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Techtite's Playstation-2 Reviews! |
"The cartoon-like series on MTV is one thing; this M-for-Mature game, with more real-yet-crappy graphics, is something else." ---from the review ------------------ Sidebar:: ----------------- "No sidebar comments for this game" Yet...
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Celebrity Deathmatch
Click picture to order this game. A Techtite Review
...so pleads the opening screen of Celebrity Deathmatch, to any would-be lawyers that might be playing. This is a weird prelude to a weird game experience, since to be honest, the whole core of this game is its characters resembling various B grade celebrities. However; no harm done. It's only a worry to said celebrities if enough people play this game. I doubt that will be of any problem to them, because frankly, this game could've been far better made.
If only they could have made the characters as cool as the series. See; there's something darkly humorous about claymation characters fighting, hence the popularity of the TV series. Maybe it's so many years of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on CBS that the sight of clay- animation characters duking it out is funny in itself? Either way, these aren't clay puppets fighting, but standard polygon game characters. This is bad on two levels. One; they aren't even well made polygon characters, compared to Tekken 4, Soul Calibur 2, or Dead or Alive 3, among many others. Second, seeing polygons fight polygons isn't as "funny" as claymation characters fighting. In the end, this is just another fighting game...and not a very good one at that.
The best way to understand why the TV show succeeds and the game fails is in a simple comparison: Home Alone 1 and 2. In Home Alone 1, a very young kid named Kevin gets back at the bad guys with various childish pranks. Even when the bad guys get set on fire, it's funny because it's done in a childish, cartoon-like, comical way. Then the sequel came around and suddenly, Kevin was a young man. It didn't seem half as funny that a prepubescent Kevin was pulling even meaner pranks on the burglars. The age level was bumped, and in the process, so was the funny; "bumped" right out the movie. The same can be said of Celebrity Deathmatch: the series, compared to the game. In the series everything's much more juvenile, almost like a cartoon. In this game; everything is "Rated M for Mature," and in the process, everything seems a bit too serious-minded for its own good. It often even seems a bit too below the belt. It doesn't seem half as funny when "Carmen Electra" goes after Carrot Top with a chainsaw and lets the blood splatter far and wide. Seriously; it ain't funny, kids. Something is seriously lost in the translation here. In the end, there really isn't any reason to play this game. Even if Carmen Electra sawing Carrot Top into pieces appeals to you, this game will not. It just isn't worth it. What's even worse; the game doesn't even bother to have "bonus characters" who are real celebrities. Oh goody; if I play the game through to the end I can play as Wolfman, The Mummy, and an alien. Seems like somebody chickened out of the whole "celebrity" thing a little early. Unfortunately, they should've backed out of making this game even earlier than that.
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Impact
The
concept is simple: a pair of "look-alikes" to various celebrities duke it
out, just like their claymation versions do in the MTV series of the same
name.
There's Anna Nicole Smith, Busta Rhymes, Ron Jeremy,
Cindy Margolis, Marilyn Manson, Carrot Top, Dennis Rodman, N'Sync's Joey Fatone,
Mr. T., Carrot Top, Tommy Lee, Jerry Springer, and Carmen Electra. I'll
leave the "no comment" box checked when asked if any of these
people count as a Celebrity Deathmatch. Let's just move on...
Fans
of the series should have enough fun to warrant a rental price. "Deathmatch
Hosts" Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond introduce and conclude each
fight, and what's even more amusing, they even offer comments appropriate
to each fight during the actual "deathmatch." This is one of
many aspects of the game just like the series. Cool.
Sure,
each character has a fair share of amusing animations all their own, which
if you're into Carrot Top or Anna Nicole, is worth the rental price to
check out. Carrot Top has attacks that range from "punching"
1-800-CALLECT (yes, I misspelled it; I don't want to get sued!), to
attacking them with his toy horse (huh?), to even a killer carrot (my; how
much thought went into Carrot Top having a killer carrot, eh?). Other
celebrities are similar in their "special moves that make no
sense," like Carmen Electra's dance of death, Mr. T dropping a whole
van onto his opponent, and Anna Nicole calling her "killer dog"
to attack you (which makes sense if you watch her show, but...not really).