Born in the ’80s, raised in the ‘90s? If so, you are a Twisted Metal fan. No need to answer dear reader, we know you are. Such awesomeness could only be found in old school games, in the PS1 era, meaning late ‘90s and early ‘00s. A similar concept was of course seen in other games, controlling a vehicle that can shoot missiles…pretty straightforward. And, while there are similar games with that today, like World of Tanks probably, none really went to that Crash and Burn style, full throttle. And, now there’s Metal Madness…

When you get in a traffic jam in your car, you:

a) patiently wait for the traffic to clear?

b) impatiently honk and shout curses at everybody?

c) PRESS ‘R’ for the rocket launcher?

This whole trip down the memory lane reminded me of a quiz question on a game popular in those days called Jagged Alliance 2. It isn’t precisely accurate, but the point is clear. People like cars and fast driving. You know what else people like? Blowing S#%* up!

Appearance

At first glance, Metal Madness, developed by GDCompany, looks like a mobile version of Twisted Metal 4 or later, with a 3D environment, some nice shading, and decent rendering. The somewhat rough textures to make the game appear old school, but this is a good thing of course. If this was intentional, even better!

Car models and brands, on the other hand, is where Metal Madness takes the charge. This game incorporates all famous brands, like BMW and WW, and utilizes old-school models, like the BMW Alpina B series Turbo. The cars are all in broken condition, with guns sticking out from every hole, so the entire thing has a Cyberpunk – Mad Max feel to it.

Finally, the effects and animations are pretty basic and the good side to that is that it works like a charm on any decent smartphone.

Gameplay

We assume the reason this genre wasn’t ported to mobile play is that it was somewhat questionable how to organize controls. The first assumption would probably be to make it like any other shooter – move with one thumb, shoot with the other. But, there are various other angles to consider, like the field of view, or the viewing angle.

The rest is just pure awesomeness. You fire rockets, bombs, guns, flamethrowers, sniper rifles, and much more. And, all that while driving full throttle…

All 12 detailed vehicle types also have unique abilities of their own. There are light and fast demons, heavy off-road armored tanks, supercars, and huge monsters.

The best thing yet is that the game is an online PVP survival arena, with teams battling for ultimate destruction.

In-between races, there’s the standard many with quests, shop, garage, and chests. There’s naturally an RPG aspect to it all, which only makes the game more addictive. The garage is there for you to change the details on your baby like set up different guns, rocket launchers, stuff like that.

You can queue solo or in teams up to 3 players, and map rules are simple… DESTROY OPPONENTS!

While the game does feature chests and in-game currency, there is no energy or PVP combat limitations and stuff like that.

The Music

This isn’t usually mentioned nor observed in a mobile game, but there are a ton of sweet songs we can hear! Metal Madness is packed with crazy, fast, and heavy melodies and riffs…Just what the doctor ordered.

Metal Madness vs Twisted Metal

Twisted Metal is a classic, an institution in its own right and nothing can change or threaten that. Metal Madness isn’t trying. GDCompany just took the same concept and applied it to a mobile phone environment. While TM was known for its colorful characters, like Sweet Tooth or Warthog, MM took a different approach, going to a cool cyberpunk direction. The game is easily picked up and is tons of fun.