Twisted Metal: Black

"Are You Sick And Twisted Enough For Black?"

What Type Of Game Is This?
Twisted Metal: Black is a shooting game, but it only includes cars. Pretty much, the point of the game is to destroy other cars with weapons you pick up.

Gameplay - 8
Twisted Metal: Black's gameplay is probably the best of the series. You'll pick up weapons and shoot your way to victory which is always fun.
To start, you're in a car with only a few weapons, and you must drive around a city or a town or some sort of landscape and pick up weapons, which add to your arsenal. Then you must shoot other cars until they take enough damage to be destroyed.
Personally I loved TM:B's gameplay because it's so fast, and you can't take your eyes off the screen. There's so many enemies circling around your head will spin. This is one of the best features in the game.

Graphics - 9
The graphics in TM:B aren't perfect, but they sure are easy on the eyes. You can knock over trees, blow up houses, and do all sorts of things to the landscape. The cars are very detailed, and the animations are pretty smooth. You may notice when you knock over houses they don't fall to the ground very realistically. The same goes with the cars when they blow up. I'd like to see parts flying in the next TM game. After you blow up a car, the driver runs out of it while on fire. It never gets old, and is a great addition to the game.

Story - 10
Playing through the Story Mode, you may get a little tired of the same old gameplay. But the stories in TM:B are terrific! They'll keep you hooked until the ending sequence. You'll fight your way through the game just to see if the contestants wish comes true, and what happens.
Keep in mind, these are some pretty sick stories, which won't affect most people but they're not for the weak hearted.
My only complaint is that some characters only have 1 segment of a story and you can't really get a feel for them. Even the normal driver has 3 movies, but you still can't really get into it much. I'd like to see more (and longer) movie sequences so you can really get into the game.

Audio - 7
Pretty average here, the music is noticeable which is nice but that's about it. The characters voices are prefect which is a great thing to see, since there are so many games with terrible voice-acting.
You really won't pay attention to the music, because there's so much action on the screen.

Replay Value - 5
This may just be me, but TM:B got pretty boring after a few times through. For example, the characters go through the same exact places, and they only give you about 2 chances to pick where you're going to play next. Going through the same places and seeing the same enemies makes the replay value go down drastically.
TM:B is also very hard at times, which may drive a few people away. It sure got on my nerves dying on the same level so many times to a seemingly impossible enemy.

Buy/Rent?
Rent this one, you should get enough of an idea of what it's like, then you can decide to buy it or not. Most people will love this game and have to add it to their PS2 collection right away, but a few people will be glad they rented it.
If you own all or almost all of the Twisted Metal games, and loved or even liked them, this is a must buy! It's the best one in the series and you'll love it!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/02, Updated 08/23/02