Celebrity Deathmatch

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.)