Twisted Metal: Small Brawl

Written by Chris Reiter  on April 02, 2002

Review: You'd think a destructive car combat game like Twisted Metal would turn out to be anything else but a kid friendly game.

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It was at the start of the PlayStation's beginning that Singletrac (now called Incognito Studios) began their true heritage as masters of being a driven wheel smashing, car crashing, and mayhem lashing corporation. After the release of Jet Moto 2, Incognito left Sony for a number of years, until later it was realized that the Twisted Metal franchise needed to be spruced up again and in its true form from those that originally took its helm, and not the temporary substitute 989, who by the way rearranged its design in a completely unwanted direction. With last summer's demented hit Twisted Metal: Black, the come back for Incognito was surely welcomed, and now for a final showdown on the system where they took their start, Incognito has put together the final PlayStation One version of the game, Twisted Metal: Small Brawl.

Twisted Metal: Small Brawl is by no means like the Twisted Metal titles that Incognito has worked on before. It's not even close to their latest creation, Twisted Metal: Black. The story goes that a bully named Calypso, who has been terrorizing the neighborhood, suddenly becomes too repetitious in his evil ways even for himself. To make his life, and the kids who are scared to death of him interesting, Calypso has selected a number of unique children to compete in a remote control car tournament where the only rule implied is that anything goes. Your objective is to bash and smash everyone else into submission so that you become the reigning champion of the Twisted Metal tournament. And in return for your hard efforts, just like any of the previous Twisted Metal games, you gain one wish from Calypso.

Since Small Brawl is very different from the previous Twisted Metal titles, the gameplay has been retooled quite a bit. Instead of driving a dune buggy, or a motorcycle, or a car, or some kind of ice cream truck that has the ability to transform into a massive killing robot, you'll instead control tinier sized RC cars that resemble a large cast from the original Twisted Metal games. To name just a few, Shadow, Mr. Slam, Hammerhead, Thumper, and even everyone's favorite psychotic clown, Sweet Tooth is back, and ready to rumble. There are 11 cars from which to choose from at the start of the game, and 5 to be unlocked for a total of 16 playable characters. While the gameplay for each of the cars is similar to the previous titles, controlling the vehicles is slightly different since the cars are actually miniature RC vehicles, and the gameplay gets a little confusing especially if you're not used to the directions in the series resembling the lifelike movement of an RC. Most of the time, the vehicle spins around in directions that are uncontrollable, and you might find yourself dying too quickly because of the change.

Being aimed as a younger styled Twisted Metal type of game, the weapons of the past were also replaced with new names and even a few different abilities (even though fans of the series can tell right away that they're the same destructive items we've come accustomed to). Homing missiles; locks onto targets, fire missiles; has a good amount of power and slight homing capabilities, power missiles; no homing abilities, but packs the biggest blast, napalm; fire bomb that launches from your vehicle, ricochets; a deadly weapon that bounces off walls to kill the competition, and even the remote controlled explosives; most destructive bomb that can be set off from a distance -- remain steady and ready to destroy others. Instead of being called by those names though, they're objects such as bottle rockets, cherry bombs, and even a flaming doll's head. In the same old method, you still need to cruise around battlegrounds tracking down each of these weapons, as they add up to the list of your already existing ones. Once obtained, you can then put them to use, and watch as the fireworks begin.