David Jaffe convinced me to preorder Twisted Metal
By: Jeff Rivera
There's always a debate going on about how closely gaming journalists should work with developer talent and PR. Some journalists get really close to certain developers, become good friends with them, and then have a tough decision about how they're going to cover the content from that developer. On one hand, the developer knows that they have a reliable and trustworthy news outlet to work with, but on the other hand the news outlet has to try real hard to remain impartial in their coverage.
Often times we'll see developers leverage social networks and speak directly to their fans. Any time I see this, I think it's exciting and I appreciate the unfiltered information. Not only do you get to hear directly from the developer about the decisions they made, but you also get to see how invested the developers are in the success of their product.
In a recent video blog, David Jaffe talks about the upcoming Twisted Metal for PlayStation 3. He talks about several of the key gameplay decisions they made, and even does some live demonstration of certain aspects of the game. Some of the features I didn't quite understand get a nice explanation from Jaffe, and he does a great job at putting my final worries about the game to rest. Jaffe even goes on to apologize for the existence of the online pass (need to buy new for free online play, $10 additional if you buy used). The whole video is great, and I've embedded it below.
Throughout the video I found myself getting excited about the franchise once more. Rather than getting ultra polished PR speak, Jaffe tells us why he thinks the game is great, even if not perfect. The Q&A with fans at the end of the video is also nice, and something I hope Sony keeps encouraging on the PlayStation blog and that developers like David Jaffe keep making time to produce.
As a fan of the original Twisted Metal games on the PS1, I somehow lost touch with the franchise after that generation and I havn't played a Twisted Metal game since Twisted Metal 3. After its E3 unveiling, I was a bit lukewarm on the project, but I've stayed interested enough to check out updates and information drops regarding the project. And maybe I've just had the marketing wool pulled over my eyes, but after the video I went and put down my preorder for Twisted Metal.
The game has now gone gold, and it'll be arriving next month.
