Car combat officially returns in February.

Back then, the wild success of the Twisted Metal franchise prompted the release of a slew of copy-cat titles on Sony's system. But in the years since, the genre's prominence has waned — almost to the point of irrelevance in the present day.

Sony hopes to change that next month, with the return of Twisted Metal. Eat Sleep Play's franchise reboot is due out on Valentine's Day in North America, and we couldn't be more excited for the return of the stylish series.

But if Valentine's Day is still too far away, Version 2 Games has announced that its readying the game's support act. Smash 'N' Survive is due out in early February on the PlayStation Network, and it represents India's first ever global PlayStation 3 release.

The solid sounding car combat downloadable will sport "30 brutal concept cars, including muscle, agile, monster, buggy and SUV vehicles". Players will compete in "10 fully destructible maps, in eight action packed gameplay competitions, including vehicle melee combat, demolition derby, group derby, plant the bomb, protect the convoy, chase and checkpoint challenge".

Smash 'n' Survive will boast a full single-player campaign, in addition to robust local and online multiplayer modes. Interestingly, each vehicle will sport customisation options, allowing you to attach new weapons to your ride as you progress.

“Smash ‘N’ Survive has been developed exclusively for the PlayStation Network, and is an action packed intuitive pick-up-and-play brutal vehicle brawler, that with endless hours of single and multiplayer madness offers fantastic value," said Version 2 Games' Rajat Ojha. “We are proud to be the team behind India’s debut PlayStation 3 release and look forward to establishing a dedicated community and expanding the Smash ‘N’ Survive universe post-launch with future downloadable content.

"Smash ‘N’ Survive offers ideas that are not usually seen in games of this genre especially in the premise you don’t need to chase and surpass the vehicles but you have to smash and 'kill' cars, whilst the group Demolition Derby and planting a bomb are also being tried for the first time. Each of the many locations offers a new challenge and objective - the territory control is where players will play dominance play by capturing the territories or assisting their friends to capture the territory, you can also try to reclaim your territory. Plant the bomb is about getting to a certain destination or conversely finding and defusing a bomb that you must find."

Version 2 Games has yet to announce a price for Smash 'N' Survive, but we're guessing it'll be reasonable. With Twisted Metal right around the corner, we're a little concerned about Smash 'N' Survive's long-term community appeal, but, if nothing else, it should definitely make for an appealing warm-up to Eat Sleep Play's impending reboot.