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Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1 (Read 17231 times)
mninp
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Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
07/10/18 at 05:07:31
 
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.



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Luis
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #1 - 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.

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.
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« Last Edit: 07/16/18 at 18:34:14 by Luis »  
 
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #2 - 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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #3 - 07/17/18 at 16:39:59
 
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.



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mninp
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #4 - 07/17/18 at 17:00:26
 
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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #5 - 07/17/18 at 17:08:50
 
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. 
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #6 - 07/18/18 at 09:22:57
 
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.
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« Last Edit: 07/18/18 at 15:25:33 by mninp »  
 
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #7 - 07/19/18 at 11:37:33
 
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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #8 - 07/19/18 at 17:37:43
 
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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #9 - 07/19/18 at 18:52:10
 
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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #10 - 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.

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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #11 - 07/20/18 at 05:53:02
 
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.
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #12 - 07/20/18 at 12:29:03
 
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.
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« Last Edit: 07/20/18 at 19:08:35 by mninp »  
 
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #13 - 07/22/18 at 00:22:32
 
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.
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« Last Edit: 07/22/18 at 02:12:23 by mninp »  
 
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Re: Let's talk about Twisted Metal 1
Reply #14 - 07/22/18 at 07:39:06
 
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.
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