Review - Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition
Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition
$20
1-2 Players
Variable Difficulty
If there's one thing I agree with David Jaffe on, it's that Twisted Metal 2 is STILL the best game of the series. He clearly states his love for TM2 in an included bonus video and I couldn't agree with him more. Now that that's out of the way I can go into this nice little compilation of TMHO which is a port from the PSP, some unused levels from TM: Black and quite a bit of bonus content such as videos and info.
This is my first time playing Head-on and from what I can tell it's sort of a Twisted Metal 2 remake or sequel. It's flattering and the gameplay is competent, but it falls incredibly short on so many levels. To start off, the levels are bland and boring. Each area is just a new set of textured buildings to play in that lack any type of uniqueness or character. The remade versions of the TM2 characters are also pretty bad and the ending movies are poorly drawn and awful. For some reason there are these ridiculous mini-games thrown in that make no sense and have you semi-platforming in a vehicle. It also takes way too long to get to the end of the game which makes seeing each characters ending very tedious. The music is also nothing exciting and sometimes it feels too cheery or out of place.
The lost levels of Twisted Metal black are just that and are a little more interesting than the ones in Head-on. Everything else is the same as TM:Black and if you liked the game then you'll probably enjoy these levels.
The game comes with a small 20 page art book and has three in-game bonus features. One of them is an unused on-foot platforming level where you play as Sweet tooth. It's not a game, but rather a sort of demo that gives you a taste of what it would have been like if they had gone through with the horrible idea of an on-foot mission. The only interesting thing to do is find and read up on bits of info about the game. The second bonus is a movie where Jaffe and others look back at the series and how it came to be. Finally we get the live action endings from the original Twisted Metal that were cut from the game because they sucked so bad.
The best bonus feature by far is the free downloadable soundtrack. It has a whopping 42 tracks from Twisted Metals 1, 2, Black and Head-on. Of course TM2 has the best songs, but most of the others aren't bad. Especially nice are some of the in-game audio recordings like Calypso's opening TM2 speech. The downside is that it doesn't have every song from every game and it's a large 200+mb file. It's well worth it however even though the file is so big because they put every song on there twice for some reason.
The most disappointing thing about this package is the quick and dirty feel and lack of attention to detail. A lot of the game, from the main screen to the menus, screams lazy and is loosely stitched together. The port of Head-on even has an issue where you lose all your save data if you insert another memory card. I presume it's an issue that stems from the PSP that they didn't bother to address, but given the fact that the main screen is nothing more than a picture of Sweet Tooth I'm not surprised they didn't fix it.
At the end of the day Extra Twisted Edition is a couple of average Twisted Metal games with interesting content thrown in that includes a great soundtrack. The low price is the icing that makes this package sweet and allows me to overlook a lot of things. It could have been better, but considering that they could have just thrown Head-on onto the PS2 with nothing extra I think we got a good deal.
I GIVE TWISTED METAL HEAD-ON:EXTRA TWISTED EDITION A 7/10 [GOOD]
Twisted Metal 2 Bias +
PROS:
- New Level and visuals for Head-on
- Extra TM:Black levels
- Artbook
- Great bonus soundtrack
CONS:
- Poor presentation
- Have to download large bonus soundtrack file
- On-foot demo is large and empty with little to do
- Can't zoom in on in-game bonus pictures
- Mini-games and Endings in Head-on are bad
- lag and other issues
VALUE:
- The best part about this game is the price. You can't go wrong at $20 if you are a fan of Twisted Metal.
