I think maybe Jaffe might be going the wrong way in terms of health/damage in Twisted Metal. I remember him saying that games now a days lost the chase, where a battle between 2 people could take minutes to resolve instead of respawning, and dieing a few seconds later like other games. (not exact quote, but what I got from him)
I think that the gaming audience has changed though. They want twitch, respawn instantly, and kill dudes in a few hits. Halo still goes by the old way to a degree, and Halo Reach sold a lot, but Call of Duty has become much more popular because of the quickness of battle.
Take me for example. I DESPISED Halo online because of the fact that it took way too many bullets to take someone down. I would be shooting and shooting and the guy would run away and regen, or someone would come along and take the kill away from me. It pissed me off so much, that I completely ignored Halo 3, Odst, and a good portion of Reach. I went into the COD franchise, and I loved it because I could take down a guy with just a few bullets.
Another example is Uncharted 2 online. Same thing happened. A lot of players are bullet sponges, and I would get annoyed that some guy I was pounding bullets into was not going down. I think Naughty Dog had a little test and lowered health didn't they?
Anyways, my point is that I'm not sure I agree with Jaffe about having long battles between 2 players. There is a community that prefers the old style, for sure. But I think the new generation prefers quick, fast battles, and for them, it's going to be hard to latch onto Twisted Metal and it's these people that are going to buy the games.
That being said, I haven't played the game at all, and don't have much exposure to it besides some videos here and there, so I can't really say with certainty about the health and damage ratio.However, I hope Jaffe has great success with the game. He's making the game he wants which is great, I'm just giving my 2 cents.