Twisted Metal 2 (1996)
SingleTrac and David Jaffe's PlayStation Vehicular-Combat Masterpiece of Destructible Global Landmarks
Twisted Metal 2 (released in Europe as Twisted Metal: World Tour) is a landmark vehicular-combat game developed by SingleTrac under David Jaffe and Scott Campbell and published by Sony Computer Entertainment on October 31, 1996, for the PlayStation. Unleashing Sweet Tooth, Axel, and Mr. Grimm across destructible international arenas—including toppling the Eiffel Tower—it perfected 32-bit split-screen car combat.
Calypso's Monkey's Paw Tournament, Sweet Tooth, and D-Pad Energy Specials
Expanding boldly beyond the Los Angeles freeways of its 1995 debut, Salt Lake City studio SingleTrac transformed Twisted Metal 2 into an anarchic globe-trotting demolition derby hosted on Christmas Eve by scarred wish-granter Calypso. Rendered through darkly comic pulp-art endings, Calypso famously twisted victors' desires with Faustian irony. Fourteen deranged combatants—headlined by flaming-haired clown Needles Kane's ice-cream truck Sweet Tooth, human-wheeled contraption Axel, skeletal biker Mr. Grimm, Outlaw 2, and unlockable demon tank Minion—traded Homing and Power Missiles alongside fighting-game-inspired D-pad energy inputs for freeze blasts, shields, mines, and cloak.
Blowing Up the Eiffel Tower onto Paris Rooftops and Split-Screen Legacy
Designers David Jaffe and Scott Campbell elevated arena combat through dynamic environmental destruction across eight international battlegrounds: calving icebergs in Antarctica, lava bridges in Amazonia, vertigo-inducing New York skyscraper roofs, and—most unforgettably—Paris, where detonating a Remote Bomb beneath the Eiffel Tower toppled the monument into a playable ramp spanning cathedral and museum rooftops (after torching the Mona Lisa inside the Louvre). Driven by razor-responsive arcade handling, heavy guitar riffs, and frantic two-player split-screen duels, Twisted Metal 2 sold nearly two million copies on PlayStation and remains the definitive benchmark of vehicular combat.