TWISTED is a hilarious and original game that makes great use of the strengths of the 3DO system. You choose a contestant from six very distinct characters and help them to win. The grand prize is a one way ticket out of TV land into reality. Along the way you face numerous fun and interesting challenges as you work your way up a spiraling game board in an attempt to reach the top first.
Each contestant gets to roll the Cyber-die which can generate a roll of between 0 and 6 and progresses up the twisted helix game board consisting of 90 spaces. There are four different spaces to land on: the red Bozo square on which you lose a turn, the green Roll Again square, the purple Wheel of Torture square and the yellow Challenge square where you get to use the Matrix to select a challenge. The wheel of torture is a wheel with three levels of spinning fruit and you have to stop the wheel when three like fruits line up at the top of the wheel. You're stuck there until you do. The vast majority of squares are challenge squares.
When you land on a challenge square you go to the Matrix in order to select a challenge. The Matrix is 3x3 grid of challenges where your opponent gets to secretly select a row and then you select a column. Besides having challenges there are also squares on the Matrix that cause you to lose a turn, swap places with your opponent or roll again. This results in some interesting strategies as you try and get your opponent to select the above. If you select a lose a turn square you are treated with video of a thermonuclear detonation or another impressive explosion. If you manage not to select any of the above squares you move on to one of the many interesting challenges, which allow you to roll again if you complete them.
Challenges range from the banal topical trivia squares to the wacky Sound
As far as I can tell all of the still pictures used in the above challenges are 16-bit color which gives the whole game a very nice look.
Full motion video is one thing the 3DO can do well and it has been used very creatively in this offering. In Mystery Matinee you have to arrange a scrambled video while it is playing. It is scrambled into 3x3 squares and on harder levels even more squares. This is one example of the original and interesting uses of video in this product. Video is also used for the characters of the game that congratulate or jeer you as you move up the board depending upon your success or failure. The characters are not full screen but cut out and placed on impressive still backgrounds.
Sound is also used very well and very originally. Sound Bites is an entertaining game using pictures of former American presidents. When selected each president makes a sound. To complete the challenge you have to match like sounds. The really funny part is the wacky sounds the presidents make from braying like a donkey to belching like a line backer.
There are only a couple of minor things that I didn't like about the game. One is the fact that it is two player minimum although you can play by yourself as a 'Gee, I wonder which character will get to the top first with me playing both of them' kind of game. It would have been nice to have some AI to play against. The other minor criticism is that it doesn't lock out your opponents controller during Matrix selection time. This doesn't matter if you are playing with someone who is very patient and honest but a little insurance never hurt anyone.
Twisted is an entertaining and original two player game for the 3DO system. By using the strengths of the 3DO system, which include great sound, lots of colors and full motion video, Twisted is a creative game unlike anything anyone has ever seen on a Sega, Nintendo or even a PC CD-ROM for that matter. For anyone with a 3DO system this game is well worth buying.
This review is Copyright (C) 1994 by Andrew A. Jinks for Game Bytes Magazine. All rights reserved.