Essential tips, strategies, and skips for Twisted Metal 3 speedruns

Here are a bunch of tips, strategies, and skips to help speedrunners for Twisted Metal 3.

Choosing a character:

There is nothing stopping you from choosing whichever character you want.  However, the most popular character for speedruns tends to be Thumper.  This is because his stats are generally high- his armor and speed are on the high end and his special not only does fantastic damage over time, but it has strong pushback utility, which is useful, or even critical, in situations that I will mention later.

If you choose an ally:

Allies are not mandatory, and as of now are accepted for speedruns.  When you choose an ally, the character you choose, much like the player-controlled character, will not appear as an enemy on your run.  This means that the ally you choose should be someone you don't want to fight against.  Warthog tends to be a popular ally choice for a few reasons.  First, high armor characters like Warthog take longer to whittle down to low health, so for a speedrun, it would save time if your enemies mostly had lower HP.  Second, Warthog's special homes and causes pushback, which can hurt your run by taking time to recover.  Third, of the four characters with high armor (Warthog, Auger, Sweet Tooth, and Minion), Auger and Sweet Tooth are seen as less of a threat to the player, as Auger's special requires that he be touching his opponent to work, Sweet Tooth's special is a straight shot that is easily avoided, and both are slightly slower than Warthog.  Minion is faster and more versatile, but choosing him does not effect the Minion boss fight in London, so the point is moot if your choice is based on removing an enemy from the run.

Do not choose pool lives.  Your ally will start with three lives, but even after three deaths, they will spawn with one life after you finish each stage.  Choosing pool lives causes the ally to use your lives after theirs run out, so if the ally dies often, which they usually do, you will be left with one life for the entire run.

----------
General tips:

Freeze missiles are your friend.  Manual aiming can be rough in this game, so freezing opponents frequently and laying down as many non-homing weapons as you can (with machine gun fire) is beneficial.  These use a lot of energy, so be sure not to waste them by firing when you don't have a clear shot at the opponent, especially since homing ability is weak in this installment.

Enemies have a tendency to actively seek health pickups, especially on Twisted Metal or Pure Lunacy difficulties.  Having to kill an enemy all over again when they restore their HP after being at low health can potentially add minutes to your final time.  Therefore, in speedruns, it is worthwhile to keep health pickups out of their hands by taking them for yourself, even when you don't need them.  You may lose a life if those health pickups are unavailable to you when you are later low on health, but unless you are not confident in your ability to survive, it's worth it.  Finishing with a low time is most important in a speedrun, especially when you are allotted two deaths in the run, so dying isn't necessarily the end.

Missiles and remote bombs are more valuable than aerial/lobbing weapons like napalms, rain, and mortars because they are more difficult to aim.  You may find they're more useful when used point blank, even if it hurts you.

Machine guns and ramming are weak in this installment.  If you are out of weapons, it's better to move and search for more ammo than to attempt to fight without them.  The only exception is when the opponent is low enough on health that a ram will kill them.

Only use turbo on straightaways and to put out fires.  The physics in TM3 make it easy to spin out, and turning while using turbo only makes spinning out easier.

Turn off the game's music when recording.  There have allegedly been issues where runs were taken down because of music copyright issues.  Supposedly it also helps load times, but I haven't confirmed this.

----------
Level tips:

Los Angeles: 
-The first level should not take more than 2 minutes.  If both your enemies on this stage are high armor or otherwise take a long time to kill, it may be worth it to restart the run. 
-There's lots of health in this level, so make sure the enemies don't take it.

Washington:
-Darkside generally spawns far away from you.  If you move to the capitol steps after killing your third opponent, Darkside will most likely spawn on the opposite corner of the stage near the warp, then immediately use the warp to pursue you at the capitol.  If you camp near the warp's dropoff point you can freeze and ambush Darkside early into the fight.

Hangar 18:
-It should go without saying that the proper way to run this level is to use the Spaceship lightning weapon as quickly as possible.  There are two ways to do this.  The easy way is to destroy the four switches, then, as quickly as possible (using turbo when appropriate), use the spaceship warp to the platforms, then use the platform warp to the ship's roof.  If you choose this way, be sure to equip your napalm and fire it if the UFO flies over your head, so you can take the extra special weapons it grants you when you destroy it.
-The other, harder way, without destroying the switches, is to line yourself up with the bottom floor ramp that faces the platform warp above, and use turbo and the jump command while you're against the wall to your left, which, if done correctly at the right angle, will allow you to reach the warp without opening the door to the spaceship warp.  This is very difficult and takes practice, but is favorable to destroying the switches as it prevents enemies from following you to the upper levels and avoiding the spaceship lightning.
-Once you are on the ship's roof, destroy the cockpit using an inventory weapon to save time, as it takes a lot of machine gun bullets to destroy.  Immediately switch your weapon to Spaceship and fire it, which should kill everyone on the bottom floor or leave one alive with low health, which is easy to pick off.  This is assuming, of course, that no enemies followed you through the spaceship warp to the upper level.

North Pole:
-Lightning is important here, grab it from the center platform as soon as possible, but try to lure at least one opponent onto the platform with you, or ensure some opponents are on the lower floor/inner ring.  Use turbo and the jump command to get to the outer ring from the platform, as the lightning effects the inner ring and center platform only.
-Avoid falling into the inner ring, as there are no weapon pickups down there.

London:
-Minion, like Darkside, tends to spawn far from you, but one of his possible spawn points is near the warp that drops off in front of Buckingham Palace.  When he spawns, your best bet (though not guaranteed), is to head to Buckingham Palace to try to ambush him.

Tokyo:
-Destroying the grating above the fan is useful to get instant kills if you can successfully push an opponent into it.  This is where Thumper's special comes in handy, as it's an easy way to aim and push an opponent where you want them.  Do not rely on this strategy, though, because it could cause you to waste time by idling and waiting for an opponent to come to the fan rooftop.  It's better to try it when there's already an opponent near the fan.
-The satellite weapon is useful, but make sure an opponent or ally hasn't already taken it before you waste time traveling along the ramps to get to it.  Also, make sure that the satellite dish is pointing toward an enemy when you fire, as it can hit you or your ally.
-Pushing opponents off the roof will not kill them like it does in other games.  Instead, it does lava damage while they look for a warp to the rooftops.  The lava does little damage- it takes about 45 seconds to kill Mr. Grimm, and longer for other characters, but heading to the warp takes about 5 seconds.  Generally it's not worth knocking an opponent into the lava for the sake of damage, as it only means they will use a warp to escape from you before taking substantial damage, and chasing them into the lava may only cause you to lose track of them.
-The full health pickup is obvious on this stage.  It might be worth taking away early on.

Egypt:
-The best way to use the lightning in the tomb is to use the warp under the pyramid when you're fighting with at least one opponent in or near the pyramid's entrance.  The opponent will likely chase you through the warp, allowing you to turbo to the tomb's exit and hit them with the lightning before they reach you.  Laying a remote bomb or eye weapon just outside the tomb's exit is a good strategy for when they inevitably try to leave, but be sure they're following you when you lay it down or you'll be stuck waiting for them.
-This stage also has an obvious full health pickup that's worth stealing early on.

Blimp:
-Normally you will need to destroy four switches on the lower level before destroying the main switch on the upper level to stop the regeneration.  However, there is an exploitable glitch skip here that saves a lot of time.  If you ram the main switch head on, there is a small window of time where the grill of your car will be on the other side of the shield, allowing you to fire a high damage weapon and destroy the switch at the exact moment of your ram's impact.  It's much easier if you're using Thumper, because his special does continuous damage over 1 second, so activating the special just before ramming the switch will allow you to destroy it without having to time firing a weapon.  This doesn't seem to work with Firestarter, though, possibly due to his lower damage output.
-Make it a point to use the lightning early on, before the opponents move to the lower level.
-Primeval is not worth fighting unless you are stocked with weapons and energy for freezes and are very confident.  Instead, head to the bottom floor near the pitfall opening and wait for Primeval to chase you.  Hide around the corner so he doesn't hit you from afar when he comes down the stairs, then freeze him when he approaches you near the pitfall.  If you're at a good angle, you can ram him into the pit for an instant kill, or even easier yet, use Thumper's special to knock him in.  I've also seen this done with strategically placed remote bombs that knock him into the pit as well.

Full Guide Part I: 2025 General Tip & Tricks

Twisted Metal III

**Part I: General Tips and Tricks, Level Strategies, & Info On Specific Characters for Tournament Category**

In the Settings menu on the title screen, switch the following options to ON

- Dithered Display > YES

- In-Game Menu > YES

- Skip Display Frames > YES

For more info on what these menu options do, please visit my article entitled **"A Guide to Legal Timesave Settings, Elaboration on Acceptable Duck Settings, and Load Time Variable Chart."**

**General tips and tricks:**

- Enemies that are running away are most likely seeking health, bear this in mind when chasing enemies. Enemies know when health spawns even when across the map, and will dart immediately for it when given the chance. 

- Freeze missiles are your friend. From your beginning spawn, you should be able to get most low armor characters down to death or low health with your starting inventory + 2 freeze missiles. Your energy respawns fast enough that a 3rd is usually doable within about 5-10 seconds of this barrage if needed. 

- Enemies CAN read your inputs, and will react to them instantly. For example, enemy AI will often use the jump command when you press the freeze command. You can trick the enemy using this knowledge by faking commands.

- The rear fire command (And all D-pad commands for that matter) do NOT have any cooldown. They will work as fast as you can enter them. Keep in mind that your opponents can do this too. So be wary when cornering opponents facing away from you (especially Mr Grimm for some reason)

- Lightning damage from any pickup (this includes the UFO on Hangar 18 and Outlaws special) will stack. Rear firing lightning will do more damage and faster the more you fire it. This is helpful in any category but most evident in All Cheats.

- Napalms/Mortars: These can be some of the most powerful weapons in the game if you fire them point blank into your opponent. If you're a taller vehicle like Minion, Sweet Tooth or Warthog, try this from the side rather than the front or back to avoid the projectile from flying over your opponents head.

- Remote Ramming: There is a strange behavior in the AI that when you and a CPU opponent are driving towards each other, they will match your turbo inputs (this is consistent). Use this to your advantage by turboing head on into your opponent, then as you are about to collide, place a remote bomb directly on top of your opponent. You will deal a bit of ram damage and score a direct hit with a remote bomb. If you are playing as Minion, this can often bring 1 Armor characters to about 55% health in one shot if done correctly.

- Rain Missiles: Useless on their own. However, in maps such as London, Egypt, or Blimp where there are tight hallways, use Rain Missiles to keep opponents taking damage as they chase you, the damage adds up and your opponents will often set each other on fire in the process of just driving around. 

- Jromping: This is a tactic where remote bombs can be used to boost your jump higher than it normally could go. This strat is most helpful on Tokyo, where a well-placed Remote can instantly boost you to obtaining the Radar pickup, this strat is known as the "Goondar Jromp" (Going up the ramps prompts your opponents to follow you, meaning they will be farther away from the satellite). It can also be used on Hangar 18 to make the UFO Jump easier if the CPU places one. 

- The Club Kid Assist: Club Kid as an enemy is both a blessing and a curse. You can occasionally goad him into using his special to your advantage. This is rare though and should not be relied on, feel grateful when Club Kid blesses you with an assist. 

- Luring: Generally speaking, you can lure enemies into going where you want to go. How this is done is usually by using the radar to go to points on the map where the most enemies will see you, sometimes I like to guess the point in the middle of all enemies and be closest to that point, as it increases your chances of an enemy spotting you, or by using health spawns to your advantage. Enemies tend to have places they like to go, especially on London with the Green Area and the hallway by the turbo and health, and on Blimp with the red Room that houses the final laser. 


-Another tip with luring: for as much as you can, fire your machine guns. Enemies react to being shot at, even if it's a single machine gun bullet, given your machine guns have no cooldown, it is optimal to keep firing them as much as humanly possible

**Game-Wide Skips & Level Tips:**

- UFO Jump: Find the platform above you that has the portal that takes you to the center of the UFO and line yourself up with the ramp in front of it at about a 35 degree angle. As you hit the small ramp, use the jump command quickly to boost yourself up onto the wall. If you do this correctly, your car will tilt just enough to pick up speed sideways off the wall and propel you to the portal platform.

- North Pole Luring: As soon as you spawn, make your way over to the center platform where Santa's Villa is. Destroy everything as quickly as possible and pickup everything you can. The CPU will follow you to the center relatively quickly. once you feel you have lured enough enemies. Turbo and jump off the sides (Rather than taking the ramp back up) and rear fire your lightning pickup twice. This is an easy heavy damage to deal right off the bat, and can occasionally kill low level characters if you're lucky.

- London: The enemies aggressiveness is increased for the first time in this level. use this to your advantage by either luring enemies into narrow hallways (where the two healths that are not in the green area are are great for this) to trap them, cause in-fighting, and use the Rain missile tactic mentioned earlier. 

- Minion: Bosses uniquely will spawn in specific places depending on where you are on the map. With Minion, go to Buckingham Palace (where the destructible gate is) when the "Prepare to Battle Minion" screen appears. If you do this in time, Minion will always spawn next to the portal that will teleport him directly to you.Use this to your advantage. If you can reliably do this, then he will go through the portal almost the second Calypso says "my old buddy Minion" in his speech.

- Tokyo: Use the Goondar Jromp skip to obtain the radar and try to lure enemies together to do maximum damage with the Radar. once the first wave of enemies clears, lure both remaining enemies near to the radar and turbo jump across the lava to where the Death Fan is and place your car on the side most far away form the radar with a Power missile equipped. the CPU will inevitably drive over the grate and you can score a free kill this way. If you somehow have a remaining radar shot here, you can also use the Radar to knock opponents into the fan (it's not as hard as it sounds).

- Egypt: The Eye pickup is best used while inside the pyramid in order to funnel enemies easier. During the 2nd wave of enemies, use the secret passage within the pyramid to teleport into the tomb with the lightning pickup. If you have mastered Luring then all enemies should teleport into this room quickly, but it's not guaranteed. Once they all have teleported into the room, double rear fire the lightning, this should kill most enemies. 

- Blimp: To knock the main laser out immediately, equip the power missile that is on the right top side of the top floor of Blimp, then turbo at at least 135 mph directly into the laser, as you hit it, there is a brief moment where your car will clip through the laser and you will be able to take it out without hitting the other 4. Once you do this, immediately turn around and hop into the "This Section Is Closed" hallway, destroying the walls and obtaining the lightning. Lure your enemies into the center of the map and use the lightning, this will give you a big boost in taking them all out quickly.

- Primeval: Sit on the corner of the Death Pool closest to the portal, equipped with a remote bomb. The second Primeval turns the corner, fire a freeze missile and place a remote bombto his left (not too close!), this should reliably knock him into the Death Pool.

**Viable Vehicles:**

- As of this article, these are the most viable cars known for each category, cars not listed are not necessarily unplayable, but are generally not considered ideal for speedrunning tactics.

Tournament: Club Kid, Thumper, Warthog, Outlaw, Sweet Tooth

Tournament (Boss Cars): Minion

All Cheats: Club Kid, Outlaw

All Cheats (Boss Cars): Minion

**Character Specific Strategies:**

- Club Kid: His special is absolutely broken. Lure enemies into corners or tight spaces (his special can throw opponents easily if out in the open), then rear fire Napalms or Mortars for maximum damage (this strat also applies for All Cheats). Club Kid has abysmal health, so be careful not to get too greedy with damage. 

- Thumper: Thumpers special does more damage the longer the soundwaves are in contact with a vehicle, so it's ideal to keep enemies at slightly farther than point blank distance. Rear firing Thumpers special does not change where it comes out, so you can rapid fire his special forward if you have them stocked. Thumper is well armored and fast enough to be reasonably aggressive when you need to be

- Minion: play more aggressive than you think you need to. Smash yourself into vehicles head on or from the side for bonus damage and to control your opponents movement better. With starting inventory, you can kill most enemies with that + your 2 freeze missiles. Use Remote Ramming with low armor vehicles for massive damage. Minion has a ton of health and can really take a beating, so don't be afraid to take a hit in order to deal damage with him.

Full Level Password Guide 

Fellow moderator InSAMity and myself have compiled the entire list of level passwords from Twisted Metal III. They are separated by difficulty at this link

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zHS7MeUdYwoyDgo-DUoVHI1a8mEGrd-oz277aAPUNuM/edit?usp=drive_link


Notable Secret items/areas

For the speed run, there are a few special/hidden items that can help speed up the run quite a bit.

DC: Shoot the statues/fountain looking things. If you are facing the capitol building, the one on the right has a full health, and the one on the left has the remote (the bombs you can set).

Hanger 18: Go around and shoot all of the rectangles that are in each pocket. They have a red bar that is moving up and down. This will open access to the UFO. Go through the portal. Do you see that ufo flying around super quick? Blow that up. You will automatically get 8 specials no matter what. Go down the path that has the homing and turn left to go through a portal. Blow up the lid to the ufo you teleport on, and you will get an item that does tons of lightning damage to everyone on the ground. There is also a room hidden in section 002. You blow up the wall with a crack in it. It teleports you to a room with items in it. So far, this is useless for the speed run though.

Northpole: blow up santa's village and grab the lightning. One of the other houses has a full health and another has a homing. Various houses and igloos and trees and such can be blown up throughout the map to pick up different weapons.

London: London has a secret area or two with weapons in them. Nothing special and the secrets are not really needed for the run.

Tokyo: You can blow up the giant fan where the remotes hover over. This is an insta kill if anyone falls in. I've used it before to get a quick kill, but you have to be careful not to kill yourself, and it is easy to mess it up and not actually kill an opponent. If you take all of the ramps, you will end up on a ramp facing the billboard. Floating in front of you will be a satellite weapon. It triggers the satellite to shoot whoever the satellite is locked on to. NOTE this can be your ally.

Egypt. blow up the door to the pyramid to grab lightning (that hurts anyone in the pyramid), a homing, and a fire. The opposite of the map has a weird block in front of the pyramid. Blow up this block to gain access where there is a napalm and a homing. Blow up the statue in between and take the teleporter to grab an item that works exactly like a remote. The difference is that it sends a beam of fury to wherever the remote is planted.

Blimp: obviously, the lightning in the room with the teleporter. You should know how to get here because you cannot beat this level without this knowledge. The room with the giant boxes is what I want to focus on. These boxes all contain weapons excluding one that has a health pickup. I blow up a few of these boxes when I do runs because you really need to stock up to kill all of the enemies and primeval.

Unlock Minion/Sweet Tooth and How to shoot a freeze missle, jump, shoot behind you, and trigger inivisbility

Go to the password screen via the main menu. Input these using the d-pad:

Minion: Right Right Right Left Left
Sweet Tooth: Left Left Left Right Right


These are not cheat codes. These are for use while in-game. These are inputs you make on the d-pad that utilize your energy (the purple bar on your HUD). The three I use very frequently are:

Freeze Missile: left, right, up
High Jump:  up, up, left
Rear Fire:  left, right, down

You can also use this one, but, so far, it is useless for speedruns:
Invisibility:  up, down, left, right

bigboss

Dolphinchucks

Xencryptous

Twisted Metal III

London

Tokyo

PlayStation 4

PlayStation 5

AgentMurks

MajinOwo

Auger

Axel

Club Kid

Firestarter

Flower Power

Minion

Mr. Grimm

Hammerhead

Outlaw

Roadkill

Spectre

Sweet Tooth

Thumper

Warthog

Cream Puff

Twisted Metal

Pure Lunacy

Ally

No Ally

Darkside

Primeval

Co-Op

Character

Difficulties

Players

PlayStation 2

PlayStation

PlayStation 3

PlayStation 4 Pro

PlayStation 5 Pro

A Guide to Legal Timesave Settings, Elaboration on Acceptable Duck Settings, and Load Time Variable Chart.

Name	Autor
Essential tips, strategies, and skips for Twisted Metal 3 speedruns	Dolphinchucks 6 years ago
Full Guide Part I: 2025 General Tip & Tricks	Xencryptous 11 months ago
Full Level Password Guide	Xencryptous 3 months ago
Notable Secret items/areas	bigboss 9 years ago
Unlock Minion/Sweet Tooth and How to shoot a freeze missle, jump, shoot behind you, and trigger inivisbility	bigboss 9 years ago