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The Lowdown
Pros: Simulated claymation, value priced
Cons: Stupid jokes, limited moves, awful "design a character" feature
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MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch featured some of the funniest celebrity bashing
mixed with wanton violence and claymation. Sadly, the show went off the air
a number of years ago. This game was mentioned during the last days of
show production and finally, two years later it comes out.
Celebrity Deathmatch suffers the same fate that most licensed games
suffer. Developers rely too much on the license and don't spend enough
time on making solid gameplay. When you start the game you have can
either play in pre assigned matches which are part of an "episode" or
you can go for free play where you select your opponent. The main
difference between free play and beating episodes is that beating
episodes inevitably unlocks more characters. The original characters
that you can select include: Mr. T, Marilyn Manson, Carrot Top, Carmen
Electra, Ron Jeremy, Busta Rhymes and all of the members of N-Sync.
Sadly, the unlocked characters don't add any more celebrities, but do
add some classic characters.
Each character has a limited selection of moves, which include punches,
kicks, special moves, a throw and one super move. The moves don't combo
of one another. Which gives the characters have a rigid feel to them.
Each character has a very limited selection of moves so you'll see the
same punch or kick over and over again. All of the moves have some comic
value to them, with similar humor to the show. Jerry Springer can attack
with a chair and call the audience to thrown stuff at his opponent. Ron
Jeremy attacks with a chicken and a giant banana. Carrot Top throws
carrots and punches a character and shouts "I'll show you how to dial
collect!" Jokes like that are funny for the first time, but seeing the
same jokes and hearing the same comments gets repetitive fast. What
makes matters worse is the few number of moves each character has, which
means a lot of redundancy.
The gameplay is similar to the show your job is to beat the stuffing out
of your opponent. You move around the ring attacking your enemy. As you
attack the "M" fills up, which is your super meter. When your super
meter is full you can unleash your super attack, which for most
characters is a full screen attack. Once your opponents life is low you
can kill your enemy to end the battle. Each character only has one
fatality. At least having another option would have added variety since
you are required to sit through the death sequence to end the fight.
Some of the fatalities are pretty funny. For instance Dennis Rodman's
fatality involves him dribbling the head of his victim and Cindy
Margolis' fatality has her program her enemy into a pong video game. One
of the best features of the show was the fatalities and while they have
the same humor as the show, we only wish there was more of them.
This game would have a lot of redeeming value if you could create whatever
celebrity you dreamed of. They make the create a celebrity mode sound
very appealing, but it's not even worth having in the game. You can
choose from a limited number of premade features and outfits for your
character. You can't actually make a new face or new outfits. There's
only a few choices too, so its like having an extra ten pre made
characters. The worse part about the create a celebrity mode is that
there are only two fighting styles for whatever character you create.
You either go barehanded or punch with boxing gloves. This means you
only really have two new characters, since no matter what your character
looks like they fight the same. What this boils down to, is you have the
option to slightly customize the look of two new characters.
Graphically, the game is mediocre. Yes, the characters look like they're
animated in claymation and they even look like who they are supposed to
be. However, with all of the graphical technology now, the graphics look
like a Playstation one or Sega Saturn game. The animation compares to
Clay Fighter: Tournament Edition that was released in the days of the
Super Nintendo. The dated look is only amplified by the lack of
backgrounds and lack of animations that each character has. The sound
effects suffer the same repetition as the graphics. All of the characters
have sound bytes and jokes that they say. Some of them are funny, most
of them aren't. Hearing the same bad jokes again and again just take
more away from the game. The music in the game is almost non existent.
There is white noise in between battles, which gives players a big yawn.
The main redeeming factor for Celebrity Deathmatch is its price, which is
$20. If this game was anymore than $20 the score would be even lower.
Since the game does provide some laughs and is fun when a friend is over
$20 isn't too bad for the game. If you're a fan of the show you
may want to pick it up, otherwise save your cash for a better game.
Console Comparison
The PC version is going to be the bottom of the barrel for this game
since the controls aren't nearly as fluid as the Xbox or the Playstation
2 version. Unless you don't have a console, you shouldn't get it for the
PC. Graphically, they all look similar. This game isn't pushing any
graphical bounds so it doesn't make as much of a difference.
Import Friendly?
This game is currently in stores. There seems little reason why anyone
would want to import this game. If you wanted to and could not read
English you should be able to figure out how to play the game really
quickly by button mashing. You would miss out on all of the humor, which
may be a good thing.
US Bound?
It's out now and coming out for the Playstation One very soon.
Overall
The game's $20, which isn't too bad, but you'd most likely be better
off saving your money to put it towards a better game.
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