Twisted Metal: Black

Character-Specific Battlegrounds

Everyone remember beating Amazonia for the first time in TM2? You'd just gone through hell, fought your opponents to their death, all while you were trying to keep to the narrow lanes... no one wants to get burned alive in the ever-present magma.

And then, just when you thought it was over, Minion emerged from the lava. It was his stage, his home. It was treated as if he belonged there, and he had the attributes to match: despite his huge frame, he had incredible handling and speed, in addition to great armour and special. He handled well enough to survive easily, and had the ability to crush you if you drew near.

Amazonia is an example of Minion's backyard; do you think there could be other examples of this in future Twisted Metal games?

In a "Character-Specific Battleground", my ideas would involve at least a mode, where you progress by fighting each character in the game, each in a battleground that is highly specific to the vehicle that it is assigned to.

This could accomplish two things:

1. Firstly, the attribute system would be forced to return to one similar to TM2, rather than TMB. In my opinion, at least, the attributes of the vehicles in TM2 have a much more drastic effect on their handling than in TMB. However, if a battleground is to be specific to a vehicle, then that means the vehicle is going to have to be unique in handling.

2. It would introduce a radical atmosphere for each battleground. This is pretty interesting to me, and is what inspired me to post this...

What constitutes a Character-Specific Battleground?:

Let me elaborate. You see, the theme of TMB is "BLACK". Every battleground is immersed in thick shadows to establish this. I think that this may not be the case, if the battlegrounds are character-specific. Sure, they could all be dark, but they could vary in some very interesting ways:

- Ambient sounds: take Outlaw and Spectre into consideration. Outlaw, being associated with the Police, will be associated with their sounds as well; the battleground could be noisy as hell with the constant blaring of sirens... perhaps the walkie talkies sounding every now and again? Spectre, on the other hand, obviously brings to mind the idea of a ghost; the battleground would be relatively silent. Boring? No, because it would place extra emphasis on other sounds and effects within the area (such as loudly shattering glass... or even driving over it and hearing the crunch under your tyres). Which brings to mind my next point...

- Nature of Environment: No two characters are the same, so why should they have the same types of things to blow up in their battlegrounds? It may sound obvious, but think of the Health Recharge Stations in TMB, as well as Helicopters bringing items. In each battleground, these should vary slightly in appearance, so as to fit in with the character-specific theme.

Also, important to note, the Character-Specific Battleground for a car would be designed for maximum efficiency on the part of the respective character himself. For instance, smaller and speedier cars like Spectre and Mr. Grimm would have large battlegrounds, filled with corners and crevices to hastily turn to when being sought after. Larger, more heavily armoured cars such as Darkside and Warthog, on the other hand, could have much smaller arenas... fewer places to hide... perhaps a pit on the edge of the border to ram enemies into?

-Appearance of the Battleground: The actual appearance of the battleground at first glance should give an indication of whose battleground it is. For instance, the picture below is one of my BGs, but it's an idea of how I'd imagine Spectre's battleground to appear:

So, Spectre's battleground would have a ghostly, silvery white sort of appearance. Misty and intriguing.

Below now, is how I'd picture a boss's battleground: very dark and sadistic-looking, reminding the viewer of blood.

Just to give you and idea of how different these battlegrounds would end up looking, consider this final image:

Big difference, right? Now imagine how luscious the battlegrounds would look if it weren't a teenager responsible for their editing/designing...

- Type of Pedestrians: Outlaw? Policemen. Sweet Tooth? Hungry little children. Mr Grimm (TM2)? Sleepwalking Corpses. You see how much fun this could be!

- Weapon Modification: Maybe not in a complicated way, but at least the appearance of the your vehicle's special would be modified slightly as you use it in another vehicle's Character-Specific battleground. For instance, suppose that you're fighting in Mr Grimm's (TM2) then your weapon could have a fiery tail (similar to his own Screaming Soul special), or maybe, if you're fighting in Spectre's, a ghastly white one. It doesn't have to be limited to appearance either, perhaps the characteristic launch sound could be altered slightly as well.

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