A Major complaint of the 2012 remake of Twisted Metal is that it wasn't faithful to the original series by having a lackluster story compared to the original especially since there were only 3 characters that you could play as. Counterpoint: This game is that but in every regard minus the gameplay. There's not much reason to play this game compared to the other games in the franchise.

It's very entertaining to see what'll happen when the avatar with psychosis wins a demolition derby with guns; there's even character arcs for a lot of them along the way in games like Black and 2012. This game has nothing, because it has been destroyed by the passage of time: play 2, black, head on, or the 2012 game.

This is the first Twisted Metal not made by SingleTrac and it really shows.

Instead of going full arcade on the driving the game tries for a psuedo-realistic feel, which isn't horrendous on its own but it just doesn't feel as fun compared to the last two games. Another thing is if you get flipped over you're left on your roof for a few seconds leaving you exposed to enemy fire, the other games don't have this problem and it's pretty annoying at times and it actually makes Sweet Tooth(the poster boy) very hard to play due to being so top-heavy. The cars also have zero oomph when they ram into each other despite it being a major method of attack in past games and could actually backfire and make you fall on your roof.

What makes the upside-down state even more annoying is that there's no shield advanced attack/maneuver in this game, meaning you have next to no defensive options for when you get crowded by multiple vehicles so you're basically stuck just tanking hits unless you can speed away with turbo which often times makes you steer all over the place with how whack the physics are sometimes. On the bright side the CPU is easier to deal with in this game since they're no longer constantly spamming their specials like in 2, although they do now go after health power ups which can be mildly annoying since now you're constantly snatching health even when full just to keep the CPU from grabbing it.

The new characters mostly suck. Auger could be an okay character, but the fact we already had a designated industrial vehicle in the last game makes you question why he's there especially when using the drill in this game is nowhere as satisfying as slamming people around in a front loader. Firestarter in particular is extra lame, flat out stealing Thumper's special from the last two games just to be "LOL FIRE" the character. Primeval the final boss of this game is the most out of nowhere final boss in the history of the franchise, looking more like a boss for a jungle stage that was supposed to be in the game but was scrapped. But what confounds me when it comes to this game's cast is that for reasons only known by the devs and Buddha himself is that Darkside was made completely unplayable without a gameshark/AR. I get that he's a boss, but Minion is playable and Darkside is even viewable in the CD case artwork/manual. That shit absolutely baffled me as a kid. Can't let the player use the rad semi-truck, only look at it.

Remember the cool original music that was in the last two Twisted Metals? Well that's all gone now and replaced with licensed trash and instrumental knockoff themes that were supposed to be licensed trash which they couldn't afford the real version of. Licensed music has its place with certain video games, but licensed music that was almost impossible to get away from during the late 90s like Rob Zombie and Metallica's "Fuel" make me just roll my eyes whenever I re-visit games of this era. The two Pitchshifter songs on this game would be okay if it weren't for the fact that both songs were also on Test Drive 5, which came out literally the same time as this game. Good god.

The endings are also completely stupid and have almost-zero payoff for winning the game.

If there is one thing that makes me come back to this iteration of Twisted Metal though, it's the rear attack. Why the rear attack? Well, it doesn't have a recharge/reload rate like it would firing a weapon normally from the front. Meaning you can spam homing missiles out of your ass as fast as you want as long as your inventory and energy hold up. It's just absolutely hilarious to me that in a hypothetical scenario where this game had a competitive scene that the most dangerous place you could be is behind your opponent. Funny shit.

This game's okay on it's own, but since it's supposed to be a sequel to Twisted Metal 2 it just looks bad in comparison. It's easily the weakest of the PS1 era Twisted Metals.

I have pretty vivid memories of Twisted Metal 2 when I was a kid, usually at a friend's place as I didn't own a PS1 back then. Although I also have really vague memories of the third and fourth title, so I definitely played this when it was fairly new. When you're a kid, you're obviously way more accepting of low quality stuff. I'm pretty sure 3 and 4 as experiences to me back then amounted to "those were good too!" However there's something to be said about having no actual memories of the stages, the vehicles, the characters, etc.

But later on in my life, revisiting this game is absolutely miserable. I can't help it when it fails to achieve the same level of quality that was already set in the game before this. The physics of the cars are complete shit--flipping over constantly is not fun--and the overall atmosphere and style is nothing if not uninspired. This game came out in that awkward phase where EVERYONE just had to try 3D animation, and it usually comes out looking like garbage, but they didn't care because "it's 3D!"

The people behind this game only saw Twisted Metal 2--at most-- at a surface level. They didn't understand the nuances of the writing, presentation, or even the gameplay.

This feels like a Kidz Bop version of the series, with how much more childish the endings are and designs got, without a single trace of its roots left.

the game by itself technically looks "better", but by god, they ruined everything that made the original duology unique and great, even the gameplay became victim of it, by having controls and arenas that just ask you to keep rolling your car, which it stops any momentum as soon as it turns upside down and you become a sitting duck.

if you want to see extremely stupid endings and have a lot of patience, try and play it, it should at least give you an interesting topic to discuss with people, because this is the only one worth you can get from this.

THIS was what everyone was saying was so bad???? The beginning of the series decline?? The game that the creator of the series said isn't a good twisted metal game??? Maybe I'm not as sensitive to the differences as the real twistedtaku out there but this felt just as much as twisted metal as the first two games did. The physics were a bit on the floaty side which makes cars flip over more easily and the AI still likes to frustratingly gang up on you while fleeing to take all the health power ups, but those really aren't huge dealbreakers IMO. I went in expecting 989 studios to have absolutely messed up everything only to find the core gameplay was honestly rather still intact, just a bit rougher around the edges, and honestly I find that really impressive considering this game was apparently made from SCRATCH in only 9 months.

It is a miracle that this game came out in 9 months...

Twisted Metal 3 tries to capture the fun of TM1 and TM2 but I feel like it unfortunately falls short. While it still offers some chaotic core vehicular combat, it lacks the polish and excitement that made the earlier games in the series so memorable, this is probably due to the 8-10 months the new developers had to make this game a reality. Having to create a new game engine as well as provide the same core experience from a well established franchise is certainly a tall order even after the original dev team has separated.

While I do believe this game to be overhated , I do also believe this is one of the weaker entries this franchise has to offer. One of the biggest issues with Twisted Metal 3 is weight to its vehicles. Compared to TM1 and TM2 , the cars in TM3 feel to weightless which in turn creates a lot of nuance of the cars flipping over and having to wait for the car to reset about 60% of the time. 989 Studios certainly had to recycle a car physics engine here but I feel like it did not work at all for this game.

The level design in Twisted Metal 3 is also lacking. Many of the stages feel uninspired and bland, lacking the creativity and detail of previous games. This can make battles feel repetitive and dull, especially after extended play sessions while trying out the returning characters or trying out the new characters it often felt like a drag to move on to the next stage.

Another disappointment is the single-player campaign mode. While previous Twisted Metal games offered unique engaging cutscenes when you beat the game, Twisted Metal 3's campaign feels tacked on and uninspired often reusing cutscenes. There was never a time where a character had the upper hand as seen in TM1 or TM2. Very unrewarding and I felt like just watching them on YouTube at times.

On a more positive note, I respect the hell out of Twisted Metal 3 and the history it has. Even after having the crazy crunch they did manage to include multiplayer, which can provide some enjoyment when playing with friends. However, even this mode feels somewhat lackluster compared to previous entries in the series. I have many fond memories of playing TM3 with my siblings or even friends. It feels strange as we get older to see games we adored as teenagers or even as children criticized for being bad, sometimes I feel like we enjoyed the games that were available to us since we had a lot of free time after school or just alone in our room. We never really had a sense of a game being good or bad, just asking the question "Is it fun?".

In terms of graphics and presentation, Twisted Metal 3 is mixed. While the game does have improved graphics due to the new engine, I feel overall it lacks the charm and personality of earlier games in the series.

Overall, while Twisted Metal 3 may provide some moments of enjoyment for fans of vehicular combat games, it ultimately fails to live up to the high standards set by TM1 or TM2. It's hard to recommend Twisted Metal 3 unless you are a fan of the franchise but even as big as a fan I am, I did not has as much as a enjoyable time than TM1 or TM2.