Twisted Metal Health Pickups – An Issue or Not?

A few days ago, David Jaffe announced that Health Pickups would have no options to be turned off. These users on both the Twisted Metal Community Forums and the TMAlliance boards have been complaining about the recent announcement of a no health pickups option in un-ranked games, and even in certain ranked games. The main reason for these complaints is that it makes the game feel less skillful and dumbed down compared to previous Twisted Metal games.

For example: Say your chasing down an opponent and you’re unloading a whole clip into them. In previous Twisted metal games, the attacker never had to worry about their target gaining their health back, and in most cases it was up to the target to find a way to counter this. Now, they have to worry about them picking up health packs, which means the attacker would have most likely used a large amount of ammunition from the previous weapon pickups. This also means that anyone of any skill level can have an upper hand over each other easily. Battles can be decided just based on the fact that there was a health pack waiting there for that person.

So, what this means for the Veterans of Twisted Metal is that the game is no longer as hardcore as they remembered and that it’s targeted towards a casual audience. David Jaffe responded to these complaints by saying that the team has been testing the game out for over a year. “NOT ONCE has ANYONE said ‘man, I think this would be better without any pickup 1/3 health packs” Jaffe said,”plus the game is done for now… We want to get the game out, see how it plays for the world, and then we’ll make some decisions.”

He also confirmed that these health pickups won’t be in random locations and that they will only fill 1/3 of your health. They are also all visible on the mini map display.  Players who do remember the health issue in previous Twisted Metal game should be reminded that this is a completely new Twisted Metal game. Many other fans have said that there is a demo coming out, and since no one outside of the QA and a few other have played the new twisted Metal, then they have no idea how health pickups are going to work. “until you play it, you can’t say with 100% accuracy what works and what does not.” Jaffe said and that players should give some time for the game to breath, cause after all they will continue  to look into these issues and if fans find it being to much of a problem then they will make their decision after the game has launched.

Alternatively there are modes such as Net Carnage where health is “irrelevant”. A certain game modes won’t be stretched out due to the time limit set in place. The guys over at Eat, Sleep, Play want the community to know that they are listening and will take action once they receive more feedback post game launch. You can find David Jaffe long explanation of where he stands on health in Twisted Metal here.

If anything I feel people are overreacting to this. As David has said, people should wait until they try the demo out. I have been  Twisted Metal fan fir a long time, ever since the game originally released on the PS1 nearly seventeen years ago (yeah long time). I remember the issue with health pickups in previous Twisted Metal games, and can see where some of the other hardcore fans are coming from. I do however have complete faith in Eat, Sleep, Play, and trust that they have found a perfect balance between health and skills. We live in a very different generation of gaming now. The reason why I always loved the TM series is just based on the idea that it was all about skill. But , does health really take the skill factor away? In previous TM games they did, but like I said, the developers have worked their butts off with the new Twisted Metal to tweak things, such as health. They are now in certain spots and have longer respawn times. Perhaps they can even add to becoming a more skilled player. As Jaffe puts it, stop them before they get health pickups and learn what’s coming ahead of time by learning and mastering the maps.

So what do you guys think? Is it something that really is game wrecking to have or not?

 

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