woo boy, where do I begin?
The theme is basically TM2 all over again, which is ok, I guess, the WT concept leaves it open to all sorts of maps, but they don't utilize it to make new ideas, they just rehash old crap.
The maps are ok, some of them are nice, like paris, and russia. I love the greece one. I guess I'd just like more new tracks, there
is a whole world out there, it doesn't just have to be the places from TM2. LA is lame though, it's so empty. Chicago, Dubai, No Man's Land, those are some nice ideas off the top of my head, come on ESP, you can do a little better, it doesn't have to be an
exact copy of TM2. If you
have to use the same idea, make it different, paris is practically the same. Have some familiar faces, but introduce a lot more new cars/tracks.
The cars are ok too, but same deal as 2, except there are some improvements. Twister
functions, although, I do wish smacking them against the wall did some decent damage,
and I wish you could re-grab them if they got knocked out of the tornado, would add some real strat into it. Specter's missile is ok, goes through walls.
(but not destructible LA garage doors, wtf). It's a shame they took the spoiler off for the ps2 ver. but curiously left it in the icon for the challenge opponent select screen. Slam's ability is great, the throw after the smash is what I loved. ATV sucks. Cousin Eddy is a blatant Minion copy from TMB, ffs. Roadkill's special is a ricochet,
creative. Shadow's special is the same, just substantially weaker, if I recall. Oh, and it doesn't hurt you, because god knows a little care in how you fire a special is not important at all. Grasshopper's special has a reticle, which is a step up from TM2's "I sure hope it locks on this time". Playing as the bosses is a nice touch, though.
The music is ok, but too techno for my taste, it's just generic and non-memorable. I liked the rock/metal like themes of TM2 and TMSB. Of course, the music in the ps2 version loses even
more credibility because
they changed the goddamn menu theme which they had no right to do because it's the best damn theme in the game. Oh, but it plays in LA after a while, fantastic.
The stories are good, I love those. Some nice simple "wish for something specific but calypso fucks you over" endings. I especially love Axel's ending, I've been quoting it for years. Cousin Eddy's is good too.
As for the physics, I can't speak on a pro-level, and I hope the rest of you can fill me in on
what aspects make it better/worse. The homing missiles seem to be really good in head on, which, I liked when they were worse, and I could dodge them in 2. Maybe I'm just imagining it, though, because I
did dodge the ghost-missile one time. The main thing that pissed me off was the momentum, or lack thereof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5KnOCPy5o0Do you see this? how hard is it for these fucks to tie momentum to a compass, and not the front of the car? I wanna fuckin pull a 180, and then continue in what is now reverse, that way, I can unleash me load on em, and aim guns at em too, or freeze em, but
nooo my car changes momentum to where it's facing, so it starts driving forward, and it has to slow down to go reverse. Fuck. That.
The minigames are lame af. Y'know what'd've been cool? If like, launching the missiles in Russia blew open an area after you hit all 4-5, and then there was axel. But
NOOOOOO
instead of being creative, I have to run circles around a fucking tank in a gay ass minigame
that I lost at repeatedly because my bullets kept going through the tank, and the shitty "momentum" pushed me in front of the tank half the time. Not to mention those bullets the tanks shoot have a huge ass hitbox.
Overall, the game can be fun, but it needs a lot of work.