in an asylum cell and tells a sob story of becoming deformed, disturbed or both. They’re mostly recognizable character-types: a scary clown (as if there’s another kind), a psychotic preacher, an ex-cop, a girl with a doll mask stuck to her face, a guy with a skull face, a guy with no face at all, etc. They’re all visited by another asymmetrically featured guy named Calypso (you were expecting maybe Reggae or Zydeco?) who runs "some sort of contest." Winner gets the thing they most desire: a new life, a makeover, maybe a chance to kill the son of a bitch who did that to his or her face. (Modern videogames always include a dumb plot like this. When Donkey Kong threw barrels at Mario — instead of feces like a normal ape would — did we need to know his motivation? We were so much more accepting then. What happened to us?)

All the movies end with the characters saying, "How could I refuse" — no really, they all say it — and taking off in their souped-up car to join Calypso’s little game. The contest, of course, involves driving around and shooting other guys who are driving around shooting at you. The cars have built-in little wiener guns, and each driver’s got a special weapon. (The preacher, for instance, can toss a little "follower" guy onto your car who yells "Repent!" before blowing himself to Valhalla and thus damaging you.) Other creative weaponry is available all over the place, just hovering and waiting to be picked. Homing missiles, land mines, lightning bolts and such can be used to pound the hell out of your opponents.

	Bone Thug ’N Armory: Death rides a pale motorcycle.

How many opponents? Well, there are different modes, of course. Head-to-head play is often a nonstop battle to kill your friend before he or she can kill you. (Or she? Who are we kidding? Girls never play videogames with us.) The "Story" mode requires a lot more skill. Since you’re usually up against eight other psychos, sometimes it’s wise to pick your spots and let them kill each other to make your job easier. It’s the same way with raising kittens.

Conceptually, all this stuff isn’t terribly remarkable. After all, "car combat" isn’t a new idea for our new century, it’s an established genre. There are and have been many, many games wherein you drive around blowing up other automobiles: Vigilante 8, Rogue Trip, Car Wars and, oh yeah, Twisted Metals 1 and 2.

But TM:B beats them all in the style competition. Each level is cool, scary and enormous. In the "Suburban" landscape you can knock a Ferris wheel off its supports and watch it roll through a town and into the ocean. On other boards you can shoot blimps out of the air and knock over water towers. There are also other little cars riding around most of the time. Shooting some chump off his Vespa before running him over won’t help you win, but it feels good. You should try it.

And everything is awash in darkness, pale colors and gritty, dusty details. Low, heavy clouds move majestically through the sky and send lightning and rain all over your field of vision at random. When you blow up an opponent’s car you really feel like you did some damage, especially when a little guy comes running out of the wreckage, shrieking and on fire. The soundtrack is a Danny Elfman-esque score. Also, the game opens with the riff from "Paint It Black," which is a nice touch.

Twisted Metal: Black reaffirms the moral taught to us by games like Doom, Quake, dodgeball and Laser Tag: that anything that moves should be attacked until it is still. But it also raises some ethical questions like: Was our opinion tainted by free licorice and cans of water? Would we have even written about this game if Sony hadn’t gotten our attention with all that free junk? Will they send us more stuff now that we have reviewed it favorably? Will they please?

Editor’s note: Past installments of Arcadia available at www.citypaper.net/arcadia