To celebrate the upcoming resurrection of Twisted Metal on PS3, the team at IGN Australia put on their biggest Black BETA game event yet. Hosted by IGN Producer Beau Ushay, the event was held at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory, with winning members attending from the IGN & PlayStation web communities. Ice-cream trucks, hot dog stands, & cosplay bar staff…they were all present at the event, including music by IGN’s own DJ Cam Shae. There was also an 8-player network setup to hold a brutal onsite competition, with the winner on the night scoring a free PlayStation Vita, for the system’s Feb 23 launch in Australia. Narayan Pattison, Publishing Director at IGN Australia informed that the event drew ‘record crowds’.

Finally, retro versions of Twisted Metal on PSone and PS2 were also on display at the event (for historical reference), and while they were great to look at, they certainly prove that game-tech has come a mighty long way since those early days. So thanks IGN, for hosting a whopper of an event to salute a major piece of PlayStation’s gaming heritage. Now let’s proceed to that March release shall we!

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We know your appetites for destruction are growing as we draw closer to Twisted Metal’s release, so we’re pleased to announce that the Twisted Metal Multiplayer Beta goes live on the PlayStation Store this afternoon! Once the beta hits the Store, you’ll get a taste of Twisted Metal’s online play with:

• 8 vehicles to choose from, each with their own unique special weapons.
• 2 multiplayer modes: Classic free-for-all Death Match, and team-based Nuke mode—a Twisted take on Capture the Flag that’s brand new to the series.
• Challenge mode, where you can practice with each vehicle to hone your destructive skills.

Be sure to try out all the vehicles and modes available in the multiplayer beta and let us know your favourites. Servers will be up today and until February 7th, so you’ve got a week to practice – Get killin’!

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Hey all! David Jaffe here with some good news and bad news on behalf of myself, my Eat Sleep Play partner and Twisted Metal co-director Scott Campbell, the entire Eat Sleep Play team, and Sony Santa Monica.

First the good news: Eat Sleep Play and Sony Santa Monica are cranking like mad to get a fantastic Twisted Metal build ready for both Gamescom and PAX Prime! For those not in the know: Gamescom is August 17th-21st in Cologne, Germany and PAX Prime (link) will take place here in America August 26th-28th in Seattle, Washington. Both shows are open to the public but PAX – I believe- is already sold out. If you’ve got PAX Prime tickets, I can’t wait to see you there! I hope you’ll swing by the Twisted Metal booth and give our game a try!

At Gamescom and PAX we’ll be showing off a brand new level called Thrills & Spills Amusement Park! It’s one of our favorite all time Twisted Metal levels and it’s filled with the over the top destruction, strategic level choices, and twisted humor that fans of the series have come to love and expect. Players at both shows will also get hands on with TEAM HUNTED, a brand new mode that we’ll be unveiling – for the first time ever – at Gamescom. We’ll also be premiering the new Dollface story trailer which delves into just what makes that nutty-but-sexy pink-haired freak tick.

And at both shows we’ll be handing out some super cool, super creepy Sweet Tooth masks! Halloween will be here before you know it and we want Twisted Fans to be able to represent their favorite slasher in style!

Ok, so now…the bad news. Or at least the ‘news that seems bad at first but after you read the rest of my post I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s actually fantastic news’ news. So here it is:

We’re not shipping Twisted Metal October 4th, 2011. We’re going to miss our date. We’re going to be late.

Ugh! I know, I know. A lot of dedicated, supportive, passionate Twisted Metal fans have been waiting for the return of Calypso’s demented contest for a long time but the truth is: we’re just not ready yet.

Sony has been – and remains – a super supportive champion and collaborator on this title and all of us at Eat Sleep Play are so grateful that their patience and generosity will allow us the extra time needed to polish our demented baby until it shines. NOTE: I don’t actually think that qualifies as a mixed metaphor… just a bad one. But the ‘demented baby’ part was really cool to me, and it felt very Twisted Metal-y, so I’m keeping it in this post.

Anyway – it sucks bad when games miss their announced launch dates. We’re gamers too and we know how annoying it is. It’s disappointing and frustrating and it really takes the wind out of your sails if you’re a fan that has been looking forward to playing a title for a long time. Thing is, you gotta trust me when I tell you that – with this extra time for tuning and polish – the game is going to be so much better than it already is. And if you played Twisted Metal and liked it at E3 or Comic-Con, or if you get to play it (and you enjoy it) at one of the August shows, just imagine how much more fun the final game will be with some extra time, polish, and love.

There’s a great, classic industry saying by legendary Nintendo designer – and personal hero – Shigeru Miyamoto that goes a little something like this:

‘A late game is only late until it ships. A bad game is bad until the end of time.’

Now, if we shipped Twisted Metal tomorrow – going off the response from folks who have played it – I assure you, it would never be a bad game. Not even close. But we’re aiming for a heck of a lot more than that! With Twisted Metal we plan to ship a multiplayer classic. We plan to ship the best Twisted Metal ever made. We plan to convert a lot of folks who think vehicle combat is a relic best left to 90′s nostalgia. And we plan to explode the belief that the only relevant kind of shooter is a first person one (or a 3rd person one, where you play a human… with a tee shirt not all the way tucked in …).

Most importantly, we plan on treating you – the kind folks who play our game (and pay our bills) – like the VIPs that you are. You only deserve our best and we appreciate your understanding as we take a little more time to guarantee that our best is what we deliver.

Twisted Metal for PS3 will ship early 2012. Stay tuned for more details.

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Hey ya’ll! In case you missed it last week, here’s a broadcast segment we did with the PlayStation.Blog live from the SCEA booth on the E3 show floor. I get into a little about the character stories as well as talk about gameplay balance and the pros and cons between the game’s 15+ vehicles. I also gab a bit about the reveal of Iron Maiden, the biggest and most complicated boss we’ve ever had in a Twisted Metal game!

E3 was a blast this year! It was really cool to connect with fans at the booth while they went tried out Twisted Metal‘s signature Nuke mode. It was also fun showing off our newest level: New York City during the holiday season. The very first Twisted Metal game – released back in 1995! – takes place at Christmas time as well and I guess we wanted to pay a little homage. Also, I just love the idea of chaos and destruction centered around what is usually one of the happiest, warmest, most fun times of the year! Does that make me bad?!? So check out the video- hope you dig it!

And next up is Comic-Con in San Diego July 21-24 so hope to see ya’ll there. Thank you again for the support, thanks so much for stopping by to play our game and say ‘hey’ at the show, and please stay tuned for more announcements about the game over the next few months!

P.S. In the video, I also explain why – for the campaign mode only – we’ve limited the selection to three playable human drivers (versus the usual 10-12). Campaign still lets you drive and battle in 15+ vehicles but we have limited the driver roles. I know focusing on just three character stories for the campaign has been a bit controversial for some of our Twisted fans and I’m curious to see – in the comment section below – if you agree or disagree with our decision after you hear me state our reasoning in the video.

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After Twisted Metal made its bombastic debut nearly a year ago at the E3 PlayStation press conference, developer Eat Sleep Play promptly descended into a self-imposed near-silence. Now that Twisted Metal has finally emerged from its shadowy confines — headlights gleaming like accusing eyes, an angry puff of steam boiling from its cracked radiator grille — it’s clear that David Jaffe, Scott Campbell and the boys have been busy. Really busy. Even in its early pre-release state, the PS3 rebirth of PlayStation’s longest-running series plays true to form — it’s fast, ferocious, and fun. Underneath the glistening new HD graphics, blistering frame rate and overhauled combat system lies the vehicular equivalent of Mortal Kombat…that is, if Mortal Kombat included 16-player online battles waged with helicopters and nukes and psychotic clowns driving semi trucks and God knows what else.

Twisted Metal Creative Director David Jaffe is fond of comparing the game’s combat feel to that of fighter jets. The comparison is apt because the vehicle handling and physics are so deliciously exaggerated. This ain’t no GT5; in Twisted Metal, cars turn on a dime and blast from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye. They swoop in for the kill, jousting their quarry with rockets and napalm blasts before the element of surprise is lost and the hunter becomes the hunted. In the midst of a lively multiplayer match, Twisted Metal feels like barely controlled chaos, a symphony of destruction swirling with danger and buzzing with death.

As you might expect, the arsenal has received a hefty upgrade for the game’s PS3 debut. The devastating new Swarmer Missile and Shotgun join returning weapons such as the Homing Missile, Napalm, and Ice Blast. Each vehicle’s special attack also comes with an alternate fire mode that can inflict even more damage if timed correctly, lending the combat an additional layer of depth. For example, Axel can either emit a wide-range shockwave or transform into a grinding, spiked gear to roll over the opposition — what Jaffe described as a “violent Oreo cookie.” Another nod to modernity: You can now freely aim your projectiles with the right analog stick to hit enemies above and below you. Jaffe even dished on a new Sixaxis-centric combat mechanic he’s currently calling the Turbo Ram. “If you have enough turbo, you can shake the controller forward and drill the crap out of an enemy in front of you,” he told me. “It feels almost like an uppercut in a fighting game.” Though the version I played stuck with a classic-style driving control scheme, with gas on the Square button and brake on the X button, Jaffe promised that the final version of the game would include a more modern scheme with gas and brake assigned to the L2 and R2 triggers.

Team coordination is also shaping up to be a major focus for Twisted Metal’s frantic multiplayer gameplay. Talon Helicopters can use their winch to pick up teammates for a better firing angle; Junkyard Dog tow trucks can drop repair kits to heal their teammates; and the mighty Juggernaut semi truck can open its rear door to allow teammates to drive inside, where the drivers can man high-powered turrets and dominate the battlefield. But Jaffe promised that the new tag-team maneuvers are strictly optional, and that crafty players can exploit weaknesses in seemingly unstoppable vehicles. For example, the devastating Juggernaut semi truck can be outmaneuvered and flanked by nimble Reaper motorcycles, riddled with sticky bombs, and blown to pieces.

During our talk, Jaffe kept our conversation firmly squared on Twisted Metal’s online multiplayer offering. But he did provide a rare peak into the game’s secretive single-player campaign, which will grant you one life but enable you to store up to two or three cars in a garage on each level. If you face impending death during the single-player Twisted Metal tournament, you can venture back to your garage and pick a new vehicle…if you can survive the journey.

With its hyperkinetic visual style and blistering land-and-air multiplayer combat, Twisted Metal is shaping up to be a wet, sloppy kiss to fans of the classic games as well as a daring remix of online multiplayer conventions. Read on for highlights of my full conversation with Jaffe, and leave your burning gameplay questions in the comments.

On the Name

“Twisted Metal is the final name. The series has been out of the spotlight long enough that naming it ‘Twisted Metal 8′ or whatever would be problematic. You’d have people saying, ‘well, I didn’t play the first seven…’ Calling it Twisted Metal is like planting a flag in the ground and saying that our heartbeat is still strong. The essence of Twisted Metal is still here. To call it anything other than Twisted Metal would feel wrong.”

On Realistic Driving Physics and the Lack Thereof

“Every time we start a new Twisted Metal game, Scott [Campbell] and I talk about doing realistic cars, and it’s a disaster. We’ve never thought of this as a driving game. They happen to look like cars but they’re fighter jets.”

On Creating a Twisted Fantasy

“First and foremost, we imagine the fantasy. A great game designer will tell you that’s stupid, that you should start with your fundamental gameplay mechanics, and he’d be right. That’s just not how we do it. For us, the fantasy has always been to be in a car chase going down the freeway, with semi-trucks flipping and crashing, while I’m in a helicopter holding a sniper rifle shooting a bazooka down, and cars are racing through the explosion. That’s what we start with, and every generation of hardware gets us closer and closer to that vision.”

On Balancing Helicopters

“Helicopters were about delivering the fantasy first, and then figuring out how to tune it. The helicopter has a lot of access to a level, it’s fast, but it doesn’t have great armor. We balance it with risk and reward..other cars can use the right analog stick to look up and shoot whatever they want. If I’m on the ground and you fly over me, I can launch a Power Missile up at you and take you out in one or two hits because your armor is so weak.”

On the Companion Gunner

“The companion is fantasy. You are the car, just like in every Twisted Metal. You see your driver more, and you see your gunner a lot more. Some [of the gunners] actually tie into the single-player story. We still have weapons that come out of panels and things like that, but we thought it was fun and cinematic for a guy to lean out the window of a sportscar and fire a shotgun. It just feels more relevant and cool and movie-like. The gunner isn’t really a different mechanic, it’s presentation.”

On the Number One Goal for Twisted Metal

“I don’t have a number one goal. I have two goals. On the fiction side, I want people to fall in love with this dark, twisted, weird world as much as we do. On the gameplay side, Twisted Metal is a fighting game combined with a shooter. I want gamers to discover what hardcore Twisted Metal fans have known for a long time — that Twisted Metal is a great pick-up-and-play game, but it has a lot of layers and depth. To us, it’s in the same league as classic multiplayer games that build a community for years and years.”

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