The Edgy Glory of Twisted Metal: Black
Back when renting a game meant going to a specific physical store to pay $5 and borrow a game for a week (rather than buying a game at full price these days then having your ownership revoked because the publisher said so), there were a few diamonds in the rough that I eventually forgot about. However, while Mute and I were decorating her new bedroom in the upstairs portion of the Cartomancy Cafe, we'd dug up an old memory of playing Twisted Metal: Black. After a little bit of ruminating, we decided to revisit the game via PCSX2 emulator and see if it was as fun as we recalled.
We recall playing as Dollface, and only ever getting to the second level of the game before losing. Back then, we hadn't realized that you could just select the "LOAD GAME" option in the main menu to retry. These days, however, I'm much smarter, and a much better driver to boot. So, how did Hoot_OS fare in what many consider the best game in the Twisted Metal franchise?
One word: poorly!
Twisted Metal: Black is known by many to be a notoriously difficult car combat game. The AI can feel extremely unforgiving, seemingly only targeting you rather than fighting the other opponents and constantly zipping around, making them hard to aim at. Meanwhile, health pickups are more sparse than in other entries, and often found in the nooks and crannies of each map. The learning curve towards competency in the game is pretty steep; you won't get very far if you don't have a strategy, as was the case when I was a kid. When I started playing the game again a couple days ago, it was the same story: getting my ass kicked over and over again before I even reached the first boss fight.
However, now that I'm an adult with problem solving skills, I can just look up walkthroughs and figure out how to play the game properly! Ultimately, there aren't really any 'cheese strats' like there are in other games - or at least not in the way you'd expect. In most games there's a way to exploit bugs or shortcomings in the game to get easy wins, but in Twisted Metal: Black (and indeed for most of the other games in the franchise), creating an advantage is how you're expected to play the game. Generally, the strategy works like this: pick up a few power-ups and a machine gun upgrade, isolate an opponent, put up your shield and mag dump the fucker until they die. Then pop your invisibility field and escape to the nearest health pickup or restoration station. Rinse and repeat that strategy until you win the level. Hell, that isn't even the only strategy you can use; you can choose to fire an ice ability at your opponents to keep them from using any of their own abilities or weapons and dump free damage onto them, so long as you're using weapons that don't immediately unfreeze them. These kinds of strategies never feel like cheating though, you're just outsmarting your opponents with clever use of positioning, weapons and abilities.
Beyond the gameplay though, this game is also well-known for its story mode. In a stark departure from the previous games, the Twisted Metal Tournament is attended by various patients locked away in the Blackfield Asylum. Calypso frees these patients from the Blackfield Asylum, and will grant a wish to the winner in a battle to the death. The backstory for each character is incredibly grimdark, pulling itself away from the camp of previous entries and diving head-first into the tropes of serious horror and thriller narratives. Many of the character storylines are revenge fantasies for people who were exploited and abused by others; Billy Ray's wife tried to murder him for a life insurance payout, No-Face lost a boxing match and the doctor who lost a bet on that match took No-Face's eyes and tongue, and Raven avenges the murder of her best friend. While it's common for Calypso to make a Tournament winner's wish backfire, it's not the case with many of the revenge stories in Black. The contestants go about their lives, have their lives turned upside down by assholes, then get the opportunity to kill their tormentors. No strings attached, no bullshit.
Some of the game's set dressing comes across as sanist these days, with each character bio in the game having a ridiculously insensitive summary of the driver's various mental illnesses and outdated treatments. Seeing these characters boiled down to "THIS ONE HAS BIPOLAR, THAT ONE HAS SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, OOOH AND THIS ONE GOT ELECTRO-SHOCK THERAPY" feels just fucking gross. Even so, the cathartic experience of watching a victim of abuse get revenge on their abusers is evergreen. (and hey, the people administering the shitty, ineffective and outdated treatments get killed by Calypso off-screen to explain how he's able to let them participate in the Twisted Metal Tournament, so even they don't get let off the hook!)
As it turns out, Dollface is the perfect way to explain the excellence of the narratives in the game. She's also our system's favorite character, so let's talk about her.
Dollface is an anxious young woman who worked under Mr. Kreel, a craftsman who makes masks and puppets. Dollface was trying her best to keep up with the work expected of her until she accidentally spilled a cup of coffee on some paperwork. Incensed beyond justification, Mr. Kreel nailed a porcelain doll mask to her face and locked it closed with a special key. That hits very close to home for us; there are many times our system has made a mistake and our father became unreasonably enraged at us. To him, it was as if we'd set out to make the mistake on purpose to drive him insane. We were blamed for the mistake, AND for making him mad. Yippee, relatable!
When Dollface wins the Tournament, Calypso presents Dollface with a choice: she can finally grab the key and free herself from the mask Mr. Kreel put her in, but the key is attached to a chain. If she grabs the key, the chain will activate an iron maiden that will slam shut on none other than Mr. Kreel himself. The choice Dollface makes is absolutely golden; she takes the key, watches as the iron maiden impales her abuser, then drops the key to the floor. Broken free from a lifetime of gaslighting, she finally accepts herself as who she is and takes pride in the changes she made in herself to fight back against the trauma of her past, while getting some closure by making her abuser pay for his violence towards her.
And god, it is delicious to watch.
Dollshape's character select screen states she has "Bipolar I with psychosis and catatonic features [and] brain damage." It's exceedingly inelegant and entirely irrelevant to the narrative itself, which makes the inclusion of her diagnoses feel like accessories to sell an edgy vibe rather than respectfully denoting the actual effects trauma can have on the mind. Then again, this is Twisted Metal we're talking about; it'd be nice if a car combat game from 2001 didn't tear a random page out of the DSM and slap 'em onto the characters, but there is still some satisfying catharsis to be had from the game as a traumatized little freak myself.
Still, despite this game's flaws in the minutiae, I can't lie and say the game sucks because of it. Dollface's story in the game feels amazing to experience. Her growth from a timid and scared girl into a tough and confident woman mirrors my own. Granted, I can't exactly stuff my father into a casket full of spikes, but a girl can dream a little bit.
Ultimately, I think Twisted Metal: Black has aged surprisingly well considering the subject matter. Edgy plotlines like the ones found in this game are prone to coming across as campy or overwrought from a modern perspective, but the character narratives are basic at worst and greatest-in-the-series at their best.
By the way: the cop in TM:B has a wish to go back in time to a terrorism response operation where he killed a terrorist, but also killed an innocent family in the process because he "lost control of himself." If he wins the tournament he gets to go back in time and try it again, but the monkey's paw curls and he gets killed instead of the family.
Also, Dollface's truck has a cop car attached to the front like a makeshift roo bar and her special attack is a speed boost that can do huge damage when you slam into other combatants.
So like, you know. Maybe TM:B is a bit more based than I'm giving it credit for.