Celebrity Deathmatch is a MTV cult classic claymation series that was spawned out of some whacked mind to fill in time between Superbowl halves back in 1998. Its premise is quite simple – celebrities are dangerous bloodthirsty beasts despite the waves and smiles. They harbour deep hatred of their fans, but more so for other celebrities. Celebrity Deathmatch allows them to fight it out to the death. Its premier episode featured pop groups Hanson fighting it out with the Spice Girls, personalities Kathy Lee Giford against Howard Stern, and drag queen Ru Paul duelling with the plastic fantastic Pamela Lee Anderson. The series is full of witty one-liners and topical jokes. Episodes feature fights between such people as Marilyn Manson and Charles Manson, to Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, but it has never really taken off in Australia, having only been shown on Pay TV. Part of it’s appeal was that American “parent groups” complained that it was too violent and unsuitable for children, as parent groups are want to do, and this of course helped its popularity no end.

Now, we lucky folk get to take it home and play it on Xbox. Play as your favourite celebrity and kill the ones you despise in all manner of violent yet humorous ways. The possibilities of this game combined with the abilities of the Xbox could have seen this be a great game – fight online via Xbox Live, have a cool ranking system, download new characters and arenas… things Xbox owners have come to expect from games. Yet all these possibilities have been avoided. Instead, its as if the developers got as bored making this game as I did playing it, and we end up with a plain old PS2 port of a very bad fighting / wrestling game.

There’s only two modes to choose from, Episode and Deathmatch. Episode sees you fighting through 3 matches, and once the matches are won, there are more celebrities, arenas, and episodes unlocked. Each match has you playing as a different person. In episode one for example, there is Anna Nicole Vs Busta Rhymes, Ron Jeremy Vs Cindy Margolis, and Marilyn Manson Vs Carrot Top, and for each match you can choose who will you be. Annoyingly, an episode is completed, you go right back to the title screen, and then have to choose Episode again to play the next episode. Deathmatch mode is simply one on one, either against computer or another player. There’s also “Create a celebrity”, which is fun for about 2 minutes, making it nearly twice as much fun as the game itself. In this section there are 8 templates (4 male, 4 female) to choose from, with 2 different types of attack modes, and make up your very own celebrity. Wow.

To be fair, there are a wide range of celebrities and arenas to choose from and unlock in the game. But the controls are so basic that it can be completed in a few hours just by simply pressing the Attack (A) button. No matter what character you play, no matter what moves they can do, smashing the A button will see you win the match. There’s an attack, alternative attack, special move, and grapple available to all characters, but there are no special combos or anything more complex to the fighting than pointing in the direction of the opponent and hitting a button. The gimmicky character animations are funny when viewed once or twice, as are the remarks and insults they throw, but they grow thin very, very quickly. The TV series may have got a wry smile out of older people, but the game has totally missed it’s market, with a humour that may make an immature 12-year-old boy giggle, yet this game is rated 15+ because of the “animated violence”.

The celebrities sound similar to their real life counterparts, much like the TV show, but that’s about as good as the sound gets. There are some atmospheric sounds for the arenas, for example Spooky ‘woooos’ for the Graveyard Arena –so lame it’s really not worth mentioning. The graphics are as good as can be expected from a PS2 port; they suffice, but barely. The characters don’t even look like they’re clay. The arena are nothing special either; simple squares, some which go as far as spikes or vents that spew fire, but that’s about it. No mutli-level, destructible environments; you can’t even climb the ropes and jump off them!

[Final Thoughts]

The concept of this game isn’t flawed, the execution is. The fact that it plays as a straight PS2 port is the first in a great number of disappointments. The fact that it is only two player multiplayer, not being able to system link or play online, not having good graphics or sound, all ignore the great advantages of the Xbox. Even so, the game is so simple to play, taking absolutely no skill at all, and the options so limited, that it seems like a wasted effort all around.

Pros:

+ Can beat up your least favourite celebrity
+ Fans of the show might like it

Cons:

+ much too simplistic gameplay
+ very few options
+ very immature humour
+ plays like a straight PS2 port

Score: 35/100