A janky and flawed car combat game with a ton of charm. It’s the type of game that’s still fun flaws and all. It might not have the best graphics or even the best controls but the core loop of exploring big arenas and shooting at your foes with a variety of weapons is still a lot of fun.

Besides the flaws one thing that is truly still great are the characters themselves and their endings. Not only are the cutscenes iconic but as a whole the roster is really great and stands out as one of the best in the series. This game really shines with the colorful yet darkly humorous classic style Twisted Metal was known for and it’s not hard to see why this was the peak of the ps1 games.

The maps in particular are pretty good. Not only for their designs offering something a little differnent from the last but I really like the around the world theme the game goes for.


The real meat really lies in multiplayer and challenge match where your gameplay experience can be customized with drivers and the stage. I do wish there was maybe some more options tho.

So overall it’s a very fun game even if dated in some areas.

solid 4/5
(although it’s really annoying you can only get minion and sweet teeth through codes. Thankfully not hard to input)

an improvement on every way to the original, more tight controls, a great OST, much more fun arenas and an iconic cast with amusing characterization .

its style remains representative of its era and its the ideal time capsule for it.

I Miss this Playstation Era.

Hmmm. This game is the fan favorite of the PS1 games and its certainly a marked improvement over the original. Things are more chaotic, and the maps are smaller and more interesting. The only problem is the singleplayer campaign is kinda annoying. It's one of those games where despite the battle-royale design of the characters and maps, every CPU player only focuses on you like some sort of freak hivemind. It definitely makes single player emphasize defensive play at a low level which is kinda lame. Speaking of low level, this is also one of those games where the game locks content and calls you a baby if you play on easy so enjoy the higher difficulty or get bent i guess. There are also secret weapons that can only be used by doing mfin fighting game inputs while driving and the game doesnt tell you this and the manual only tells you some but not all of the input weapons, so bizarrely enough it manages to be a guide game too...? I hope the whole command-input-exclusive-weapon thing doesn't become a mainstay in the series.

despite all the qualms its still decent fun when its not hair-rippingly frustrating. I think its like a fighting game where the real meat and potatoes is in the multiplayer whereas the singleplayer is more like a hellish training mode than anything else. Would definitely rec if you have a friend, but lonely gamers might wanna try something else methinks

(7-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

It's very deathly. But I don't like it! Because I just want everyone to drive on the road carefully. Listen to the lights! And obey the rules!

That's what I want this game to be.

Cuz I just thought it was driving on the road, being calm. I don't like it! I love driving on the ROAD.

Twisted Metal 2 was the absolute shit to me as a kid, there was a video demo of the game in one of the early sampler discs that came with the PS1 console that absolutely hyped the shit out of me. An indy car that turns into a tornado? A construction vehicle slamming cars all over the place? Blowing up the damn Eiffel Tower? Absolutely mindblowing to my little peabrained stupid kid mind back in the day and it even got me to buy the first game to get initiated to the series in preparation. Does it hold up for me in 2021 though? Well, for the most part yes. I think it's a blast to play and I find myself coming back to it constantly, but there's definitely stuff to complain about.

In this game there's a new mechanic introduced called "advanced attacks". They're initiated by pressing a combination of directional inputs and can be used at any time provided you have enough energy for it. It's basically like special moves in a fighting game. These advanced attacks are very finicky though, if I had a nickle for every time my inputs were eaten trying to throw out a freeze attack I'd be the owner of multiple secret bases hidden within Antarctica. Which speaking of, the freeze attack is basically the evolution of the freeze missile from TM1. They buffed it, a lot. It's obnoxiously good in this game. It was turned from a missile to a big blue fireball which makes its hitbox much larger, plus they gave it homing capabilities and you CANNOT break out of it. You can even chain freezes together! Touch of death combos for everyone! I wouldn't complain about how busted the freeze attack was though if it weren't for my next big issue with the game.

The CPU was NOT improved at all from the first game and still obviously have infinite weapons, and because of the new advanced attacks as well as the more unique specials they've become horrifically obnoxious. Remember how Darkside would constantly shoot freeze missiles at you in TM1? Now think about Mr. Slam or Roadkill using the overpowered freeze repeatedly in this game. The sad thing is that they're not even the worst CPU opponents. Axel and Twister are both very dangerous to approach due to their close-range specials constantly going off, Axel in particular can destroy your life bar in seconds if you meet him in a really bad spot like in a place with a low ceiling and getting hit by the brunt of Twister special is very disorienting and leaves you open to attacks from other opponents as you're spinning around. The most annoying one though is Spectre who at seemingly random will just completely unload his entire stock of phantom missiles on you if you're within a mile of him and nail you constantly.

Another huge annoyance with dealing with the CPU is that if they're too far away from you then damage won't register on them, this makes using landmines or sniping strategies really frustrating as you'll see a CPU in the distance get smacked very obviously by a ricochet bomb but their health bar won't go down because they were too far from your view. There's multiple times where you can see CPU opponents having an orgy somewhere on the minimap constantly running into each other only for them to somehow escape with zero damage. Very dumb!

And what's up with the developers hating Hammerhead? He handles like complete garbage and they let Axel do his job of crushing cars better. Grasshopper's special literally just doesn't work sometimes and that's ignoring how backwards it is for the low armor vehicle to try and ram people especially with how dangerous it is to approach some cars like the aforementioned Axel.

This game isn't perfect, no game is. But man, car combat is fucking cool. I miss it so.

This was my launch game for the PS1. I was gifted it with the console. All I was thinking, aww man a racing game. That sucks. Boy was I wrong on so many levels. TW2 is a really fun car combat game in both single player and multiplayer. The story is campy fun and it's interesting to see you characters backstory and see how their wish gets corrupted if you win. The presentation on the cinematics is really good as well. The gameplay is pretty tight and balanced. The levels are fun and have good variety to them. Overall really fun game.

Replaying in 2023 and this game is still awesome and a blast!

Platinum # 185

A successor in every way, Twisted Metal 2 improves upon the 1995 foundation in every way! Smoother controls, more characters, and bigger stages to demolish your vehicular foes!

This is what many consider the peak of the franchise! I don't necessarily agree, but it's nice seeing a game so cherished, despite not being the best-looking game on the console, or even the smoothest. Controlling the vehicles can still be a bit cumbersome at times, and the enemy AI can be simply unrelenting (and I'm pretty sure their weapon count is meaningless whenever they decide they don't want you to win). Still, it can be a fun throwback to play, especially with a friend! The stories themselves are presented nicely, the motion comic animation was serviceable (and a pretty new style, if I'm not mistaken) and the twists we see in each driver's fate was a delight the first time around!

(This is a snap judgement "review", so this doesn't necessarily reflect my thoughts on the entire game)
So, I tried a Roadkill run on easy, and got a couple stages in, then found out I couldn't beat the game on easy for whatever reason. Oh well, I just restart on medium and chose Twister instead.
I genuinely couldn't get past the first stage with them OR Roadkill after I gave him a shot again, and with the proper strategy i found out. I was getting really annoyed, then I decided to try out Warthog and see how far I could get. Got to stage two after losing a life on the first, and I was feeling pretty confident.
Theeeeeeeeen I lost my two remaining lives and got a game over. And since there's no continue system, back to square one on the title screen. I promptly said "screw this" and decided not to continue the game any longer for the sake of it and my own patience.
TLDR; AI is really damn hard and the game doesn't let me beat it on easy even tho the first one did. Ugh.

I was excited to get to Twisted Metal 2 after playing through the first one. It was obvious to me that it would be an upgrade over its predecessor in a lot of ways, and its the one entry in the series that I have nostalgia for, having played it when I was a little kid. I don't remember too much from it, other than playing as Axel because that character has such a cool design, and playing through the Paris level which is a lot of fun.

Playing through this extensively in the year 2023 was interesting. I learned that I actually hold it in a very similar light as the first entry, and that's not to say there weren't improvements. More characters, different health system, different levels. But the core gameplay is largely the same or incredibly similar, and so this wasn't really the leap in quality that I was expecting. But that's also not a bad thing! I still had a good time with this. I found this one to be a bit more challenging, particularly when fighting Dark Tooth. Some of those are tough and without modern PS5 rewind features I don't think I would've been patient enough to see it through.

Still, David Jaffe himself has argued that this entry better represents what the development team was striving for with the concept of Twisted Metal so if you want to play an older entry but don't want to play multiple, then this is probably the one you should play.

Platinum trophy #135
Platinum #11 of 2023