Gaming off the Beaten Path

  It's been a long road full of damage and destruction, but we've finally reached the end. We've been through the highs and the lows, the good and the bad, but we've arrived at the end of the Twisted Metal franchise. It's crazy, it's been 10 years since we've last had a new Twisted Metal game (at least an original one, remasters and compilations don't count), which is crazy to think about in a lot of ways. Remember, this used to be one of Sony's banner franchises, one gamers looked forward to with each new console generation. Even after a few lackluster entries early on, the series rebooted with Twisted Metal: Black to much critical acclaim and continued with a well crafted entry in Head-On. Sure, it was frustrating to hear about all of those cancelled games and  lost half finished ideas, but the series was very much still top of mind for PlayStation owners throughout the life of the PS1 and PS2. But those of us that were able to decipher a secret me...

  Thus far, our Twisted Metal marathon has taken us through the series, highs, lows and reboots. Now it's time to revisit what may be the series' most underrated title. Twisted Metal: Head-On rarely gets any love from the gaming populace at large and is often just forgotten when discussing the series as a whole. I myself didn't even know it existed until several years after its release, when I started buying up cheap PS2 games that Gamestop was liquidating towards the end of the system's life cycle. Initially released for the PlayStation Portable in 2005, the game was ported to the PS2 as the "Extra Twisted" edition in 2008 with added content. Full disclosure, that is the version I played for the review. I do actually have the PSP original, but I lack a functioning PSP, so playing that would have been a slight issue. The port was handled by Eat Sleep Play studios. Wait, another new developer for TM? What happened this time? Well, the PSP port was indeed develo...

  We've talked a ton about first series' first games over the past few weeks, but now it's time to shift gears a little bit. It's time to talk about reboots. I really hope it came through just how great I think Twisted Metal 2 is. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way, reviews and sales numbers back my conclusion that it's absolutely a game worth playing. The first game put the series on the map, but the second took it to the top of the world. TM had become one of Sony's flagship franchises and it looked like it was going to become a huge cash cow, turning out game after game like a well oiled machine. That was, of course, until the machine broke down. But it wasn't an explosive ice cream cone or a barrage of patriot missiles that did it in. No, it was something much less interesting. A contract dispute between developer SingleTrac and Sony caused the gaming giant to shift development duties to one of their in-house teams, 989 Studios. But tha...

  Consider your wish...granted. In the past few weeks, we've talked a lot about series' first games and how their predecessors improved upon the foundations they laid. I decided it was fitting to continue that trend with our next 10's game, one of the truly great sequels of all time and a game that's truly special to me. I reviewed the original Twisted Metal a few months ago and I talked a lot about how transformational it was. I also talked about how flawed it was, which, as we've seen the past few weeks, was common. You have to experiment and try different things, how are you going to know what gamers like and don't like if you don't try different things? This was especially true of early generation games, which the original Twisted Metal was, where developers were still trying to figure out what the new hardware could do and what users wanted from it. But not everyone takes to heart the feedback they receive from critics and gamers. Some developers aren...

  After having such a miserable time with the first Street Fighter game, I decided it was time to go back and revisit another Capcom series first and a game I referenced several times in that review. It's 25 years old and nearly all of its sequels are better games, but the original Mega Man is still loved and respected by gamers today. Many people go back to this game and go back to it relatively frequently, even if not as frequently as its direct sequels. It may have sold poorly upon release, but it's widely considered one of the more influential games of all time. But what made the original Mega Man so different than the original Street Fighter? I mean, comparing a 2D side scroller to a 1v1 fighting game isn't that simple and it's probably an apples to oranges comparison. But they were both first games in what would become hugely popular series' released in the same year and made by the same company. So why was one front and center on the biggest gaming console ...

  Let's dive back into the always fun world of 16-bit platformers. There were tons of these things back in the 90's, almost as many as there are first person shooters now. I've never actually looked up numbers, but I would guess they were either the most common genre of games released in the 3rd-5th generations or a close second to tournament fighters. Don't get me wrong, a lot of these are great games. But, much like FPS' and open world games now, a lot of these titles started to feel the same after a while. As such, developers started to do everything they could to make their games stand out. Some used gameplay gimmicks, others tried to turn up the level of violence and many (many) tried to drum up interest by slapping a popular license on their games. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it did go a long way in ensuring not every single platformer felt like a straight up clone of Mario or Sonic. Which brings us to Decap Attack, a 1991 platformer for ...

  I'm going to take a break from game reviews this week to discuss a topic that popped into my head after a conversation, or rather, an argument I saw online a few weeks ago. I guess the whole "old vs. new" debate isn't unique to video games, or even new when discussing them. I talked a little bit before about why I prefer older games to newer games, and I feel like I reference this fact constantly. You know, I'm not really ashamed of that and no one is going to change the way I feel. But I also sometimes feel like an old man yelling at a cloud. Just because I prefer older games doesn't necessarily make them better, though I do maintain that they are very, very different. And even though I prefer the older games, there are a lot of things about newer games I prefer. Before I get into what exactly those things are, I want to establish (I guess re-establish) what I mean when I say "old" vs. "new." I did a write up about it last year, so check...