The Freaks of Twisted Metal Black: Mr. Grimm

Previously on The Freaks of Twisted Metal: Black, we met the mutilated boxer known as No-Face.  In continuing with our coverage of all the psychos in Twisted Metal: Black, today let's take a look at one of the most well-known characters in the series: Mr. Grimm.

Mr. Grimm is one of the few characters who makes an appearance in every Twisted Metal game.  This scythe-wielding bad-ass always rides a motorcycle into battle (with the exception of the sub-par Twisted Metal 4), and is usually introduced to us as the one and only Grim Reaper.  His storyline is pretty consistent throughout most of the games; he enters the contest in order to consume as many souls as possible.

In Twisted Metal: Black, the developers abandoned Mr. Grimm's supernatural aspects in favor of a more realistic representation.  In this game, Mr. Grimm is a regular human being; a Vietnam War veteran to be exact.  At the beginning of the game he is being contained in the asylum because of an extreme case of post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as another mental issue that we'll get to in a moment.

It turns out that back in the war, Mr. Grimm (we are never told what his real name is) and his best friend Benny were captured and locked in a cave after witnessing their whole squad get annihilated.  This resulted in Benny dying in the cave, while Mr. Grimm had to result to cannibalizing Benny's corpse in order to survive.  Going insane from this experience, Mr. Grimm makes himself a helmet out of Benny's skull, giving him an appearance more familiar to Twisted Metal fans.

As the game goes on, we learn that Mr. Grimm has developed a taste for human flesh, making him a consumer of humans rather than the consumer of human souls.  This definitely makes him one of the most disgusting characters in Twisted Metal: Black.  What did you guys think of this incarnation of Mr. Grimm?  Did you prefer him as the Grim Reaper?

Twisted Metal on PS3, Sweet Tooth Rides Again

Whoa long time no update!  Hope everyone is having great gaming sessions, lots of good stuff out there now (or almost ready to be released), such as Resident Evil Revelations, the new SSX, and the Playstation Vita.  I've been playing the demo for the new Twisted Metal, and it has been awesome.

It's good to see they kept the same Sweet Tooth design from Twisted Metal Black

This new member of the series includes a few changes, such as the addition of "factions" (e.g. the Clowns faction where everyone dresses up like Sweet Tooth and tries desperately to be as evil and demented).  This means you are no longer going solo as any of the characters, you always have some like-minded freak buddies backing you up.  One thing that kind of bothers me is that you can put any character into any of the available vehicles, so if you always wanted to have Sweet Tooth ride Mr. Grimm's motorcycle, this game's for you (but I still believe that he should stick with his iconic ice cream truck).

One really interesting new feature is the helicopter vehicle, which allows you to soar high above your opponents, raining down a world of hurt with missiles and the mounted gun (which you can fire from a first person view).  Who knows what this is going to do for multiplayer balance, are cheating bastards going to hang out high in the sky waiting for everyone else to kill each other?

Other than that this is classic Twisted Metal, with the usual power-ups, destructible environments, and control scheme, but with slightly improved vehicle handling.  If you're a fan, there's no excuse for not taking the demo for a spin!