I've been a lurker here for quite a while on and off.  Been a huge TM fan for the past 20 years or so on my own time, but never really connected with the community.  Glad to finally be here.

Anyway, I've always wanted to try and beat every game in the series with every character on every difficulty.  I've never attempted this, as I've always just found my "go to" characters and would do either tournament or deathmatch with those. 

So the other day I started this long, grueling journey to beat every TM game with every character on every difficulty.  I already know TM2 and (to a lesser extent) TMB are going to make me lose my mind.  TM2 on Hard with characters like Grasshopper, Twister and Hammerhead...I have no idea how I'm gonna be able to do that.  TM2 is ridiculous.  At least Black gives you your lives back after each level.

So I already started TM1.  I made it through Easy mode with (surprisingly) no deaths.  Medium has been quite a step up though.  I'm not as familiar with this game as some of the others in the series, but man, sometimes the AI can be a bitch.  I haven't gotten a Game Over yet, but I've beaten Medium so far with Sweet Tooth, Roadkill, Mr. Grimm and Hammerhead and I haven't gotten a "no death" run yet on Medium.  Almost did it with Grimm, but I got too greedy with Minion and went for a few extra hits when I should have bolted, and he killed me.

Anyway, since I'm really into the first game right now and it's currently fresh in my mind, let's talk about it.  Who are your favorite characters?  Least favorite?  Which CPUs do you find the easiest and the hardest?

For me, best three characters have to be Roadkill, Mr. Grimm and Spectre.  Roadkill feels the most balanced to me, good speed, decent ramming ability (on smaller cars), pretty good and satisfying special, and overall just very easy to use. He does slide quite a bit when you turn sharply, but it's not nearly as bad as Pit Viper.  Mr. Grimm is basically a drive-by sniper.  You can clear an entire level with him by driving around sniping people with your special as you pass, and it's so satisfying.  Spectre is just a lot of fun to use.  I like the way his special seems to tease the enemies by zigzagging towards them or even passing them only to come back and hit them.  I like using Hammerhead as well because it's fun to run over everybody and demolish them, but I'm starting to see his weaknessess a lot more on Medium.  He's just not fast enough to get out of bad situations.  On Easy I never really needed a quick exit strategy since everyone was...well, easy.

Least favorite have to be Darkside, Crimson Fury, Thumper and Yellow Jacket.  Darkside is just hard to use as if he gets hit with anything that's not a fire missile, he spins out of control and flies into the wall.  Darkside can easily become a punching bag for a group of enemies.  Crimson Fury is fast, but his special isn't that strong and you have to line it up perfectly, and his armor is not good enough to balance having to stop and line up a perfect shot, especially with all the craziness usually going on around you.  To me he's the weakest of the light cars.  I love Thumper in TM2, but in the first one his special isn't as strong, and you can't really use it in groups too much.  TM1 isn't a game where you can afford to stop and line up attacks, because being caught standing still in a group is just asking to be killed.  Yellow Jacket is just kind of "meh" in every category, so he's not my favorite to use either.  And Pit Viper's controls are bonkers, but her special is pretty good.

Keep in mind that I'm still figuring out good strategies for this game as I'm not too familiar with it.  What works for me now may get me killed on Hard mode.  And yes, I am ready to rage on Hard mode.  I think I'll probably get a couple of Game Overs on Medium, but it shouldn't be too bad.  Hard mode is going to be terrible, though not nearly as bad as TM2 Hard mode.  Just looking ahead to TM2, I think that's going to be the hardest game in the series to 100% beat it with everyone on Hard.  Black will be ridiculous as well, but at least Black gives you your lives back at the beginning of each level.  I mean characters like Grasshopper, Twister and Hammerhead...I don't even know if I can do it.  But I'm gonna keep going until I do.

Now I want to talk about the AI.  First off, Sweet Tooth can go die in a fire.  I am legitimately scared when he's in a level because his AI is so damn aggressive and he spams homing missiles and specials non stop.  Darkside is also very aggressive, but as long as you don't let him near you physically he can't do much to you.

Some of the other AI opponents have thier own little quirks from car to car that you start to notice over time.  Outlaw tries to circle you constantly spamming his taser which is SO ANNOYING when you're someone like Mr. Grimm or Sweet Tooth who needs to line up a shot.  Spectre tries to special spam you from far away, which is frustrating trying to hunt him down, but once you catch him it's over for him.  Pit Viper must be on something because God damn does she spam weapons like crazy, but thankfully she's fairly weak and gets easily killed by rams.  Crimson Fury for some reason has perfect aim with his tiny little special bullet.  He'll be circling me and hitting me over and over again with it.  He's someone that you have to drive by and attack, because face to face he'll have you bouncing and spinning all over the place.  But his low armor makes him easy to take down if you can make contact with him.

Something I noticed is that certain characters will NEVER appear on certain levels.  For example you'll never have Sweet Tooth on Level 2 or Level 6.  Level 2 especially is locked to only about 9 characters you can have because there's some I've never gotten.  Also Sweet Tooth and Darkside will ALWAYS appear in Cyburbia no matter what unless you're playing as them.  I have no idea why this is, but that's how it is. 

I always wondered if the civilians with guns that are on the road and the SWAT team guys can shoot enemy CPUs as well.  Can anyone confirm this?  I could have sworn I've seen it happen, but I may be wrong.  But yeah I hate those guys.  Happy they took them out for TM2.

Lastly I want to rank all six levels from worst to best because...why not?  It's fun to go back and revisit these games and dissect them.  These games are a ton of fun.

6. Rooftops- My least favorite rooftop level in the series.  What I don't like about this one is how there's only one way to really go around in a circle.  Once you get to the bottom there's only one way back, and fighting Minion becomes a game of shooting him from afar and driving around the level only to rinse and repeat. I just don't like how there isn't more options to go back and forth from the top to the bottom.  Everything is basically a one way trip.  A couple of bridges connecting some of the rooftops would really help this level a lot.

5. The Arena- The first level is just very basic.  It's too small, and I get that being small is the entire point of the level, but it's just a bit TOO small for me.  Also no healths kind of ruins it in my opinion.

4. Cyburbia- Pretty sure this is everyone's favorite, and I get that, the design of this level is fantastic.  It's just that it's so large and with 8 enemies it becomes exhausting.  The level is cool at the beginning of the match, but when it starts to get down in numbers, I start to get bored of it.

3. Warehouse District- Nothing good or bad about this one, it's just a nice, solid stage with two healths in perfect locations and a nice 3 enemies to dispatch.  Nothing much to say about it, it's pretty cool.

2. River Park- Love this stage.  This is the most chaotic level in the game and it's the one that is most likely to make me die since it has the smallest size to enemy ratio.  I also think that basically being an extension of Level 2 is pretty cool.

1. Freeway- What a great, fun stage.  I enjoy how this level is mapped out, with your two main roads and your two side roads.  It's not overly chaotic, but it manages to section off the enemy AIs into groups of two or three which I really like as it spreads them around a bit.

So yeah, that's pretty much everything.  Tell me what you like, what you don't like, your favorite characters, least favorite, etc.

I'm planning on doing a tier list of these characters in each game after finishing each of them completely.  I would do it for TM1 now in this post, but I feel like until I get through Hard mode, then I really don't know the strengths and weaknesses of each character yet completely.

Did you try watching videos of TM1 on hard? You wanna carry a lot of homing and power missiles for Sweet Tooth. Leave Mr. Grimm for last because he's just gonna runaway. Land mines can be used to deal damage to enemies from a far. Put them when you see an enemy is following you. Rear missiles can do the same by driving away from the enemy that is following you while shooting this missile at them. These two are the runaway weapons useful to deal damage to enemies without fighting them head on. After you have taken all of the health they will all regenerate at a random timer. Sometimes they will all come back quick or take a long time.


mninp wrote on 07/10/18 at 05:07:31:

I'm planning on doing a tier list of these characters in each game after finishing each of them completely.  I would do it for TM1 now in this post, but I feel like until I get through Hard mode, then I really don't know the strengths and weaknesses of each character yet completely.

Warthog is the best car.

Nice post. I love TM1.

My favorite map is River Park. It's the perfect TM map. Even TM Black sorta re-used River Park's design for the Downtown map. 2nd favorite is Cyburbia because it's the first very large TM map, and like River Park was a map concept re-used for TMB (Suburbs). And Rooftops is an interesting map. All the rooftop maps are flawed in the series, but the first game had the best rooftop map to me... epic music with the apocalyptic sky and the danger of being able to fall easily... maybe not the most fun map, but it got the atmosphere right. After that map I liked Warehouse, Freeway, and Arena last. Freeway's circular design sort of gave off the illusion of a never-ending freeway. TM Black's Highway Loop similarly has that sort of effect.

As for the army guys on the maps - they can't hurt AI.

And as for vehicles, my favorite vehicles are Hammerhead, Darkside, and SweetTooth. They have the best ram power, and I find them useful even in hard mode. Darkside's special made more sense in the (rare) PC version where it was a freeze laser. The heat laser is pointless, no debating that. And yeah, it's harder to use ram to your favor in Hard mode because the big dogs are slow, but as long as you keep collecting turbo you should be okay. Warthog is similarly at an advantage like those 3 big dogs.

Of the low armor cars Spectre and Mr. Grimm are the best, especially Spectre with that ghost missile special. Of the medium cars I like Roadkill for the good handling and speed... RK seemed to be the most balanced. I also have a soft spot for Pit Viper and her slime special, but she was disadvantaged with having average stats. Thumper was disadvantaged also. Not so much that Thumper's special wasn't powerful- but you couldn't use it without putting yourself in the line of fire. Outlaw, Crimson Fury, and Yellow Jacket similarly had short range specials and were very difficult to use on Hard mode. Outlaw and Yellow Jacket were 2 original TM vehicles that saw themselves vastly improved in future games (Outlaw 2 & TMB's Yellow Jacket). Crimson Fury sadly never got much better, with CF being a weakling in all 4 TM games he appears in (5 if you include vehicles from TM4's create-a-car).

As far as who I hate fighting - probably Mr. Grimm, SweetTooth, and Hammerhead. the AI can be pretty aggressive in TM1, but it was fair for the most part. Not being able to shield made the game a challenge. And some of the weapons (reverse missile, reverse fire, combat mine, jump mine, oil slick, freeze missile, tire spike) were difficult to use with success.

Here to post an update.  I beat it with everyone on Medium and I'm working my way on Hard now.

Surprisingly it's going MUCH smoother than I thought it would.  I managed to finish Medium without geting a game over and succesfully did no death runs with Warthog, Thumper, Crimson Fury and Darkside.

Hard has been another beast entirely.  So far I've beaten the game with Roadkill, Mr. Grimm, Spectre, Warthog, Thumper, Outlaw and Yellow Jacket (in that order).  I've tried it with Sweet Tooth (made it to Cyburbia), Hammerhead (made it to River Park), Darkside (made it to Freeway lol) and Crimson Fury (made it to Cyburbia).  I also managed to get a no death run with Warthog.  That means that I NEVER died with Warthog on any difficulty, which is pretty awesome.

I'm going to try it with Pit Viper before going back to everyone else I didn't beat the game with.  Pit Viper gave me SERIOUS trouble on Medium, I barely made it through the game, so I don't think I'm going to beat it on Hard with her in one shot.

I should have beaten it with Crimson Fury honestly.  In River Park I actually died twice, but the first death was bs.  I was getting a health and just as I was a quarter of a second from the health station, Sweet Tooth decides to drive just in front of it, so when the health station released me I flew into him and died instantly, there was nothing I could do, it all happened so fast.  Then in Cyburbia all I had was Spectre left with a sliver of hp and as I was going for the health he shot FOUR Specials at me and took me down from half health to nothing.  That really pissed me off considering how much effort I was putting into trying to beat it with him.  But oh well.

Another funny thing that happened was when I was being Outlaw I got killed inside of the health station.  Pit Viper shot her special at me from the front just as I landed inside the health station and her hit "counted" and killed me.  How do you get killed inside the health station?  I was pissed at the time but I ended up beating the game with him so in hindsight it was pretty funny.

So all I have left until I 100% TM1 is Sweet Tooth, Hammerhead, Darkside, Crimson Fury and Pit Viper.  I know for a fact I'll be able to do it with Crimson Fury because he's the best out of these guys imo.  I THINK I can do it with Sweet Tooth because his special is so good, but the other three are gonna be really tough.  For those big and slow cars I have no idea how to play better.  If you got enemies on your tail there's nothing you can do except try to get rid of them, but this always happens when I get low hp so I just die.  There's only so many turbos in a level, and turbo drains fast.  You can't get away from anything.  By the way I take back what I said before about my favorite and least favorite characters to play as.  Hard mode really shows the strengths and weaknesses a lot better.  I still love playing as Hammerhead because it's fun, but Hard mode kicked my butt with him.

Did you know that Sweet Tooth will set traps for you when he's low on hp?  Several times on Hard he has been just around the corner, and he plants bounce mines in front of him as a trap so that you'll bounce into the wall when you turn the corner and he will spam you.  The AI is impressive as hell in this game.

Luis wrote on 07/16/18 at 08:26:59:

Did you try watching videos of TM1 on hard? You wanna carry a lot of homing and power missiles for Sweet Tooth. Leave Mr. Grimm for last because he's just gonna runaway. Land mines can be used to deal damage to enemies from a far. Put them when you see an enemy is following you. Rear missiles can do the same by driving away from the enemy that is following you while shooting this missile at them. These two are the runaway weapons useful to deal damage to enemies without fighting them head on. After you have taken all of the health they will all regenerate at a random timer. Sometimes they will all come back quick or take a long time. Warthog is the best car.

I like to come up with my own strategies as I consider watching video guides to be spoilers in a sense.  If I'm REALLY getting my butt kicked and I can't seem to progress at all with a certain character, then I'll check out some videos.  But for the most part I want to figure everything out on my own.

Yeah Mr. Grimm is always last for me, and I noticed that he only drives in the very middle of the road, but he'll still use his special when you pass him, so you can actually use Grimm to attack other enemies for you.  Actually I noticed that most CPUs will use their specials when you pass them even if they're not specifically going after you, which is weird.

Trust me, I love the mines and the rear missiles.  The only weapons I hate are the Oil and the bounce mines, because neither does any damage.  But the rear missiles are my favorite rear weapon definitely.  Nothing better than getting an enemy to chase you just out of their weapon reach, and unloading four rear missiles back to back as you drive away.

I've memorized most of the weapon locations in each level, especially the homing missiles.  In fact, I have a rhythm on each stage when it begins, as I know the best "go to" weapons that are near the starting point.

Yeah I hate having to drive around the edge of the level waiting for all the healths to come back.  I wish it was like some of the other TM games where each individual health has its own timer.  Because it can get very monotonous driving around the level over and over again.

And yes after playing Hard mode I agree that Warthog is the best car in the game.  Great armor, ramming is amazing to everybody except Darkside and Hammerhead, handling is excellent and he surprisingly doesn't have trouble getting away from the action.  I don't know why I have so much trouble geting away with the other big cars and not Warthog because they're all the same speed.

MoshTMA wrote on 07/17/18 at 14:43:26:

Nice post. I love TM1. My favorite map is River Park. It's the perfect TM map. Even TM Black sorta re-used River Park's design for the Downtown map. 2nd favorite is Cyburbia because it's the first very large TM map, and like River Park was a map concept re-used for TMB (Suburbs). And Rooftops is an interesting map. All the rooftop maps are flawed in the series, but the first game had the best rooftop map to me... epic music with the apocalyptic sky and the danger of being able to fall easily... maybe not the most fun map, but it got the atmosphere right. After that map I liked Warehouse, Freeway, and Arena last. Freeway's circular design sort of gave off the illusion of a never-ending freeway. TM Black's Highway Loop similarly has that sort of effect. As for the army guys on the maps - they can't hurt AI. And as for vehicles, my favorite vehicles are Hammerhead, Darkside, and SweetTooth. They have the best ram power, and I find them useful even in hard mode. Darkside's special made more sense in the (rare) PC version where it was a freeze laser. The heat laser is pointless, no debating that. And yeah, it's harder to use ram to your favor in Hard mode because the big dogs are slow, but as long as you keep collecting turbo you should be okay. Warthog is similarly at an advantage like those 3 big dogs. Of the low armor cars Spectre and Mr. Grimm are the best, especially Spectre with that ghost missile special. Of the medium cars I like Roadkill for the good handling and speed... RK seemed to be the most balanced. I also have a soft spot for Pit Viper and her slime special, but she was disadvantaged with having average stats. Thumper was disadvantaged also. Not so much that Thumper's special wasn't powerful- but you couldn't use it without putting yourself in the line of fire. Outlaw, Crimson Fury, and Yellow Jacket similarly had short range specials and were very difficult to use on Hard mode. Outlaw and Yellow Jacket were 2 original TM vehicles that saw themselves vastly improved in future games (Outlaw 2 & TMB's Yellow Jacket). Crimson Fury sadly never got much better, with CF being a weakling in all 4 TM games he appears in (5 if you include vehicles from TM4's create-a-car). As far as who I hate fighting - probably Mr. Grimm, SweetTooth, and Hammerhead. the AI can be pretty aggressive in TM1, but it was fair for the most part. Not being able to shield made the game a challenge. And some of the weapons (reverse missile, reverse fire, combat mine, jump mine, oil slick, freeze missile, tire spike) were difficult to use with success.

My favorite rooftop level has to be TMB's Skyscrapers.  New York in TM2 is a classic for sure, but there's less places to fight since every rooftop feels small for the most part.

I actually like Outlaw quite a bit.  He's definitely weaker than some of the other ones, but I like his special because you don't have to line anything up, which makes it easy to use and get "free shots" on enemies as you're passing by.  Pit Viper's special is awesome and fun to use, but her handling is so bad that it feels like you're always on ice.  She slides everywhere.  Yellow Jacket is very "meh" to me.  Just not very interesting to use in the first game.  But I love the design for how basic it is.  I agree he's much better in TMB.

I've had quite a bit of success with the mines actually.  Something I've noticed is that if you place them down when an enemy is chasing you they will NEVER swerve to avoid them.  It's as if they're not even there.  The enemy will just continue to drive over them.  It's so easy to bait an enemy into chasing you and just dropping mines and shooting rear missiles back at them.  It's amazing.  But yeah the Oil sucks so much.  I've never found a use for the Oil at all. 

The rage is starting to get real now.

I tried it again with the five characters I have left and I was only able to do it with Sweet Tooth. 

With Hammerhead I made it to River Park again.  With Darkside I made it to River Park this time instead of losing on Freeway.  With Crimson Fury I made it to Cyburbia again.  And with Pit Viper I made it to Rooftops...and that REALLY pissed me off.  I thought I had it in the bag because I usually don't die on Rooftops.  I was near full hp and when I went up the ramp to get back up to the main area, Roadkill drove right in front of me, I rammed into him and died instantly.  Stuff like that is bs.  I was literally in Cyburbia for about 30 minutes, really taking my time, trying as hard as I can to beat it.  But I did lose a life on level 2, which rarely ever happens.  I just need that one good run.

But I am getting better.  I already improved a little bit with Darkside (I died on Freeway once and River Park twice instead of dying on Arena, Warehouse District, then Freeway like I did the first time).  I know for a fact I can do it with Crimson Fury, I just keep getting bad luck.  Hammerhead I'm honestly not sure about.  I never had trouble using him at all until I got to hard mode.

I'll try more today, but I'm gonna take a break for now.  I'll go back to it when I'm less frustrated.  I knew the rage was coming and quite honestly it's just as fun as it is when I beat it.  Just in the moment I get pissed off.


EDIT: I beat it with Hammerhead out of nowhere.  I died on Freeway (one of the hardest levels with a slow car) and I died on Rooftops because I didn't realize I had no Turbo before going to make a jump.  If that had been my last life that would have made me rage beyond belief.  I have no idea how I was able to beat both River Park and Cyburbia without dying, but I did.  So now I only have Darkside, Crimson Fury and Pit Viper left.

I also forgot to mention that I was able to beat The Fight of Your Life with Warthog.  I entered into it with all three lives and I only died once (so I actually did die with Warthog, but that doesn't really count since it's more of a bonus stage).  I haven't been able to beat it with any other character and I probably won't be able to do it again.  But I'm happy I was able to do it once.


EDIT #2: I beat it with Crimson Fury and Pit Viper.  Crimson Fury took me four tries in total, but really it was three because on my third try they gave me Sweet Tooth of all people in the first level, and as Crimson Fury, I mean there's literally nothing I could have done there.  He killed me twice, then I said "just kill me" and started over.  But ironically I was able to get a no death run with Crimson Fury on my fourth try.  I have no idea how that happened.  It's crazy how you can do so bad, then do so good in this game because of RNG.  I even beat The Fight of Your Life with only one death...somehow.

I beat it with Pit Viper on my third try, and let me tell you, that was the most intense playthrough of this game so far.  I died in River Park (to Mr. Grimm drive by-ing me randomly) and Cyburbia (Sweet Tooth ambushed me on the highway and I couldn't turn around fast enough because her handling sucks, so I just slid right to him).  The Rooftop level was crazy because I tried so hard not to die and it took forever.  Everything you do in this game has to be meticulous as hell.  One small mistake and you're done.  I actually almost died because when I killed Hammerhead on the ramp, his body slid down the ramp towards me and caused me a ton of ram damage.  Thank God I had near full health when it happened.

So now all I have is Darkside left.  I'm definitely done for today.

I hope you guys don't mind the constant updating and stuff.  I'm trying to put eveything down here so that it's easier for me to keep track of everything in case I take a long break or something.  And I like to write down the intense moments.  This is gonna be like my Twisted Metal log book lol.  I'm making sure to edit my posts instead of making a new one for every single thing that happens just so it doesn't keep getting bumped to the top.  I'll make a new post for every game I think.

I didn't know that you can only edit your posts a certain amount of times on here.  I was planning on only doing one big post per game, but now I have to do something different.  Hm...

And...Twisted Metal 1 has been DETHRONED!  Damn was that difficult.  Beating it with Darkside took me two tries today (four tries total).  The first try today I died twice on River Park again then lost on Cyburbia.  The second time today I died on Warehouse (Crimson Fury had a sliver of hp left and he killed me, I was so mad), and I made it all the way to Minion without dying again, which is crazy.  Minion killed me once and he actually almost killed me again.  I barely killed him.  I fell off one of the ramps and landed right where he was.  He started going crazy attacking me, so I just unloaded two homing missiles and one power missile and it was enough to finish him off.  That was intense.  But I did get better every single time.  I learned that with Darkside, the best way to deal with Sweet Tooth is to find him right away and ram him like crazy, same thing with Spectre.  Those two are run killers.  But I beat it.  Now on to Twisted Metal 2!

Oh wait, my tier list.

1. Warthog- The best.  Great armor, great handling, one of the best ramming ability in the game and an easy to use special.

2. Spectre- Very fast and easy to get out of almost any situation.  Special is OP, it doesn't do much damage, but it will go through anything.  You never really have to fight anybody directly with Spectre.  As long as you have specials and you don't ram into anybody, it's a default win for you.  His armor is bad, but he doesn't need it.

3. Mr. Grimm- Most powerful special in the game, but it only shoots straight.  Very fast and can escape almost any situation because it's so tiny and its handling is great.  Armor is bad, but like Spectre, he really doesn't need it.

4. Roadkill- Every stat is above average except handling, which isn't the best.  It's fast, good armor, good ramming ability and his special is like having a free homing missile.

5. Thumper- Like Roadkill, every stat is above average.  Thumper handles better than Roadkill, but his special, while powerful, is very situational and can open you up to getting attacked.

6. Crimson Fury- Fastest car in the game, can escape almost any situation with ease, but worst armor in the game coupled with a tiny special thatr only shoots straight makes Crimson Fury the weakest of the light cars.  I had almost as much trouble beating the game on Hard with him as I did with Darkside, but I think that was more bad RNG than it was Crimson Fury being a bad car to use.  I never felt uncomfortable or like my fate wasn't in my hands when I was Crimson Fury.

7. Sweet Tooth- Good armor and the second most powerful special in the game.  However he's slow, handling is poor, susceptible to ram damage from other big vehicles and his specioal only shoots straight.

8. Hammerhead- Like Sweet Tooth he has good armor, very slow and handling is poor.  However his ramming ability is much better, but his special, while powerful, is a death sentence when used in groups, as Hammerhead is easily ganged up on.

9. Outlaw- Pretty average.  Speed is decent, armor is decent and handling is decent.  I like his special because you don't have to aim it, but its damage is poor.

10. Yellow Jacket- Every stat is average.  Since Yellow Jacket doesn't excel at anything, he doesn't really have a particular fighting style to use to your advantage.  But he has no straight up weaknesses except maybe that his special is weak, it's just like Sweet Tooth's, except MUCH weaker.

11. Darkside- VERY powerful, best ramming ability in the entire game, and best armor in the game (besides Minion of course).  However, he's very slow and he spins out of control and dives into walls when hit by most weapons, which is unfortunately a game breaking weakness and the reason why I had so much trouble with him.

12. Pit Viper- I was debating putting Darkside in last, but I think Pit Viper is worse.  She has decent speed and a nice special, but that's where her positives end.  Her handling is awful, the worst in the game, and she takes more ram damage that even Crimson Fury, which is weird because her armor is apparently a 3/5.

This will be my TM2 post.  I'll try to see how long I can edit it for, hopefully I'll only have to make two posts for TM2.

I beat the game on Easy with everybody so far except Grasshopper, I saved her for last and didn't try it with her yet.  I only have one death so far and it's with Hammerhead in Moscow.  Oh Hammerhead...how much you've fallen (more on that in a bit).  In case anyone forgot, Easy mode in TM2 only has the first four stages, with Minion as the "final boss".  So I haven't even done the later stages yet.

Now, I am much more familiar with TM2 than I was with TM1 when I started this journey since TM2 was a much bigger part of my childhood.  But after putting in around 25 hours of TM1 in the last two weeks or so, it almost feels like I've never played it before because I'm so used to the first one.  There's a few things I want to mention.  First, the slipping, sliding and jumping in this game is out of control.  TM1 was so intent on keeping you and your wheels on the ground, it felt smooth, grounded.  In TM2 when you hit even a little ramp you go flying like a rocket, then when you land you bounce back and forth like you're a drunk driver.  This makes levels such as Amazonia really annoying to play in, since your wheels just won't stay on the damn ground.

Now the characters.  Maybe I'm just so used to the first game right now, but with the exception of Outlaw and maybe Sweet Tooth, I feel like the returning characters from the first game all received a downgrade.  In some cases like Warthog and Mr. Grimm, it's a slight downgrade, but in other cases like Roadkill and Hammerhead, it's a pretty significant one.  So far I'm really liking Shadow, Sweet Tooth, Axel, Outlaw and Mr. Slamm.  I love how Mr. Slamm's special will activate on its own when you touch an enemy even when you don't have any in your inventory.  I feel like the worst characters so far are Roadkill, Twister (but she's so fun to use) and Hammerhead.

Oh Hammerhead...

What did they do to you?  Hammerhead is BY FAR the worst character in both games so far.  First off, he's slow as shit, and sometimes his special doesn't even activate.  But that doesn't even cover the worst of it.  The handling...my God the handling.  His handling in this game is so bad that I can't even think of a word to describe it.  Every time I try to turn he slides...and slides...and slides...he just slides.  He is nearly unplayable because of this.  I mean that's how I died in level 2 on Easy, he slid all the way to the bottom of the center and Sweet Tooth kept shooting his special at me.  He was such a badass in TM1, now he's lame and he sucks.  I really have no idea how I'm gonna beat the game with him on Hard.

Everyone else I like for the most part.  Twister's not that great, but she's a lot of fun to use, and Roadkill's pretty fun too trying to get the boomerang to hit them on the way back for a lot of damage.

I like how ramming isn't as OP as it was in TM1.  I mean it's still a big factor, but at least I don't have to worry about getting one shotted by driving into somebody bigger than me.  That whole "getting stuck inside the other car" thing isn't here and that's great.  I'm already learning the weapon placements and whatnot, getting my bearings on the first four levels so that I don't have to worry about them as much when I move on to the higher difficulties.

Now the CPU enemies.  Standouts for me so far that I can already tell are gonna be terrible to deal with are Sweet Tooth, Spectre, Outlaw and Twister.  Sweet Tooth is back with his bullshit homing missile/special spamming again, but this special actually follows you.  I'm really glad they nerfed homing milliles in this game because at least I can have a proper fight with him this time (but did they really have to nerf the power missiles too?).  Spectre seems more trigger happy with his special on Easy here than he was in TM1, but maybe it's just me.  Outlaw's special is the worst when you're facing her, so annoying.  And getting caught in Twister's special isn't fun.  So far every other CPU has just been interchangeable cannon fodder, but like TM1, there true colors will start to show on the higher difficulties.

Overall, this game is gonna be MUCH more difficult than TM1 I can already feel it.  Twice the amount of enemies, two more stages and a final boss with two forms.  At least when I'm done with this one TM3 and TM4 will give me a break since those two are by far the easiest in the series.

My whole life is a lie. Easy mode is only 4 levels and minion? I never knew that haha.

I always did normal or hard, even when playing with friends.

I still am not convinced on Warthog being the best TM1 vehicle. His handling isn't actually that great (rated 2 out of 5), and his special while easy-to-use is not that powerful (3 out of 5). I think because the special is one of the few homing specials (along with Spectre & RK) players just feel more comfortable driving as Warthog. Hammerhead and SweetTooth's stats aren't too different from Warthog at all, but HH & ST despite having more powerful specials do not have long range specials, so they have to put themselves more at risk (but it's risk vs. reward as it should be). I suppose Warthog is a bit of a "baby's car" (easy to use) in the sense you can succeed without risking much or needing much skill. I'd still probably put Spectre on the top spot. Spectre is king of the baby cars, you can simply avoid a real fight and rely on ghost missiles, and unlike Warthog it doesn't matter if you run out of turbo because Spectre is very fast anyway.

Moving on to TM2, I agree they totally ruined Hammerhead. He was better in the beta version of TM2 but not by much but I guess they tweaked him for the worse in the final version expecting HH to be balanced. Instead Hammerhead is easily the worst vehicle in the game (or is it Grasshopper?).
Twister can be very good if you do tricks like lay mines while using the special, but it takes some practice with her because she's so delicate and doesn't have a long range special.
The ramming was slightly improved in TM2, but it depends on who we're talking about... because Axel is way OP with his ram. Axel's ramming is so OP you could put him exactly as he is into TM1 and he'd fit right in. Axel's ramming is also almost as good as Minion's.

MoshTMA wrote on 07/20/18 at 01:51:30:

I still am not convinced on Warthog being the best TM1 vehicle. His handling isn't actually that great (rated 2 out of 5), and his special while easy-to-use is not that powerful (3 out of 5). I think because the special is one of the few homing specials (along with Spectre & RK) players just feel more comfortable driving as Warthog. Hammerhead and SweetTooth's stats aren't too different from Warthog at all, but HH & ST despite having more powerful specials do not have long range specials, so they have to put themselves more at risk (but it's risk vs. reward as it should be). I suppose Warthog is a bit of a "baby's car" (easy to use) in the sense you can succeed without risking much or needing much skill. I'd still probably put Spectre on the top spot. Spectre is king of the baby cars, you can simply avoid a real fight and rely on ghost missiles, and unlike Warthog it doesn't matter if you run out of turbo because Spectre is very fast anyway.

Warthog is like Darkside with a better special. You have to remember that the stats in the Twisted Metal series are often not accurate to how the car really performs. Warthog has the best handling out of all the heavyweights because he's the only one that doesn't slide when holding X while turning. Hammerhead doesn't have good ramming outside of his special because his wheels are too big. Sweet Tooth has a strong special but doesn't home and he can die quick if Darkside rams him. If I remember right Roadkill can ram him too. His armor is the worst out of the big cars. Yeah Warthog is more simple to use than the others. It's a big armor car with a homing special and the low damage is not much of a problem because he has a strong ram. Spectre can play the hide and shoot game but he's a slow killer.

I beat it on Easy with Grasshopper.  I died once on Amazonia because for some reason my own special killed me when I used it on Hammerhead even though I had about 1/3 of my health.  I was liking Grasshopper up until that point, but if that's the kind of stuff that's gonna happen, then...nope.

I beat it on Medium with Minion.  No deaths, easy enough.  Then I tried it with Sweet Tooth and...didn't make it.  I died once on Paris, once on Minion and once on Antarctica.

See here's the thing.  The first two deaths could have been avoided.  I got trapped on the Eiffel Tower between Twister, Warthog and Spectre and they wouldn't let me leave.  Minion only had a sliver of hp left when he killed me.  Once Minion freezes you once in this game, it's over.  But Antarctica I legitimately had no way to survive the level.  I had gotten three healths by that point and there were none left and I had nowhere to go to avoid getting attacked.  Four enemies were still left, and it was only a matter of time before one of them got me.

I'm starting to notice certain differences in this game compared to the first one that make this one much tougher.  For example, most of the levels are completely open in this game.  There's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.  In TM1, every level had some sort of backroads or side streets that you could drive around and stall time until the healths regenerate...and it worked.  But in TM2 I don't know what to do once I get low on hp, everything's wide open, so you're bound to get hit by homing missiles and other stuff every now and again.

But yeah, this is difficult.  There's a few other standout CPUs that I want to mention.  One of them is Mr. Slamm.  On Easy I didn't notice it, but now all he wants to do is freeze me constantly.  In fact, the freezing in this game is out of control.  You can't turbo out of it like you could in TM1, so if they decide to keep spamming it, it's all over for you.  Thumper is another one I've started to notice.  His flamethrower does not mess around, and it actually almost killed me on level 1.  I'll have to keep an eye on that.

I'm gonna keep trying with different characters until I learn the levels more and develop some new startegies.  It's a LONG haul from here on out.


EDIT: I seriously can't beat this game with anybody.  It's starting to really frustrate me because I'm dying and taking damage from the stupidest things.

-Weapons making you bounce towards and away from the place that it hits you from, with no rhyme or reason which direction it decides to make you go in.

- Not being able to slow down for anything.  Sometimes I can't even get up a simple ramp just because my car keeps over shooting it.

- Shield and freeze not working properly.  Sometimes it just decides not to and I die because I'm just standing there.

-Getting hit by something random off screen, with no indictation that it was coming.

-Getting glitched INTO THE WALL.  This has happened twice now and I just take damage while I'm stuck.

-Randomly bouncing and flipping over after I kill Mr. Slamm, no matter if he was right in front of me or down the street.  I don't get it either.

-Ricochets hitting my own car after shooting them while driving at a normal speed.  This sent me right off the edge in New York and after that I said screw it and killed myself again.

-Enemies spamming weapons everywhere and hitting me, making me bounce, to the point where I literally can't move or do anything until I die.

-Freeze missiles somehow hitting me from a direction that could have only got to me from bad RNG, and this happens all the time.

-My car flying in random directions because of all the bouncing.

-The sliding being so bad that sometimes I feel like I'm not in control of my vehicle.

I've made it to Holland one time and that was with Axel.  My game usually ends in Antarctica, but I've also gotten a game over in New York.  I always either die in Moscow or Paris for some reason, and I ALWAYS die in Antartica.  I just don't know how I'm gonna do this.  I'll come back to it tomorrow.  I'm still having fun, but the bs stuff is making me frustrated.  TM1 NEVER had any of those problems, and any time I died it was my own fault.


EDIT 2: I beat it with Outlaw!  My win came out of absolute nowhere.  After failing time and time again with a bunch of different characters and only making it to Holland once, I randomly tried Outlaw and I won.  Holy shit that was intense.  I died TWICE on Antarctica.  Seriously, that level is harder than anything else in the game.  It's not very big, there's really nowhere to go or hide and there's only three healths that so far have never come back and a fourth health that I haven't been able to get yet because it's in the air and every time I try I fall short.  So characters like Spectre, Shadow and Sweet Tooth have full reign of the level as they spam their specials at you and you can't do anything about it.  I actually almost died a third time in that level, but I hastily activated shield and dropped a remote bomb.

When I beat it I was like "there's no way I'm gonna make it past Holland", but to be honest, there's so many healths in Holland that as long as you pace yourself correctly, you SHOULD be ok.  And there's so much craziness going on in that level that most of the time nobody's really focused on you.

And the last level I actually love quite a bit.  It feels like a TM1 level, I actually have places to run to if I get low on health.  Dark Tooth almost killed me though because I forgot that he throws giant ricochet's at you if you go in the tunnel, then the train hit me and it was a disaster.  Then I almost died on the head because I didn't have any more turbo and I haven't memorized where they are yet in that level.  But I activated shield and went crazy on him and barely got him.  Thank God his armor is weak.

So that's two down now.  Minion and Outlaw.  12 left to go.

Outlaw is definitley my favorite character in this game so far.  What an upgrade they gave him.  Great handling, pretty fast, just a very smooth and satisfying car to use.  And I love his special in this game with how it hits twice.


EDIT 3: I beat it with Spectre on the try right after I beat it with Outlaw.  Also I almost got a no death run.  I died once in Holland with only Warthog left and he had a tiny little bit of health left.  All I had was fire missiles, but his special hit me before I could even fire.

But yeah, I was bitching a little bit earlier, sorry about that.  A lot of those things still bother me though, but I think the biggest problem for me is getting over my reflexes and instincts from TM1.  I was trying to play it like TM1 and it wasn't working out for me.  I just wasn't understanding what I was doing wrong.  I still don't think I understand, but  I think I'm starting to realize what the big differences are between TM1 and TM2.  TM2 is a much faster paced game.  TM1 had a very "hit and run" style to it, and the action would always sort of come and go.  In TM2 the action is a lot more chaotic, with many different things happening all over the place, and coming from TM1 it was overwhelming, since I was so used to getting some hits in, running away, coming back, rinse and repeat.  TM2 is much more offensively based, playing defensively isn't the way to go here.  Except on the last level, my TM1 strategy works wonders there because of the layout.

So yeah that's two in a row now.  I still expect a lot of failure since this game is pretty difficult, but hopefully I can keep this momentum going for a while.

After trying with every other character and failing I decided to go back and start wirh Sweet Tooth again, going through the ones that I think I could do the best with.  I made it to Hong Kong with Warthog and one life left but I ended up not making it.  But to end the night I did beat it with Thumper.  I died TWICE on Holland and that's it.  That last level stressed me the hell out man.

I don't know what it is with this game, but I can't figure out a pattern for each level.  I have yet to die on level 1, but every other level can end my run in an instant.  I made it to New York with Axel with all my lives and I died THREE TIMES on New York, a level that I really don't die that much on at all.  The first death was from Sweet Tooth and Mr. Slam (the two worst CPUs in the game) ambushing me from both sides.  And the other two deaths were from richochet bombs pushing me off the edge.  Yeah, I died three times on the same level and I was pissed.

The worst things seem to happen to me in this game.  I'll get hit by a random richochet that just happened to hit me out of nowhere and what do you know, kit hits me right into Mr. Slam, who freezes me and uses his special.  What does the game want from me in those situations?  Seriously, what could I have done?  Shadow always seems to know when I'm behind her in any capacity, as her special always seems to let me know.  Sweet Tooth's special always seems to hit me, no matter where I am.  Spectre is such a nice guy that he loves to send me specials all the damn time.  Thumper just happens to be behind me at the most convenient times and has a fresh batch of specials for me to end my run.  Mr. Grimm just happens to aim his straight special at the perfect time to hit me right after I've been bounced by a homing missile or something.  I just don't understand the RNG in this game, I really don't.  There's only so much I can do.  There's only so many times that I can use Shield before I'm out of energy.  This game honestly feels like 50% luck 50% skill, whereas TM1 felt like 90% skill, 10% luck.  I just can't figure it out.  Sometimes I'll make it to Antarctica with all my lives and I'll die twice in that level and once in Holland.  Sometimes I'll die in Moscow, die in Paris and make it all the way to Holland.  Sometimes I'll make it to NY without dying, then I'll die twice in NY and die in Antarctica.  It just doesn't make any sense.  Also the healths don't make any sense either.  Sometimes a health will come back immediately, sometimes it'll never come back at all, and there's no pattern that I can tell in order to see when they'll come back or not.  I just have to guess.  There's just so much I don't understand in this game, and I feel like that's a big part of what's hindering my progress.

But I'm gonna keep pushing because I'm commited to doing this.  Seriously though, Medium in TM2 is 10X harder than Hard in TM1 I just wanna put that out there.  But I have four down now.  Minion, Outlaw, Spectre and Thumper.  10 more to go on Medium.  Oh boy.

With TM2's AI, I always felt like they were always setting me up for chain combinations such as that random ricochet you mentioned. You'll definitely see more of that in Hard mode. I only beat Easy mode once and laughed so much when I got that screen at the end of it.

As far as the worst character, it's definitely Grasshopper. Her special can get you hurt even if they're frozen sometimes. I find it dangerous especially in open areas like Holland. Hammerhead, I thought, was the worst but you need to do some fine tuning to maneuver him just right.

You beat TM1 fairly quick, impressive. I was like you at first with the oil and jump mines, but I've come to like those weapons overtime. Leads up to good strategies or for running away.

I still have yet to go completely through TM 1. I was attempting a play through a few months ago. I always had a thing for the Road Kill cars.  (except for black where darkside edges him out slightly.)

Grasshopper is a pretty bad car in concept, Yes. I tend to play her in TM2 as a car without a special because of the way she damages herself constantly.

I need to try and do a run through on TM1 as Darkside. I think that would be entertaining.

I have come to the conclusion months ago that ricochet are made to follow you (even you're own ricochet) because they seem to hit the player more often than they should. I mean their just bouncing around in random places. How can they possibility hit the player this much? Shadow is a man in TM2.

This is really interesting, I don't have much problem with TM2's medium AI (I play it a whole freaking lot, that's maybe why). I am very familiar with TM2's quirks in regards to handling, hit detection and control lag. You learn some stuff, like never follow Shadow in close spaces because you'll get spammed with his special, do it in open areas and not straight behind. Also never follow Warthog because of the mines. And when you're close Axel and/or Sweet Tooth, try to keep turning because of the Hommings. And Slam, Grimm and Roadkill are the main Freeze shitters.

You get destroyed in levels at random because you have to play more with the AI instead of the levels (although you have to know them before-hand to really take on the bastards), a different set of opponents can make the same level play quite different. You have to know what they do, If you are close a ledge in NY and Shadow or Hammerhead are there, they'll sure as hell will throw you a ricochet, Shadow always throws them (unlike guys like Thumper, that has it with the Napalms or Axel with the Hommings), so take that into account.

As for the ricochets in TM2, I don't think they follow you, it's just that they have HUGE hitboxes, but you can calculate the angle they'll bounce into walls and dodge them. This works more in big spaces, like you can still do it in Hong Kong streets, but in NY's pool tunnel they're harder to dodge.

Richard -Dick- Biggs wrote on 07/22/18 at 23:42:09:

This is really interesting, I don't have much problem with TM2's medium AI (I play it a whole freaking lot, that's maybe why). I am very familiar with TM2's quirks in regards to handling, hit detection and control lag. You learn some stuff, like never follow Shadow in close spaces because you'll get spammed with his special, do it in open areas and not straight behind. Also never follow Warthog because of the mines. And when you're close Axel and/or Sweet Tooth, try to keep turning because of the Hommings. And Slam, Grimm and Roadkill are the main Freeze shitters. You get destroyed in levels at random because you have to play more with the AI instead of the levels (although you have to know them before-hand to really take on the bastards), a different set of opponents can make the same level play quite different. You have to know what they do, If you are close a ledge in NY and Shadow or Hammerhead are there, they'll sure as hell will throw you a ricochet, Shadow always throws them (unlike guys like Thumper, that has it with the Napalms or Axel with the Hommings), so take that into account. As for the ricochets in TM2, I don't think they follow you, it's just that they have HUGE hitboxes, but you can calculate the angle they'll bounce into walls and dodge them. This works more in big spaces, like you can still do it in Hong Kong streets, but in NY's pool tunnel they're harder to dodge.

This post really made me think.  i think this is my biggest problem.  I don't know the different CPU's strategies and what they do.  In TM1 it was easy to figure out because most of the levels didn't have as many guys to fight, so you would leaern the little quirks that each enemy had little by little.  But in TM2 when level 1 has 6 enemies to fight against everything just becomes a bit of a blur.  I actually did notice Thumper's obsession with rear napalms (that always seem to hit me perfectly) and Warthog's mines, but I never put two and two together and actually thought that this was their "thing" that they do.  Honestly there's just so many enemies in each level and focusing on one at a time and what they do individually just gets overwhelming.  Maybe that's my problem.

I'll start paying more attention to that though.  And so far I've only recognized Mr. Slam as the freeze spammer.

Honestly though at this point I don't even know if there are any "easy" CPUs in TM2.  TM1 had a bunch of easy "fiiller" vehicles that were just simple to take down and didn't do anything special.  But TM2 I don't think so.  Every single one of them has their little annoying thing that they like to do or something about them that just pisses me off.  Honestly maybe Hammerhead is the easiest, because usually he's pretty simple to take down and doesn't put up much of a fight.  But I don't know, he's done some annoying things as well.


EDIT: I beat it with Mr. Slam tonight first try.  I made it all the way to Holland without dying.  Unfortunately I died on Holland and Dark Tooth killed me a second time.  That Dark Tooth fight was so intense because Mr. Slam is very slow and you only have so much turbo.  Seriously without shield I don't think I would have beaten it.  That is the first time Dark Tooth has killed me so far in this.  But then again this is the first time I've made it to him with a slow car.

I like Mr. Slam quite a bit actually.  He's a fast killer, he wrekcs house on pretty much everybody.  Special combined with ram combined with shooting them inside of my special, nobody can survive it.

I forgot to mention that when I started this challenge I made it a point that I wouldn't purposely knock anybody off the edge no matter what, as I consider that to be kind of a wimpy way to win.  I mean imagine if in TM3 I just knock Primeval off the cliff, or if in TM4 I just set 3 Proximity Mines down in the teleporter so that Sweet Tooth just dies instantly.  That's no fun.

However I did kill two people in Antarctica by knocking them off with ricochets, but I'm letting it slide because it wasn't my intention.  The fight got pretty crazy and I was just using the weapons I had to protect myself and, well...shit happens.  If it's a heat of the moment kind of thing or if I'm just defending myself and the enemy happens to go off the edge, I'm not gonna count that.  But I do sometimes make sure that I don't try to knock anybody off because like I said, that's no fun.  It's a lot harder to prevent this in TM2 though.  In TM3 and TM4 it's a lot easier to prevent.

So that's 5 down now.  Minion, Outlaw, Spectre, Thumper and Mr. Slam.

I never thought that the ricochet followed you but it tends to lure itself near your vicinity. Maybe the vehicle you are acts as a magnetic rod of sorts and the ricochet's trajectory tends to head toward you. Then again, with all the evading I do, I probably end up in its path without realizing it.

AI behavior is one of my favorite elements in TM2. Some may do something out of their repertoire. Like Thumper, he's all fire. Be it Napalm, his special, fire missile. Occasionally he'll use the homing which always gets me by surprise as it lunges my car onto another AI.

There is no easy AI in this game for sure, especially when they're in unison. Once you get ahold of how to use each character properly, you can set the odds against them like Mr. Slam. Come to think of it, I beat the game without dying with all big vehicles. Almost did it with Hammerhead haha. Has anyone else found it easy with the bigger vehicles?

You can escape Twister's special with a ricochet. This is why when Twister is in the stage only use you ricochet on this car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaiVKQ3PIqY

These are funny. Twister takes damage by her own special.
https://youtu.be/6z-x_eNTqto?t=2443

https://youtu.be/Nfw1QZCVCUY?t=1521

No luck today guys.  I made it all the way to Hong Kong with Mr. Grimm.  I died twice on Holland (Roadkill's boomerang on the way back killed me both times) and I ran into Hammerhead in Hong Kong trying to escape from Axel.  That was a REALLY good run too, I'm so pissed about that.

I was surprisingly doing really well with Twister.  I made it all the way to NY without dying, and when I had one enemy left I fell off the cliff because Twister is so damn fast that it's hard for me to judge how much momentum she has and how long it takes for her to slow down.  Then I did it again in Antartica...I was making a turn and the slide took me off the edge and into the water.  Without those two deaths I think I had about a 20% shot of making it through Holland and Hong Kong withtwo lives.

So far I've gotten the closest with Warthog and Mr. Grimm (made it to Hong Kong with both).  The others range from "it's gonna take more practice" to "how am I gonna beat this".

One other thing I forgot to mwntion is that why does your freeze and regular missiles sometimes target an enemy who you aren't directly looking at?  Roadkill (for example) will be in front of me a little bit down the road and my freeze or my missiles to target the guy to the right of me but behind the building.  It's so annoying and in the heat of battle this can actually get you killed.

And yes, I have started to notice Mr. Grimm's obsession with freezing you.  But I still think Mr. Slamm is worse with it (funny that both "Mr." characters love the freeze missile...Mr. Freeze reference lol?).  Mr. Slamm actually killed me from full health with just freeze missiles and machine guns.  It was ridiculous, like how does the game expect me to deal with that?

As much as I love TM2 (I love all the TM games honestly), I think TM1 has better designed combat.  Yeah you can die a lot quicker in TM1 by ramming into the wrong person or getting wrecked by Sweet Tooth or something, but the AI in TM2 are just out of this world.  Also I hate how the levels are nmostly open (except Holland, Holland's awesome).  I miss the street style of TM1 where the stages had more linear paths everywhere.  I feel like those types of levels take more skill instead of relying on luck since you can use the layout to your advantage.  The only TM2 level that has a similar feel is Hong Kong.  But the way most of the levels are designed, the game wants you to be aggressive and go toe to toe with everybody.  TM1 was a lot more of outwitting your opponents by taking certain paths and adapting certain strategies.  With TM2 it feels like I can't find my niche on these levels.  I have to just knock out a couple guys early on and then formulate a plan from there when the crowd thins out a bit.  But my plans in TM2 are always made up on the fly.  In TM1 I had specific plans for each stage, and those plans were only changed on the fly if a certain character was after me like Darkside or something, then I would have to adjust my plan a little.


EDIT: Out of nowhere today I beat it back to back to back with Sweet tooth, Axel and Warthog.  And with Warthog I got a NO DEATH RUN!  Almost did it with the other two, but I accidentally drove off the edge in Antarctica with Sweet Tooth and Dark Tooth killed me as Axel.  Oh well.

But yeah so now that's 8 down.  6 more to go.  The ones I'm pretty confident in are Shadow and Mr. Grimm, but the other four, Roadkill, Twister, Hammerhead and Grasshopper...those are gonna be tough.


EDIT 2: I beat it with Shadow after only one death in Paris.  I tried it with Mr. Grimm again, but I got a game over in New York.  Mr. Grimm's armor is so low in this game, it feels even lower than all the other low armored characters.  A few missiles, freezes and machine guns and you're done.

But I'm done for today.  Tomorrow I'll try Roadkill first, then alternate between everyone else.

Beat it with Roadkill after dying on Moscow and Holland.  That was intense.  In Hong Kong tgere was a point where I was one machine gun bullet from death and I was trying to get the full health but I had no turbo and jump wouldn't come out.  I tried to get it three times and failed.  I was certain I was a dead man, there were two enemies in the building with me.  In a last ditch effort I drove around the building looking for the turbo in one of the corners, using shield when I can.  I ended up getting the health somehow, nobody attacked me once.  It happened again when Dark Tooth came.  He rammed me and hit me a few times which put me at like 1% health, so I turbo'd away from him and went for the full health, and for some reason he didn't try to follow me.  I was so lucky in that level.

Only have Mr. Grimm, Twister, Hammerhead and Grasshopper left.


EDIT: Only tried it once today, with Twister.  I made it to Holland with all of my lives and I lost all of them in Holland.  I can't believe it.  Holland is impossible with Twister, her armor is just too damn low.  Twister is actually not a bad character to use I don't think, her biggest weakness is her damn armor.  You can get around the fact that her special hurts you by using shield and dropping remote bombs when you get an enemy inside of it, and it makes Twister a fast killer, that's how I basically destroyed everything up until Holland.  Her armor just can't keep up with the open flat stage that is Holland.  And I tried my best to avoid enemy fire and abuse shield when I could.  I even got the full health TWICE.  There's just too much chaos going on around her and she can't keep up with the random damage she receives from missiles flying everywhere.

So yeah beating it with Twister is gonna be tough.  I'm gonna try Hammerhead next tomorrow, then I'll give Grasshopper another shot.  I like rotating between all the characters just so I don't get sick of using the same guy over and over again.

I beat it with Mr. Grimm today.  It was a very smooth run, I only died once on Holland and that's it.  Still can't do it with the other ones.  I made it to Antarctica with Grasshopper without dying and I lost two lives there and I died once on Holland.  I think I can do it with her but it's gonna rtequire a very good run, like what I had with Mr. Grimm.

Hammerhead is a lost cause at this point.  I got a game over on New York.  I have full confidence that he is the worst vehicle in the game.

But I think practicing with these "bad" characters is making me a much better TM2 player.

I started to develop specific strategies for each level finally, after doing them so many times.  I'll go through each level and give my thoughts on each.

LA- I have yet to lose a singhle life on this level, so I have no strategy except just to kill enemies.  I've come close to a death once or twice because I was careles, but this level is very easy.  And is it just me or are the enemies MUCH less aggressive here than on later levels?  This level feels like Easy mode compared to all the others.  Most of the time the enemies kind of just wander around aimlessly, with a couple of them just driving on the roads.  Very strange.

Moscow- The third hardest level in the game in my opinion.  This level is pretty much a luck shoot.  The enemies I have here will determine whether I die or not most of the time.  Sweet Tooth, Mr. Slam, Spectre, Shadow and Axel are all ridiculous to have on this very small stage.  Also, there's not much in the way of health.  Sometimes one of the enemies will grab the one up top casually because it's in the way, and sometimes the healths in the center won't ever appear at all.  I don't really have a strategy for this one either except just try to avoid as much damage as possible and take guys out fast.

Paris- One of the harder levels, and it's mainly because of the layout.  Irt's very easy to get abushed down one of the very short streets. or get frozen from far away since everything is so smushed together and the roads are straight.  However today I actually developed a really good strategy for this one while trying to survive it with Hammerhead.  First, blow up the Eiffel Tower.  Then take on any guys down below that you can.  Get both of the healths on the bottom when you need to.  When those are exhausted and you need your next health, get up top and grab that first health.  Now this rooftop area is your "base".  Anyone that starts to come down the ramp, just unload aeverything you have at them.  Rinse and repeat.  If I get low on health I just drive to the other building and get the last one.  If enemies start to give you a hard time and you're taking too much damage, drive off the rooftop and station yourself in the building with the Mona Lisa and kill anyone that comes down the street.  If things get hairy, go back up top.  I haven't died on Paris yet with this strategy.

Amazonia- The second easiest level in the game, I barely ever die here.  The layout is so advantageous to you since the enemies wil never willingly drive on the lava to chase after you and it's easy to set up ambushes here.  I don't have a strategy for this one because it's so easy.  Minion is easy too, he's only killed me...twice I think.

New York- This level can either be a joke or take all three of my lives, depending on a few different factors.  But today I developed a strategy that, while not as good as the Paris one, still increases my odds by a lot.  At the start I try to get to that one rooftop that has the pool drop down section and I immediately break the box that surrounds it.  I make this rooftop my "base".  Anyone who tries to come at me I'm ready with freezes and I unload everything on them.  Now at the beginning of the level this can be difficult if there are enemies there already, but if that happens I'll kill whoever is near me at the beginning, and then I'll do the best I can to try to take that rooftop from them.  Sometimes it works out great, sometimes not so much.  But my strategy on this level usually works with no deaths.

Antarctica- In my opinion, this is the hardest level in the game.  This level is so chaotic because it's so open and you csn die so fast here.  Right away if Sweet Tooth is in the level I find him and try to end him immediately.  After that I get my bearings and go in the teleporter to gather weapons and let my energy refill.  After that I try to take out the isolated enemies, sometimes even going up to the top to scan from above.  I try to stay out of the crack in the ground because that's death valley in there, it's so easy to get destroyed by ricochets, specials and everything else.  With a little bit of luck (this level is pretty luck reliant) a couple enemies will also kill themselves.  I actually had one run where three enemies killed themselves on this level so I only had to take out four of them myself.  Usually I'll die once or twice here, but I've been getting better at it.

Holland- The second hardest level in the game.  Only easier than Antarctica because there's so many healths.  My strategy is to find the closest guy to me and throw everything I got at him.  Then I'll drive around and do some drive by hits.  If I see an enemy standing still I'll go for a freeze, use shield to protect me from other enemies and throw everything I got at him.  Other than that I just try to survive and gather weapons.  The good thing about this level is that teh enemies usually mess each other up pretty badly here.  Just this last run Spectre went from full health to red health and I don't know how because I hadn't fought him yet.  Thsi level is very luck based as well, and typically I'll die once here, maybe twice if I get realy unlucky.  But sometimes I'll get through without one death, which is really nice.

Hong Kong- I love this level, it's probably my favorite in the game.  My TM1 strategy works wonders here.  Drive around the level and if any vehicle tries to get at me, I freeze them and unload everything I have.  Ifr more than one enemy comes at me at the same time, I'll attack once or twice, then turbo the hell out of there.  Rinse and repeat.  There's a lot of healths in this level as well, which makes surviving pretty easy.  Dark Tooth is harder than Minion, but for the most part he's not too bad.  He kills me maybe 20% of the time, but with all the healths in this level it's really not that hard to survive him.  His second form is a joke.  I just spam everything I have when I see him and he goes down.

So that's my strategy for TM2 right now.  I have a lot of the weapon locations memorized now, even some of the ones inside the cars in Paris and Hong Kong.  But in TM2 I don't really care what weapon I get, since they all serve a good purpose unlike in TM1 where you would seek out certain weapons.

I only have to beat it with Twister, Hammerhead and Grasshopper now.  This is gonna be fun.

mninp wrote on 07/27/18 at 05:12:28:

Antarctica- In my opinion, this is the hardest level in the game.

I disagree with this. The only reason you're saying it's the hardest is because you refuse to use the cheese which is pushing the enemies off the stage with the ricochet. The reality is Antarctica is one of the easiest stages and people shouldn't be losing a life here. You don't even have to fight the enemies you can avoid them and wait for the stage to kill them all. Whether you think the ricochet trick is cheating or scrubby doesn't change the fact Antarctica is an easy stage. TM2 ricochet breaks rooftop stages in this game. Me and my brother use to do that New York strategy you mentioned. I don't do that anymore because the ricochet pushing works better.


mninp wrote on 07/27/18 at 05:12:28:

Holland- The second hardest level in the game.  Only easier than Antarctica because there's so many healths.

This stage is known by fans the hardest stage in the game. The destruction of the windmill containing the full health can mean the end of your no death run on hard difficulty depending on how generous the regeneration of the other healths are. Knowing how to dodge homing missiles can be a big help here because Axel and Sweet Tooth are going to be spamming those. Spectre is usually the first one to die when I'm playing the game. This stage is the fight of your life of TM2.

The only reason why I implemented the "no knocking enemies off the cliff" rule in this is because of TM3 and 4, where the games become laughably easy if you are allowed to do this.  I mean you can just knock Primeval off the edge and win.  You can place 3 Proximity mines in the teleporter and kill Sweet Tooth in less than 30 seconds.  And if I make that a rule for 3 and 4, I have to keep it for all the other games so that it's fair.  Because if I make exceptions, then I'm basically just picking and choosing and adjusting the difficulty to make things easier on myself and that's not the point of this challenge.

So yeah, as much as I would love to be able to make Antarctica an easy stage (it's the stage that kills me more than any other), as it stands right now it's the hardest for me.

And I think The Fight of Your Life in TM1 is way harder than the Holland level.  TFOYL is a very tiny stage with 5 enemies and no healths, it's extremely difficult to do without losing a life.  It would be easier to beat the entire TM1 without losing a life, just because with all the chaos going on around you in such a small smace, you're bound to rack up unavoidable damage.  At least Holland is much bigger and gives you a ton of healths (I think there's 4 healths and a full health).

I commend your fairness rule you made for yourself. I also stopped using ricochets for the most part on these type of levels for the sake of difficulty. I went as far as not using the shield altogether. Still, Antartica is easier than Holland. All you gotta do is keep the enemies separate, stay away from the edges, and try not to fall into the crack. Every time I do, I struggle plenty to get out of there and will either be greatly weakened or die.

I played the stage last night and beat it without shooting the enemies. This rooftop stage has problems. You're free to play however you want. I just don't like when people say this stage is hard when they are self opposing themselves because it isn't true. You're not the first one I heard that from. Mr. Slam seems like the smartest one when it comes to this stage. He was always the last one to fall. Also this always annoyed me you're pushing the enemies off with the ricochet, Mr. Slam has a chance of not sliding off the ice after being pushed.

Infernal wrote on 07/27/18 at 19:50:07:

I commend your fairness rule you made for yourself. I also stopped using ricochets for the most part on these type of levels for the sake of difficulty. I went as far as not using the shield altogether. Still, Antartica is easier than Holland. All you gotta do is keep the enemies separate, stay away from the edges, and try not to fall into the crack. Every time I do, I struggle plenty to get out of there and will either be greatly weakened or die.

Wow, you made a rule aginst using shield?  God damn dude, that's insane.  Shield is literally the only thing saving my ass in this game.  I'm getting a lot better at using it at just the right time and knowing when to use freeze and when to use shield and how to manage my energy between the two.  It still doesn't always work when I want it to, but that's the price you have to pay in this game I guess since I heard it's a problem that a lot of people have.

Anyway...I beat it with Twister!  That was the most intense playthrough in this entire challenge so far.  First of all, in the first level they give me Sweet Tooth, Mr. Slam, Axel, Shadow, Spectre and Mr. Grimm.  Literally the six hardest enemies.  I almost died on level 1 for the first time.  Moscow went pretty smooth since thy gave me easy enemies.  Paris took me a long time playing the waiting game on the rooftops.  I almost died on Amazonia because Axel and Mr. Slamm decided to ambush me.  Then I almost died on Minion because shield didn't work and I was sitting in front of him like an idiot and he rammed me.  I almost died on New York because Warthog kept spamming his special and I had no energy and Twister wouldn't go down into the damn pool.  I had about two near death experiences on Antarctica.  I had one death on Holland, but overall Holland went pretty smoothly compared to the last time with Twister, where I lost all three lives on that level.  Then Hong Kong...wow.  I had a sliver of hp and missed the jump to the full health FOUR TIMES with both Roadkill and Mr. Grimm inside the room with me (I was out of turbo and I kept barely missing the jump to the full health).  To make matters worse, when I mised the jump, my momentum flew me outside the building like a rocket and down the street so I had to go back in again...all four times.  Then at one point I was all out of healths driving around everywhere, so I had to get the full health AGAIN (thank God it was back).  I feel like that entire levelwas me turboing out of the way of everybody, spamming shield and looking for healths.  I don't know how I made it.  I was in panic mode the whole time.  Then I get to Dark Tooth and...he kills me before I even got him down halfway.  I was near full health and one ram got me.  At this point, with one life left, I was ready to flip out, just thinking about getting a game over to Dark Tooth after all this fighting to win.  But by playing it extra careful, I won.  The second form went down easy, like always.  I didn't use my special on Dark Tooth once, because I was afraid I would just die from it.  To think that at any point if I had died when I should have, I would have gotten a game over on Dark Tooth.

That's why I try to act like every single life is my last life.  Because you need every single one of them until you're watching the credits.  Man...that was ridiculous.

Hammerhead and Grasshopper left.  Then I go on to Hard mode.

Luis wrote on 07/27/18 at 20:18:03:

I played the stage last night and beat it without shooting the enemies. This rooftop stage has problems. You're free to play however you want. I just don't like when people say this stage is hard when they are self opposing themselves because it isn't true. You're not the first one I heard that from. Mr. Slam seems like the smartest one when it comes to this stage. He was always the last one to fall. Also this always annoyed me you're pushing the enemies off with the ricochet, Mr. Slam has a chance of not sliding off the ice after being pushed.

I hear what you're saying.  I'm just saying that I think it's the hardest if you don't knock people off or wait until they fall by themselves.  Enemies still fall off when I play, and that's fine, but I'm not going to camp up top until they all die, that wouldn't be satisfying to me at all.  So I just play it like a normal level and I only camp up top when things get crowded down below, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't (Spectre and Warthog can still get me from the bottom).


EDIT: I beat it with Hammerhead!  It was my first run after I beat it with Twister.  I was so close to getting a no death run too, but Dark Tooth's HEAD killed me, of all things to kill me.  Still, I don't care, I beat it with Hammerhead, I basically did it all without dying, it feels awesome.

Only Grasshopper left.  I got this.  Hopefully I'll have it done today.  If I lose a few times I'll pick it up tomorrow.  If I win, I'll start Hard today just to get a taste of what I'm in for.

By the way fun fact, but when I beat it with Mr. Grimm, Twister and Hammerhead, it was my fourth try with all of them, which means they are tied with Darkside and Crimson Fury in TM1 Hard mode with the most amount of attempts it took me.  I still haven't done a fourth attempt with Grasshopper yet, but if I don't make it with her on this next attempt, then she'll hold the record.

But overall I beat it with most of these characters on the second or third tries, and I don't even think I got a game over once on Medium in TM1, so that's why this has taken me so much longer than TM1 did on Medium.  Heck, in TM1 Hard mode I think I beat it with most of them on the first try.


EDIT: I lost with Grasshopper.  I died three times on Antarctica.  It was total bullshit.  The first time I legitimately died.  The second time I get spawned right in front of Warthog, he takes off more than half my health in one second.  The third time I spawn and start driving, someome rear fires a richochet at me and I go off the cliff and die.  I didn't even have time to get out of the way.  I spawned, then I died seconds later.


EDIT 2: I lost on attempt number 5 and 6.  The first time I died twice on Moscow because they gave me Sweet Tooth, Mr. Slamm, Axel, Warthog and Hammerhead, then I got a game over on New York because I randomly got richochet b y a guy above me and went right off the edge.  The next attempt I made it all the way to Holland without dying.  I died twice on Holland and then I died on Hong Kong, which I haven't died on in a long time I don't even remember when (not counting Dark Tooth, I mean the regular enemies).  I was doing my hit and run strategy because they gave me really hard enemies (I think the only ones missing were Shadow, Outlaw, Roadkill and Hammerhead).  But I accidentally drove right into Thumper when turning a corner, had no energy left for shield and he roasted me near death, then Twister comes out of nowhere and finishes the job.  Dammit, I had near full health too, I didn't kill anyone yet but I was doing pretty good, I had a few guys down less than halfway and hadn't gotten a health yet.  This is getting ridiculous.  I can't beat it with Grasshopper.


Luis, I was watching your videos and you should do a chalenge like the one I'm doing, but more difficult because you're pretty insane at these games.  You should do this challenge without getting any healths.  I don't even know if this is possible.  Think it can be done?  Beating every game with everyone on every difficulty without getting any healths?  I know for a fact it can be done in 3 and 4 because those games are piss easy compared to the rest of the series (but not getting healths would still be hard).  Small Brawl is possible since you get your lives back each level.  Head On I'm not too sure about as I've only played that game twice in my life, and I couldn't even tell you the levels in that game.

It's 1, 2 and Black that I'm not sure about being possible.

You guys are not going to believe what just happened.  I'm raging so bad right now I can't even focus.

So I had two runs today.  The first run I died in Moscow, Antarctica and Holland.  I only died in Antarctica (with one enemy left) because I didn't know Outlaw had just used the teleporter so when I wwent on it to go back to the main area, I flew right over it and died.  But that doesn't even bother me anymore because you won't believe what happened just now.  My second run of the day...

I got a game over on Dark Tooth's head...and his head had a SLIVER of hp left.  I could have shot one machine gun bullet and he was done.  I just...I used my special (I had no weapons left, I had just frozen him twice and shot two napalms and two fire missiles at him) and it didn't focus on him, it just jumped straight up and faced me in the other direction, and he started unloading everything on me, and I was very low on health (I couldn't get any because the healths don't come back after Dark Tooth's first form) so I bolted, but I had no turbo left.  He's fast so I couldn't outrun him.  I turned a couple of corners hoping that my shield would come back, but he got me with a homing missile and I died.

To make matters worse I only lost my second life because I over jumped the fence in the pool area of Hong Kong, which I didn't even know you could do and I "drowned", it was right at the start of the level.  I entered the last level with two lives and because of bullshit TWICE I didn't make it.  Unbelievable.  This run took over an hour to do, I tried SO HARD not to die on Holland and Antarctica and I did them both without dying.  In Holland I didn't get Sweet Tooth or Mr. Slam, it was a saving grace.  I had previously lost a life in Moscow.

I just could not have lost in a worse way.  I beat everything that was giving me problems, I die by jumping the fence which I have never done in my 20 years of playing this game, and then the f-ing head kills me with no hp left.

It's almost funny.  I want to die laughing right now.  I just want to beat the f-ing game with Grasshopper so I can move on to Hard mode, I am SICK of using this character.  That's 8 damn tries now.

RAGEEEEEE


EDIT: Tried a 9th run, died in Moscow, died in Paris, then I quit.  I'm too mad to do well right now, I was just going after everybody like crazy because I'm so pissed off.  I'll pick it up again tomorrow.  I'm gonna play some FF7 to cool down because I don't remember being this pissed from a videogame before in a long time.  You have no idea how long I was hyper focused for in that run, only to lose my second life from something so stupid and to get a game over when I was literally a bullet from winning.  What makes it worse is that at one point I blew up a remote bomb near him and it barely did any damage.  Sometimes they do insane damage, someimes they do next to nothing.  Yeah thanks a lot.  Redoing all these stages and killing all these enemies in many levels just to get a SHOT at the last three...it's tedious as hell and I'm starting to not have fun with it right now.  I'm starting to think that Hard mode might not happen from me.  This game is just so damn cheap.  Getting past Moscow is a miracle in itself.  Antarctica I've been getting much better at, but it's still like a 50/50 shot at me beating it without dying.  Holland is like a 20% chance of not dying, and the last level...I don't get it, I was destroying the last level with every other character and now that's what's stopping me.  And this is all assuming I don't die on Paris or New York, which still happens sometimes.

And to tell you the truth, I still think Twister and Hammerhead are just as hard to win with as Grasshopper.  I'm not gonna lie, I got REALLY damn lucky that I beat it kind of easily with those two (compared what I'm going through with Grasshopper right now).  For all I know I could be in a constant rotation with these three, not being able to win.  AT LEAST Grasshopper is the last one on Medium.

I'll get back to it.  After work tomorrow I'll be refreshed.  Usually I don't rage from games (or anything really) because I have a positive mindset, but just the WAY it happened on that one run just unleashed all my anger from dying so many times repeatedly with Grasshopper.  Each run takes me over an hour because I'm patient and I want to do the best I can to ensure that I don't die.  It's probably been over 6 hours of Grasshopper in a row and I'm over it.  That should have been my win, that 8th try.  I had it in the bag.  I gotta stop typing because I'm just repeating myself now.  I'll be back.


EDIT 2: I BEAT IT!  After two tries today I finally did it.  That took ELEVEN tries to beat the game with Grasshopper.  To tell you the truth, it feels bittersweet because I was in such focus mode for the past hour that even after I killed him I didn't even react for like five seconds, I was still playing as if he was alive.  Then I was like "I won, f- you Grasshopper".

On my first try today I died on Moscow, Antarctica and Holland.  That's uskually how it goes, so it was a pretty normal run.  The second try (my winning run) I only died in Antarctica and Holland.  I had a few kind of close calls in Hong Kong, but there was never a point where I was like "I'm done, it's over".  There was one point where Mr. Grimm shot me with his special from the side when I was frozen, then I got hit with a Ricochet and bouned into Shadow, so I paniced there for a second, but when that happened I was at full hp and it brought me down to the yellow, so I was able to turbo out of there quickly.  Everything else in Hong Kong went smooth as hell, both boss fights went smooth, it was great.  But the saving grace of my winning run was Moscow.  They gave me Twister, Hammerhead, Roadkill, Shadow and Thumper, which is one of the easiest combinations you can get in that level.  I had zero problems with it.  The five hardest CPUs in this game are Sweet Tooth, Mr. Slam, Spectre, Warthog and Axel.  Shadow would probably be number 6, and Roadkill maybe 7 or 8, but the other three are some of the easiest enemies in the game.

So I'm done with Medium.  Now...I move on to Hard mode and I feel like crying in preparation for all the bs I'm about to run into.

If I lose with Minion though...that would be embarassing.  But honestly I have no idea how hard Hard mode is in this game.  TM1 Hard mode was a completely different ball game from Medium.  I'm gonna give it a go with Minion first, but I want to put it out there that there's a chance I may not make it.  I could be wrong and I may just dominate everything, but if the jump from Medium to Hard in this game is anything like TM1, then I'm about to get my shit wrecked.


EDIT 3: Nevermind lol, I beat it with Minion and it was easy as hell.  I was never in danger of dying and the only level where I had to implement some kind of strategy was Hong Kong, because the enemes were strangely more aggressive there than the rest of the game on Hard.

Yeah Hard mode looks to be a pretty big step up.  The enemies are full tilt out of control, I saw Mr. Grimm shoot like 5 specials in a row at a fast speed.  They missed me, but I saw it on the corner of my screen.  Now I see why Holland is the hardest level in the game.  I didn't have trouble with it, but it was intense as hell.  One time I got brought down to almost half health in one second from a ton of different missiles at once.

So I'll be making my way through Hard mode, but I'm not gonna be posting updates on every siongle run because that would be ridiculous.  I'll post an update after I go through every single character to let you know who I beat it with, unless something crazy happens that I want to write about.  I only wsnt to go into detail with my runs when I get down to the last few or I'm seriously struggling with something.

>Anyway, since I'm really into the first game right now and it's currently fresh in my mind, let's talk about it.  Who are your favorite characters?  Least favorite?  Which CPUs do you find the easiest and the hardest?

Twisted Metal 1 is between it and 2 as my favorite TM, i think the serious setting of 1 was the best one since it wasnt as quirky as following games or as edgy as black. Also love the aesthetics, using real people as the drivers gives it that 90s feel that i love (Similar to say Resident Evil 1 actor cast).

My favorite characters, ie the drivers, are Agent Stone, Captain Spears, Scott Campbell and Captain Roberts. One of the things i love about 1 is that almost all characters have good motives to enter the tournament which to me its pretty important since it gives the contest more meaning and makes me care to reach the end. And for that i think those people have the best reasons to fight and deserving of the win. Car wise my top cars are Crimson Furry, Mr. Grimm, Spectre and Jellow Jacket. I love the speed of the first 3 while the last one is a nice all around car and really love the specials.

Least favorite has to be Darkside, Hammerhead and Pit Viper. I hate Darkside's lame SW and ramming enemies doesnt really makes up for it. Pit Viper's mobility is absolute ass so she isnt fun to drive. I have never cared for Hammerhead and this time is no exception, not to mention that i cant get behind the drivers so im not as invested or interested in seeing them win.

All of the cars are hard but Sweet Tooth, Spectre and Hammerhead are the most annoying of the bunch. Specially Sweet Tooth since he is the only one that abuses homming missiles which are the deadliest weapons in the game. mr Grimm is the easiest since like TM 2's Outlaw 2 he usually just ignores everyone so you are likely to only have to deal with him when everyone else is dead.

Cyburbia is easily my favorite area, not only in TM1 but the series. I love big areas that have lots of enemies to deal with and lots of places to go so Cyburbia is the best in the whole franchise (I really dislike that TM 2's Cyburbia locks you to 4 enemies because it would had been awesome to have the same scale of opponents as TM1, otherwise it isnt as fun).

TM 1 wasnt my first TM, it was actually one of the last ones i played but it still captivated me which is why i still play it every now and then.

Edit: Also Grasshopper isnt that bad, i have found that an special, followed by a shield and then launching a napalm as it hits to be a pretty good combo guaranteed to to some serious damage. Her mobility hurts her but i think Hammerhead is a worse car (His special isnt that good, slow as hell and move like crap).