As much as we love movies
and high-quality television shows, when a star becomes popular, the outcome
isn’t always good. Sometimes the stars get too big for their own good (Ashton
Kutcher), and other times you just get sick of seeing them every time you turn
on the TV. Is there any way to deal with our frustration towards the rich and
infamous?
The mischievous folks at
MTV thought so. A few years ago they unveiled a claymation show that took all
of the over-publicized celebrities and threw them into the ring. Two would
enter but only one would leave. In some cases, when MTV was afraid of
"offending" someone, they’d kill both characters and ruin the whole thing. When
the battles were done right though, and only one clay fighter survived, the show
was quite enjoyable. It had a lot of subtle humor and some clever attack moves.
Like most outrageous
themes, this one begged to be turned into a game. PlayStation 2 wasn’t out when
the show was first conceived, so it wasn’t possible to make a claymation game
come to life at the time. (For proof of this assumption, check out the
over-hyped Clay Fighter 64.) Consoles have come a long way since then. Now it
seems as if there’s little a game developer can’t do.
With that in mind, Big
Ape Productions took on the task of developing the first Celebrity Deathmatch
game. As can be expected, this is a fighting game. It’s also a bit of a
wrestler, with throw and body-slam elements that you’d expect to see in a WWE
title.
The starting lineup
includes the clay representations of Celebrity Deathmatch’s most popular celebs:
Mr. T, Marilyn Manson, Busta Rhymes and Anna Nicole Smith. You’ve got the boys
of ‘NSYNC; the kooky comedian Carrot Top; the has-been rockstar Tommy Lee; and
Cindy Margolis, a woman who used to brag about being the most downloaded girl on
the Net. There are others, like Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman, as well as
some hidden "star." These were all taken from the show, which explains why you
don’t see some of today’s most annoying actors.
It has been so long since
MTV aired Celebrity Deathmatch that I honestly can’t remember any of the attack
moves the stars used. They were amusing, I remember that, as are the ones
featured in the game. Marilyn Manson has a Voldo-style move that’ll likely get
the attention of any Soul Calibur fan. Like every character in the game, Manson
has a small selection of kicks and punches, as well as a built-in homemade
weapon attack. Lance Bass uses to cymbals to flatten the head of any foe.
Other characters might use fruits, or a disgusting body fluid that probably
shouldn’t be mentioned.
Whether you love or
loathe the show does not matter because the game is not easy to enjoy. Each
character has virtually the exact same attack pattern. You don’t have to have
any skill, or any prior fighting game experience to play. That might sound
inviting, but that feeling won’t last. You can pound out an in-close pummel
combo just by repeatedly tapping the X button with every character. You can
perform a stun attack by pressing toward and X.
It’s fun for brief
intervals, and might make a half-decent party game for gore-loving
button-mashers. But in time the simple, juvenile gameplay will grow old. This
is the kind of stuff that teen and adult gamers picked up when they were kids.
Because this game is rated M, you can’t use the kid excuse here. Kids aren’t
supposed to be playing it. The target audience is adults, and adults are not
going want it.
Gameplay: 5
Let’s get ready
to button-mash! Technically there’s no need to — is it really that hard to
remember that X, X, X = a three-hit combo? I think every fighting game released
in the past decade has used that formula. The combos don’t get any more complex
than that, and the "special moves" take even less skill to perform. What is the
point in playing a fighting game that can be beaten by using the same two or
three moves over and over again? What is the point of playing such a game with
a friend when there’s no skill to build, no edge to gain? Repetition hasn’t
served any game well. It rarely encourages a gamer to play through the game a
second time.
This
one’s short – you could take it down in an hour or two. The create-a-player
mode is too basic to earn any long-term attention. It uses the same moves as
the other characters; the only difference is the aesthetics, which are merely
variations of the main characters.
Graphics: 6
Not quite clay,
not quite polygonal. These fighters look like a polygon model that’s been
grinded into mush and then re-shaped to look like a Hollywood celebrity. It’s
closer to clay than the freaky-looking sprites of Clay Fighters 64, but it’s far
from what could be achieved with today’s technology.
Sound: 7.7
Clear voice-overs
and moderately humorous commentary. The music is just bits and beats, and the
actor impersonations add little to the experience, but at least the sound is
true to the show.
Difficulty: Easy
Concept:
A PlaySkool
fighting game based on a show that’s geared at teens and adults.
Multiplayer: 5.9
For the really
bad, lazy gamers who hate the idea of building skill, Celebrity Deathmatch might
seem like a fun way to spend a weekend. The rest of us (the other 99%) will be
less than amused by the multiplayer experience.
Overall: 5.5
If you were
stranded on a desert island and could have either a container of Silly Putty or
a PlayStation 2, a monitor and Celebrity Deathmatch, you’d be better off
choosing the putty. Being stranded is hard enough – why make the situation
worse than it already is?
If there were more moves
(i.e., 10x the number of moves available), better fatalities and up-to-date
humor that related to the latest Hollywood stories, this game would have
rocked. But it turned out to be very basic, and feels very, very rushed. I
hate to refer to a game as being rushed, since I know the alternative is a
delay. But that’s the only thing that can explain the mistakes that occurred
with this title. Given more time it’s likely that they wouldn’t have happened.
(We hope.)
