I got into the series a bit late. I wasn't convinced to buy a PlayStation until November 1997. Sometime during that time I found the joy that was the Greatest Hits packages ($20 for games that people had adored - WOW, great time to be alive).
One particular developer, Singetrac, really impressed me with their Jet Moto series. I read up on them to see what else they'd done, and found out they'd also done another game, Twisted Metal 2. Now, I'd noticed the cover of Twisted Metal 2, and while it had caught my interest, it almost looked like one of those covers that only a crappy game could have, since so much weirdness was going on at once.
However, intrigued by Jet Moto 2, I read the reviews of Twisted Metal 2. Once I realized the premise, and saw that reviewer after reviewer loved it precisely for its multiplayer (since my bro and I were always looking for new multiplayer games) I picked it up in March of 1998.
At $20, it was one of the best deals of my life. To this day it's easily one of the best deals of my life. My brother and I played the crap out of that game for days on end. Then, I realized it was probably a good idea to buy the original. Although it wasn't AS good as TM2, it was still a great game and totally worth the cost.
By this time, TM3 was already out. However, SOMETHING about it bugged me. I'll never be able to put my fingers on it and can only assume that the great God Axel was protecting me. For any other game series, if I loved the first two I'd buy the third without hesitation, even at $50.
I couldn't buy this one though. So I rented it for $5. My bro and I came home, tested it out for five minutes, and ripped it out of the PlayStation never to try it again. Afterwards I read up on it and found out about the developer change. It felt like a dark day.
When TM4 was coming out, I had high hopes. I read a bunch of the previews, and the developers were clearly working hard to clean the crap that was TM3. I even allowed myself to get a little bit excited. When it finally came out though, I checked reviews first and saw that, while clearly an improvement on TM3, it still was a poor, poor imitation of TM2. So I borrowed it from a friend and mucked around with it one afternoon. That was as much time as I ever put into it.
Time has a way of giving you perspective. Compared to TMX, there's a lot that TM4 does better. Most obviously, it works all the time and does what it promises it will do. That's something that in 1999 we wouldn't have given credit for (it was EXPECTED that a game work since you couldn't patch it). In 2012 though a full release TM could barely run for a lot of us - and now I feel like it's only fair to give TM4 those points. A game that won't run in its primary mode is just bullshit and deserves a fail. TM4's tone problems are not exaggerated - the game's tone sucks, but having experienced a buggy unplayable mess I might choose tone problems if the choice came up again. TM3 generally does suck, but it still runs as promised so there's points there too. It's tone is even worse than four in my opinion because it TRIES to be TM2's tone but instead comes off as a failed wet fart. TM4 tries to be its own thing . . . and it is . . . it just blows. Finally, TM3's gameplay is just . . . hard to swallow. The cars move like bad bowel movements, and the constant flipping drives a player batty. If there's depth in there you never find it because you hit the power button long before the game gives you a chance to see it.
After TM4 it honestly felt like TM was dead. I'd pretty much given up on it and so had my brother. Then one day I came across a magazine article mentioning an eerie sounding title known as Twisted Metal: Black, and it promised the old team was back in the saddle.
Then my bro found the trailer below. A year after the trailer Twisted Metal would not only regain the grandeur of TM2, but surpass it. That is, until 2004, when the series would stumble, fall, and never really regain its footing again.
That's okay though. I wish the series had just quit rather than faced a slow death, but its offspring, Twisted Metal: Black still remains, and its server has been reborn for those who want to experience a true Twisted experience. Late at night, when things are quiet, I can still hear its voice calling to me from within . . .