on the PS1 TM was the king of the vehicular based combat but it did have others trying to over throw it. Some were good some not. Which one was your favorite rival to TM?

for me i have to say Vigilante 8 2nd Offences it took the great stuff of the 1st game and just added 2 it making it different from TM to hold its own in the genre.

The only game that I consider to be a rival of Twisted Meta is Vigilante 8. The game had ram damage and the cars felt like they actually have weight. Some may say Rogue Trip but all the cars have the same armor in that game and there's no ram damage. There wasn't really that many car combat to compete with Twisted Metal though.

Critical Depth has a lot of gameplay improvements.

Rogue Trip and Critical Depth are the real TM3 & TM4 to me.

Vigilante 8 is cool but i actually like the first one more because the gameplay feels more TM-ish in that one. and that studio did Star Wars Demolition too, which was fun. Jabba the Hutt makes for a good Calypso type. Actually a Kotaku article recently revisited that game and compared it to Twisted Metal, check it out https://kotaku.com/star-wars-demolition-was-twisted-metal-with-rancors-an-1832674917

Also, I have love for the PS1 Road Rash games (Road Rash 3D & Jailbreak). Not quite vehicular combat in the TM sense I know, but close enough

I say Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense really ripped off the unused TM concepts, in the case of hovering vehicles.  But even when I'm playing as them, their handling and movement really suck major eggs!