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A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2) (Read 8749 times)
BrandoTG
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A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
04/21/19 at 18:37:34
 
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=w5KnOCPy5o0
Do 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.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #1 - 04/22/19 at 19:01:52
 
I don't play TM too much anymore but when I do, I play TM Head-On. Because TMB is too difficult, and TM1/2 are too dated.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #2 - 04/23/19 at 01:32:15
 
Things I liked about TMHO...

-Some of the music - the "Vampire's Teeth" metal theme and the "Greece", "Monaco" and "Big Blue Revisited" rock themes by Chuck E. Myers.

-Cousin Eddy, because he's the only notable new vehicle (because ATV totally sucks and Tower Tooth isn't a normal vehicle). Playing as him is kind of fun because his primary special is pretty much Darkside's ram slam, but it becomes like Minion's flamethrower from TMB when you acquire the Special Upgrade. The driver himself sort of reminds me of Manslaughter's Black, having a simple minded but violent nature.

-Half the maps are pretty good. Greece and Russia are my favorites. I didn't think Paris was anywhere as good as the original map, but Egypt is an improvement over 989's Egypt map from TMIII. Scott Campbell did a pretty good job with the TMHO maps but it could have been better too. It was his 3rd attempt at the world tour concept if you include Rogue Trip and it kind of seemed a little lazy of him to recycle map concepts. I actually didn't mind Jaffe adding Transylvania to the PS2 port because it gave the world tour more variety.

-The TM2 nostalgia is actually probably the strong point of the game, even though the classic vehicles seem like they are inferior versions of their past selves... but despite that playing as Mr. Slam, Twister, etc. is fun, the return of Dark Tooth is sort of cool, and the endings returning to the TM2 cinematic style was nice. The game offers a nice casual tournament experience.

Things I didn't like about TMHO...

-It's far too easy. Even the Hard difficulty doesn't seem difficult enough. The mini-games are actually tougher than the main game. But the mini-games suck... and the first mini-game is a tease by featuring a bunch of taxis in a game that has no Yellow Jacket.

-Despite the low difficulty the ability to dodge in this game is almost absent, which is too bad because the opening cinematic of the game has a pretty cool scene where Mr. Grimm dodges Spectre's ghost missile.

-While the endings are quality productions they are stupid in some cases, because of bad writing. Outlaw's ending was horrendous. Axel's was funny but stupid. Thumper's was pretty bad (Angel is a terrible character but that poor dog didn't deserve to get crushed to death too). Crimson Fury, Cousin Eddy, and Sweet Tooth had endings that made Calypso seem very weak. Marcus Kane having DID (Disassociative Identity Disorder aka Multiple Personality Disorder) and Sweet Tooth being his dominant personality is neat... but I don't like it being canon. It kind of felt like Incognito was trying to clear up Marcus Kane's TMB story in TMHO, but I think that would have been more appropriate in TMB2/Harbor City instead of a game that takes place a few years after the events of TM2.
I did however appreciate some of the endings like Shadow, Warthog, Hammerhead, and Grimm's.

-Lack of new weapons... Swarmer missiles are new, possibly named after the swarm missiles from Warhawk PS1, but that's about it. I also didn't like that the big fat ricos & the napalm of TM2 didn't make a return.

-I didn't like that this game was originally exclusive to PSP... and didn't like that the PS2 port had no Online mode. In truth TMHO is kind of a disappointment in the History of Twisted Metal, and maybe should have never existed, but it's not a bad Twisted Metal game - particularly for casual players, and TM2 fans who wanted an alternative sequel to TM2 other than 989's TM3, although technically Head-On doesn't officially retcon TM3 since it takes place several years after TM2 & not a year later like TM3. Because of that one can simply see TMHO as a follow-up to both TM2 & TM3. I think it would have been better if Incognito made TMHO take place a year later, totally retcon TM3, and not have included the TMB inspiration (like how Calypso looks like his TMB counterpart except with long white hair)... I also think a true TM2 sequel would have included more original vehicles other than Cousin Eddy's RV & ATV... so while TMHO is a better follow-up to TM2 than TM3, it's still not a great sequel like TM2 was to TM1.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #3 - 04/23/19 at 07:09:27
 
SpectreMissile wrote on 04/22/19 at 19:01:52:
I don't play TM too much anymore but when I do, I play TM Head-On. Because TMB is too difficult, and TM1/2 are too dated.

believe me, if you function by that logic, you're missing out

MoshTMA wrote on 04/23/19 at 01:32:15:
Things I liked about TMHO...

I don't think I have any disagreements here. If only it had better ai, dodgeable stuff, more variety in the tracks/cars, it would be fantastic. The stories are a lot less serious than 2's stories, but I don't mind it all that much. The more I count out the things I think make some TMs bad, the more I realise it's the majorty, or all of the things.

On the subject of canon, I couldn't imagine wrapping my head around a canon for the TM series, there's just so many possibilities. I always think back to the way I think for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. IMO, the inaccuracies in the anime/ova/games aren't inaccuracies, but those adaptations represent alternate dimensions, which is a theme portrayed a lot in that series. In the same way, I like to think the endings in TM are alternate dimensions. I really dislike the idea of being able to choose the ending, but the canon saying otherwise. To me, a canon in this kind of game series, with this much story variety, just doesn't work.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #4 - 04/23/19 at 11:21:34
 
BrandoTG wrote on 04/21/19 at 18:37:34:
I wish you could re-grab them if they got knocked out of the tornado, would add some real strat into it.
To me Twister re-grabbing the car with the special was overpowered. In TM2 the AI will sometime spam it until you die and the only way to get out was to hit Twister with a ricochet, get lucky that your freeze come out or kill her with napalms. If you're Thumper you can burn her with the special. If you're a big car there's a chance your body will ram her. Re-grabbing is possible in Small Brawl too. Re-grabbing is also possible in Small Brawl if you go in the direction where the enemies flew to.

While dodging was non existing the game did had a shield called flak. It lets you destroy missiles coming at you and it cost less than a shield but harder to use.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #5 - 04/24/19 at 10:18:51
 
Luis wrote on 04/23/19 at 11:21:34:
To me Twister re-grabbing the car with the special was overpowered...
Yeah, I get fucked in TM2 by her, but, I feel like twister in HO doesn't do any damage. It feels weak to me. It feels like they made it more useless to try to regrab, and nerfed the damage. Maybe if they added a cooldown to the regrab, but left the damage the same, or nerfed the damage, and let you regrab. Not both, her special feels useless now. Maybe I'm just used to combat with everyone being a death sentence in TM2. Or maybe hits just don't feel like they have impact in HO. In a way, everyone is powerful in 2. I have yet to learn about the technical aspect of SB. I do love SB though. It has the best music imo.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #6 - 04/24/19 at 21:44:49
 
1. I wished that TMHO had instant death.. falling off of Tokyo Rooftops just to be teleported back with some health stripped away didn't have the scary rooftop level feel like NY in TM2 and Skyscrapers in Black, you know when you are nervously driving to avoid falling off and at the same time fighting tough enemies.

2. I wish we had Minion in TMHO instead of Cousin Eddy. something just feels odd about playing a TM game without Minion...
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #7 - 04/25/19 at 00:54:45
 
TWISTEDCREECH96 wrote on 04/24/19 at 21:44:49:
1. I wished that TMHO had instant death.. falling off of Tokyo Rooftops just to be teleported back with some health stripped away didn't have the scary rooftop level feel like NY in TM2 and Skyscrapers in Black, you know when you are nervously driving to avoid falling off and at the same time fighting tough enemies.

2. I wish we had Minion in TMHO instead of Cousin Eddy. something just feels odd about playing a TM game without Minion...


If falling killed you instantly then someone like Mr. Slam would have been able to easily toss enemies off the roof for a cheap kill with his special. Otherwise yeah I agree, it's better when the hazards are actually hazardous. Maps like the rooftops from tm1, new york & antarctica from tm2 were definitely more fun because of the falling hazard... whereas the tokyo roof maps from head-on and tm3 offer no thrill. 

As for Cousin Eddy, he really isn't even like Minion, or at least nothing like the original version of Minion. Cousin Eddy is more like Darkside. But because Cousin Eddy is a mid-boss who has a shield you need to take down first, and you have to attack him at all sides before you can destroy him just like the Minion boss battle from TM Black, people often compare
Cousin Eddy to Minion, but it's a bit unfair of a comparison because when you actually play as Cousin Eddy you will notice his special is more like something Darkside would have. He's also not as armored as Minion would be, he's got normal big dog armor like Darkside. So I'd really say he's more of a Darkside replacement. He only really becomes Minion-ish when you get the Special Upgrade pickup and get the flamethrower special ala TMB Minion but it's not as effective or as long range. Either way, Cousin Eddy still has nothing in common with the Minion tank from the PS1 era, which is who we all would have liked to have seen in TMHO for sure. I am sure there was  a reason for the absence of Minion, but I don't think they designed Cousin Eddy as a Minion replacement. Everyone else from TM2 returned except Minion, and Darkside who has a picture cameo in TM2. Perhaps Incognito did not want demon characters like Minion and Mr. Ash in TMHO so they excluded them? I notice the demonic themes were heavier in the first 2 games. Charlie Kane was also left out (guess he died?) and Dark Tooth just becomes another vehicle for Sweet Tooth along with Tower Tooth. Decisions like that were disappointing... especially because it followed TM4's example of having Sweet Tooth as the final boss which I thought was kind of a stupid way to go.

And had Cousin Eddy, ATV, and Tower Tooth been replaced with Darkside, Minion, and say, Yellow Jacket - sure, that'd be great BUT then you'd have a Twisted Metal game with no new vehicles at all which would have been just as disappointing. Part of why TM Black was interesting was it added good new vehicles (Crazy 8, Manslaughter, Brimstone, Junkyard Dog) with redesigned classic vehicles. Had those 4 new vehicles been replaced with Thumper, Hammerhead, Grasshopper, and Mr. Slam, and if Warthog, Outlaw, etc. had their classic designs instead of new ones then TMB in my opinion would have been less interesting albeit still a great game. But individuality is important.
When some people on the internet accidentally refer to TM Head On as a "TM2 remake" instead of a sequel then there is a problem... TM Head On does a good job of reminding us of the importance of originality and what happens when a good game lacks it.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #8 - 04/26/19 at 20:47:05
 
That was pretty good Mosh, I never saw it that way when TM games introduce new vehicles, Now that you mention it, Hammerhead, Twister,and Grasshopper wouldn't have worked in TMB, they wouldn't be dark enough for TMB's atmosphere and too over top.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #9 - 04/26/19 at 20:49:31
 
Now that I think about it, IF we did have them in Black, everyone would have been disappointed by driving the same cars in a new TM game.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #10 - 05/02/19 at 05:40:16
 
MoshTMA wrote on 04/25/19 at 00:54:45:
because Cousin Eddy is a mid-boss who has a shield you need to take down first, and you have to attack him at all sides before you can destroy him just like the Minion boss battle from TM Black, people often compare Cousin Eddy to Minion...

well, yeah, because he is a cheap ripoff. I mean, if they made a character called Chickadee or some shit that was a 4x4 that had a special to drive on top of someone and do damage, people would say "that's just like hammerhead" because it would be. The fact that the boss battle is the same, down to the shield panels and the flamethrower, is super lame. I never liked the gimmicky boss battles anyway, but the same one? Come tf on. A darkside special in place of the flamethrower when you play him makes him no different than minion. New cars are nice, but new means new, not reskinned.

Throwin bois off the ledge as slam is lit af in SB
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #11 - 05/02/19 at 07:27:44
 
BrandoTG wrote on 05/02/19 at 05:40:16:
well, yeah, because he is a cheap ripoff. I mean, if they made a character called Chickadee or some shit that was a 4x4 that had a special to drive on top of someone and do damage, people would say "that's just like hammerhead" because it would be. The fact that the boss battle is the same, down to the shield panels and the flamethrower, is super lame. I never liked the gimmicky boss battles anyway, but the same one? Come tf on. A darkside special in place of the flamethrower when you play him makes him no different than minion. New cars are nice, but new means new, not reskinned.

Throwin bois off the ledge as slam is lit af in SB


It's not a ripoff, Incognito made both games lol. The boss battle concepts were carried over into Head-On...
Warhawk in TMB likewise had a shield that needed to be taken down. And Cousin Eddy having ATVs as protection is like how Warhawk had the tankers as protection, whereas Minion in TMB had no helpers.
Head-On is still technically a follow-up to TMB even if also a follow-up to TM2 so it makes sense they'd recycle/re-invent the boss shield concept/gimmick.
It's more interesting than fighting Dark Tooth in TMHO who has Mr. Slam's special in that game for some reason and looks nowhere as cool as Dark Tooth from TM2.

I still don't agree with Cousin Eddy being that similar to Minion where the vehicle concept deserves that much criticism. one is an RV trailer. the other is a Tank truck. Minion had a normal sidearm, Cousin Eddy had a rocket sidearm.
Eddy's RV isn't anywhere as dominant either, he's more around Darkside's level of power. Playing a Minion campaign in TMB is easy because the special is overpowered and he has great armor. Playing a Cousin Eddy campaign in TMHO isn't as easy in comparison because the special is not as reliable and his armor isn't that much of an advantage. I don't feel like I'm playing as a boss character, he's more normal, slightly above average.

Also, the point of view you get as Cousin Eddy is more similar to Darkside because of the exhaust pipes on the front of the vehicle. I don't think that's a coincidence.
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« Last Edit: 05/02/19 at 18:24:41 by MoshTMA »  
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #12 - 05/03/19 at 15:18:44
 
MoshTMA wrote on 05/02/19 at 07:27:44:
It's not a ripoff, Incognito made both games...

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/rip--off

"3.a copy or imitation."

as much as you want him to not be a cheap copy, and nothing else, it still is. It's still the exact same boss, just a hell of a lot easier, like the rest of TMHO. The only reason for him being like that is they were too lazy to make a unique new boss.

One could say he's the other dimension equivalent of Minion, but I know incog isn't smart enough to think that up.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #13 - 05/03/19 at 21:06:41
 
I thought of TMB Minion too when I saw Cousin Eddy where you need to destroy his shields from the front, side, back and the added top. They both share a similar gimmick.
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Re: A not in-depth review of TM: Head On (PS2)
Reply #14 - 05/04/19 at 06:27:14
 
"Ripoff" implies fraud. The word you're looking for is "Rehash". Rehash is when one puts old ideas or material into a new form without significant change or improvement.

And I'm not arguing that the mid-boss fight of TMHO doesn't come across as a rehash. I'm sure that was by design because TMHO as a game is one big rehash that values the nostalgia factor.
Clearly the team was looking to replace Minion, probably to imply that Minion died after TM2 (or TM3 if you want to count it), or maybe to end the tradition of Minion being a mid-boss. They actually could have easily used Darkside since he isn't in TMHO, and because he has a demonic theme like Minion, and was a mid-boss once in TM3, and almost a mid-boss in TM2 as well before they went with Minion.

But my argument was that if you look beyond the story mode boss fight and first impressions that he is a poor man's Minion he becomes less like a Minion substitute. I felt the same way as you did but then I spent more time playing as the RV and found it to be one of the more interesting vehicles in TMHO (but I'm partial to ramming specials).
But what exactly is the argument that Cousin Eddy is like Minion outside of Story Mode?

Hypothetically, if they used Pit Viper in that mid-boss battle, with the puzzle boss gimmick, and gave her a flamethrower, then it would have been a rehash of TMB Minion too, but (probably) nobody would have said Pit Viper was a ripoff of Minion.

And also, boss vehicles in TM usually tend to have a juiced up version of another vehicle's special, so I don't feel like Minion has ownership to that flamethrower.
To recap examples;
TM2 - Minion has juiced up Warthog special
TM3 - Darkside has juiced up Firestarter special
TM4 - SweetTooth has juiced up Moon Buggy special, Crusher has Mr. Slam's special, RC Car has a juiced up Crimson Fury special
TMB - Minion has juiced up Warthog special but this time Warthog had Thumper's flamethrower, since Thumper was cut from TMB, so Minion really has a juiced up Thumper special. *although TMB Thumper might have not had a flamethrower were he in the roster, who knows.
TMSB - Trapper has sort of a juiced up version of Axel's TMSB special.
TMX - Hammerhead/Slayer have a juiced up version of Warthog's special

Boss specials are rarely original.
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