" Ok listen, children may not be as experienced as adults, but they can still know crappy gaming when they see it. "

      Title: Twisted Metal: Small Brawl by Sony

      Format: Destruction Derby for PS One

      Reviewing Monkey: Simi N.

      The Hype: Well all the over 17 kids got Twisted Metal Black so in order to maintain their young audience the creators made Twisted Metal Small Brawl for the young fans. As the school's biggest bully (Calypso) goes around school tormenting everyone who is different then him, he makes lots of enemies, and the best way to get back is to enter is contest and kick his ass, thus begins the Small Brawl as the neighborhood kids get together with their remote controlled cars and take to the playground trying to blow each other up with tons of weapons, and cool levels.

      What This Monkey Thought...

      Graphics: Ah yes the first part of this game that truly disappoints. The graphics can be aptly described as poor. This game looks as worse than the original Twisted Metal, which is inexcusable in this day and age. The vehicles are really blocky and poorly animated, except for the cool little antenna sticking up. The backgrounds are better than the vehicles with some cool interactive elements and decent texturing. And the weapons actually look pretty cool (but not as good as they did in Twisted Metal 2). And the biggest problem is that everything moves at a really slow, just plain bad frame rate. 2 out of 5.

      Sound: The sound effects are really difficult to hear. For the most part the music drowns out almost all of the sound effects, making it difficult to ascertain exactly what is going on at any given time. But when you can hear the sounds they are good, the skidding of the cars is very appropriate for their size. The music is really cool, borrowed as it is from Twisted Metal 2. It's the perfect way to incorporate the feeling of the past games into a new one. 3.5 out of 5.

      Playability: This is where the game really falls apart. The control is horrible. It is damn near impossible to feel in any way comfortable with your vehicle. The specific problems are numerous. First of all the physics are terrible. Yes these are remote control cars and thus they are lighter than full-size vehicles, but that doesn't mean that the laws of gravity don't apply to them. The turning is impossibly difficult; you will not be able to hit anybody if you don't have a tracking weapon. And finally the biggest, most aggravating problem with the control is the fact that you can activate turbo by double clicking the X button. This isn't a bad idea, but you don't actually have to "double-click" the X button to activate turbo, all you actually have to do is take your finger off of X and then reapply it. This is horribly frustrating when you want to slow down to take a corner and suddenly find yourself wasting your turbo (there is a separate turbo button for a reason, damn-it). Other than those problems the game is pretty cool, it is much less ridiculously hard than Twisted Metal 1 or 2, but still has the same feel to it as you go around blasting the crap out of your enemies. And the game has three game play modes in one player and has the underused cooperative mode, along with a death match mode for two players. 3 out of 5.

      Multiplayer and Replayability: I personally will never play this game again, even if I have friends over who want to give it a shot. I won't play it, and I can't imagine that anyone else will want to either. I mean yes there is incentive to play through again being that the game isn't really very long and there are three modes of game play, and a multiplayer mode, but the game is just so aggravatingly uncontrollable that playing quickly becomes a chore. 2 out of 5.

      Story/Dramatics: The meanest kid in school (Calypso) has a cool idea for a contest. The only problem is that he doesn't have any contestants. So in order to see his dream through, he goes around school giving people an incentive to join up (mostly with threats). So as he makes more enemies, he gets more contestants who will do anything to win to get what Calypso promised them. It's your standard Twisted Metal routine, nothing new really, but not altogether bad. 3 out of 5.

      The Verdict:

Ok listen, children may not be as experienced as adults, but they can still know crappy gaming when they see it. The controls are annoying and buggy, and the game moves incredibly slowly. The levels and music are cool, but you won't care if you don't play the game. They should have remade Twisted Metal 2 instead of making this game.

      The Good: Cool level design, the sound effects are appropriate, the music is reminiscent of Twisted Metal Black, and you get to blow up your friends in death match mode.

      The Bad: The physics are all off, the cars are impossible to control, and the music drowns out a lot of the sound effects.

      The Overall Ugly: If you need a new Twisted Metal game and don't have a PS2 then I guess you could give this a try, but don't expect to be delighted.

      What it's Worth: I wouldn't pay more than $9.99 for this.