'Each car is built to be like a fighting-game character,' Jaffe says. Each of the game's dozen vehicles can be customized with your own custom artwork. They first released Twisted Metal: Head-On - Extra Twisted Edition, a buffed-up PS2 version of a 2005 PlayStation Portable game, before beginning work on this new release.īeyond richer graphics, a larger environment and faster action, this new Twisted Metal also is the first to be designed from the outset for online group play.

After helping create the two God of War games, Jaffe reunited with Campbell at Eat Sleep Play, a new development studio in Salt Lake City. Over the years, Twisted Metal became the longest-running PlayStation franchise, but there hasn't been an original game for home consoles for a decade. 'If I'd had that elevator pitch back in 1993, I would have gotten a green light a lot quicker.' 'I heard it described this way: It blends Mario Kart battle mode with fighting games with more of the arcade-y first-person shooter games like Unreal Tournament and Quake, and puts it in a M-rated, bloody Twilight Zone world,' Jaffe says. The goal is to be the last driver driving in the Twisted Metal tournament and become recipient of the grand prize: a wish granted by shadowy puppetmasterish host Calypso. Players take the role of one of the competitors in a demolition-derby-to-the-death. Twisted Metal is a mash-up of influences: part NASCAR for its speed part Stephen King thriller for its creepy characters, including a homicidal clown called Sweet Tooth and part Mad Max movie.

'This one represents the fulfillment of the fantasy that the development team had back in 1993 when we were stuck in traffic on the 405 (freeway in L.A.) and just fantasizing that our cars were equipped with rocket launchers,' Jaffe says. The franchise's first full-fledged new entry in a decade, Twisted Metal ($60, out today, for PS3, ages 17-up), amps the vehicular combat action up to high-definition. 'Who doesn't want to mount big weapons on cars and blow other people up?' 'The concept is universal,' says Dan Hsu, editor in chief of GamesBeat on.

Game twisted metal