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Motor Mayhem
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Graphics & Sound:
Aw, yeah! I love the feeling of checking out screenshots, thinking a game looks okay, and firing it up to see more than I bargained for. I sometimes wonder if high expectations cause publishers to make rash choices about development teams, or push a game to market that just isn't ready. I think we all have seen the latter to be true, but in the case of a franchise like Twisted Metal, I wonder if there's a case to be made for the former. Twisted Metal held a strong grip over the vehicular combat genre for some time, with Vigilante 8 stealing some brief thunder. You can point to WipeOut and other combat racers aplenty, but something about driving 'real' cars in real environments held a unique attraction for many folks until the Twisted Metal franchise crapped out, and Vigilante 8 didn't seem capable of taking the throne. We had plenty of copycat games, like Star Wars Demolition and even a flood of combat mini-racers, but when Twisted Metal Black was announced for PS2, it was probably most combat racers' dream-come-true. The promotional machine started grinding, and out popped...a solid effort that doesn't fail to entertain, but seems a bit too heavy-handed in its presentation. Looking at Infogrames' Motor Mayhem, you'll see almost the polar opposite in terms of fanfare and expectations. Not only did this game slip quietly into the marketplace, but it took on the difficult task of building a great car combat game without traditional cars, and set in a weird fantasy world with all the trapping of 3DO's gameshow-inspired World Destruction League. Graphics touches are inspired, right down to unique character design and environments that look more like something out of MDK2 Armageddon than a lowly vehicular combat game. Walls and objects deform when hit with gunfire, and not a wink of slowdown shows up in the engine when guns start a blazin'. Several cool video-extras included on the DVD show a little behind the scenes of character design for Motor Mayhem, including scrapped characters that I guess will have to wait for the sequel. Do I like DVD extras in a game? Hell, yeah! Just having this on DVD is a big step toward building a better mousetrap, in terms of what appeals to me in this genre. The music and sound is awesome, with BIG effects that look and sound killer on a nice sound system. Each weapon sports not only interesting execution and design, but that cool 'add it to my car' architecture that I remember seeing to great effect first in Vigilante 8. CG animation isn't overused, but serves as a nice break from the frantic action. |
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Gameplay:
Where most car combat games come off like racing games with guns, Motor Mayhem feels more like Quake with racers. The difference may steal some realism from how each vehicle handles, but makes a world of difference in level design and combat style. Select a car and start fighting, right? Well, sure the basic idea is just that, but the backstory is a cool one with a cast of characters as rich in whup-ass motive as anyone from Tekken or DOA. At a time when the Earth has experienced its last big battle and the genetically mutated offspring of our war heroes are smoldering in government test labs, the scheme for VCL or the Vehicle Combat League is formed and a new form of entertainment is born. Motor Mayhem is the final round of a playoff season, and only the best...thing can win. Starting a new career involves entering one of three main Career Mode stages. VCL Eliminator is a timed battle, giving you the objective of being the only thing left moving before time runs out. Deathmatch is a quota mode for kills, and Endurance is just you and another fighter, 1-on-1. Complete these modes, and you'll be able to call yourself the champion, but it's a long road to glory, and you'll need to topple the reigning champion, Buzzsaw. Outside a Career, you can play Deathmatch battles against a friend or pick Quick Brawl to jump in and try your hand with a new vehicle or tactic in mind. Each of the combat modes plays smoothly with even 3-4 characters on screen, and the big environments never seem crowded. If anything, you'll find that replaying a level generally shows you some area you hadn't seen before. Power-ups make for the meat of this game, and although each vehicle comes equipped with a basic machine gun, fun weapons and even machine gun upgrades are out there for the taking. Much like a true, hand-to-hand fighting game, combos can be performed with each car by linking button presses together to unleash heavy firepower. There are plenty of big artillery pieces scattered around, but learning Special Attacks and evasive actions like Hover Mode can mean the difference between driving your car home and being buried in it. Environments tend to have much in the way of devices and tricks for navigation, including cheat keys that you can find to unlock cheats from the main menu. Learning more about the characters is a lot of fun, and even though the location is total fiction, it's well-managed fiction. The strong design and great production values we see in Motor Mayhem easily match what any other game of its type has to offer right now, and above all the frills it is much fun to play. |
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Difficulty:
Adjustable levels make jumping into Motor Mayhem easy for most with a propensity for driving fast and blowing stuff up. If you like to play a more relaxed, thinking game, the fastest most heavily armed car may not be right, but fun stuff like a fire engine or a construction machine will fit even the strangest strategy needs. Speed, power and defense are all part of the main vehicles' makeup, and several can be opened with cheats if you start getting bored.
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Game Mechanics:
Like almost any great fighting game, learning to control your moves is the biggest part of winning. Each button combo learned means you'll be just a little tougher than the other guy, but Special Weapons can require some serious advance planning before launch. Learning the pickups is easy, and they are replaced when you take a new one, so managing inventory isn't really a problem. What takes some time to learn is how a level fits together and where you should use the big gun. The matchups seemed fair, but wouldn't really matter with a 2-Player game in action, would it? Every character has a rival who will hunt him or her down if put together in the same ring, and all the politics are covered in the manual. Other elements you'll need to master are the explosives used for your gun, including missiles both air-ground and ground-air. Every location has a sense of height that is not just long winding roads up a mountain, but special turbo-boost patches that propel you up to new locations for power-ups, kills or just a breather. The fast action pretty much ensures you won't be bored, and all kinds of nutty weapons or specials help seal the deal. Looking at your HUD, the display shows an energy meter for guns that use up heavy amounts of energy or need to be charged after you invoke hovercraft mode, a notorious battery-waster. Things that show up in the HUD are special weapons (you can cycle through them), your health and ammo, and which machine gun upgrade you're on. In a timed mission or quote-based mission, the tally shows up in the top corner, making it easy to get all the game's information right as you play. Finally, this DVD has more good extras than most movie DVDs, which really helps add value to the game. Music from the game, by major artist Crystal Method and others, can be listened to independently of the game or as a sound check, and a video from the game's musicians shows up as another option. Checking out the game trailer or a Behind the Scenes mini-movie is awesome, and the steps to bring Motor Mayhem from concept to showroom floor are gone over in some detail. It's fascinating, if only for people who might want to work in the industry some day. Nothing about this game is anything less than stylin', and I'll give you your Twisted Metal Black anyday if I can take this one from 'ya. Sure, the characters from TMB have been around longer, but I'm a big believer in fresh blood and new ideas. With a game that seems to combine the futuristic cool of WipeOut with the down-and-dirty car combat genre, Motor Mayhem is a great choice for people who may want their vehicular homicide in a different flavor. This one should draw some fans, even in the wake of Twisted Metal's successful launch. And, if you're not quite a fan of the genre, you still might like this one for its unique characters and excellent level design. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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