The story of the game is rather thin. Several twisted children from a playground are recruited into a tournament that involves remote controlled vehicles engaged in some frantic combat. The overall style of the game is pretty different from what most TM fans are used it. In some ways Small Brawl tries to capture that ‘twisted’ feel while introducing the new colorful style and it just doesn’t work. The ‘cute’ feel of the game overpowers what helped bring the Twisted Metal series to where it is today, and most will probably not welcome the change.

The game’s options are a bit limited, offering up one player, two players, and various options. The story mode has a lot of neat arenas, and the competitive mode will probably add a few more hours of fun with a friend, but a lot more variety would have been nice. Veterans of Twisted Metal: Black, an infinitely more difficulty game, will probably find TM: Small Brawl a little too forgiving in some respects and the amount of gameplay options offered here might not entertain for too long.

Those who have played through the previous titles will instantly recognize the cast of Twisted Metal Small Brawl. These characters might bring back memories for some, but with so much of the atmosphere lost for this more, dare I say, ‘kid-friendly’ approach the characters just don’t seem to retain their personalities.

I will give credit to the level designs, as most of them are pretty clever. Each level is influenced by the sort of areas most of us probably raced real RC-Cars as children. The first few levels are a bit bland but as the game progresses the levels show a lot more thought. Each stage has pitfalls as well as alternate routes that can allow the player to get a commanding vantage point. My favorite level has the fighting taking place inside a kitchen. Players race around table legs, launch onto the butt of a plumber who toils under the sink, race around the sink, and avoid the flames from the oven burners. This is some really neat stuff.

The music and visuals are nothing spectacular but in terms of quality they are comparable to what we have seen in previous PlayStation Twisted Metal entries. My real problem with Small Brawl involves two very important things. The somewhat sloppy control and the effect this has on the way weapons are used. Small Brawl’s arsenal of tiny weapons is impressive in terms of creativity. You have explosives, bouncing balls of DEATH, the classic homing/power missile type weapons as well as some weapons that resemble popular firecrackers. These would all be a lot of fun to use if the control was tighter. Now if critics of this series found the ‘jousting’ matches found in the gameplay annoying in the previous titles, they will not find Small Brawl to be the exception. In fact these little sessions last a lot longer since much of the time the weapons will go wild just because the control isn’t as accurate as it could be.

Twisted Metal: Small Brawl could function as a gateway for younger kids interested in the series, but are not quite ready to tackle the difficulty of Twisted Metal: Black. It should still be possible to find enough difficulty (or frustration) in dealing with the controls and weapons in Small Brawl. If you are curious to check out the various well-designed arenas it is worth the rental. For those of you looking for a cool RC title with creative levels, tight control, cool weapons, and lots of cars, you would be better off checking out Re-Volt for the PC, Dreamcast, and N64.