When all a game's got going for it is a gimmick, it had better take advantage of it to the fullest. Celebrity Deathmatch not only is a miserable game, it's a short one, and one that fails to capitalize on its unique premise.
MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch was a show who's time had come – fantasy battles between clay figures of (mostly) obnoxious celebrities, resulting in one or more of them meeting an untimely (and often hilarious) death. The game comes at a time when the show is not nearly as popular as some of MTV's other corporate-concocted tripe, which leaves it with a lack of fresh material to work with.
Celebrity Deathmatch's fighting system is that there is none – you hit the buttons until you win. It can get strangely addicting, hitting those buttons and watching the celebs you loathe react on screen, but there is never any doubt in your mind that this game absolutely fails as a fighting game, party game, or any other kind of game.
Without any kind of compelling gameplay, Celebrity Deathmatch's gimmick fails horribly as well – the roster of celebrities is both horribly lacking and outdated. Busta Rhymes? Marylin Manson? Carmen Electra? N-Sync? We still care about these people? Where's Britney? Where's Avril? I'd kick down 20 bucks for the privilege to make Avril Lavigne bleed like a pig. What about these Survivor morons, or any of those obnoxious 15-minute stars from reality TV shows? If you're going to make a game in 2003, it's a bad idea to feature a roster of celebrities that were big in 1993. In the developer's defense, you do get the opportunity to beat down Carrot Top. That's got to be worth something. Likewise, many of the unlockable characters aren't even celebrities, but generic monsters like aliens and mummies; and the create-a-celeb mode is so lacking that it leads me to believe that it was meant to be taken out at the last moment, but someone forgot to do it. To add insult to injury, everything in the game can be unlocked and beaten in a mere 20 minutes or less.
Other than the title theme song and the great commentary by Nick Diamond and Johnny Gomez, Celebrity Deathmatch isn't much for the ears to behold. It's not a treat for the eyes, and won't look as good as you remembered it on the TV screen. The old Clayfighter games could do claymation, why can't a game with the MTV logo? Oh yeah, because everything with the MTV logo stands for cheaply produced crap churned out in the name of making a quick profit, not quality. This includes television, movies, and now games. This one's over, and Celebrity Deathmatch is down for the count.
-George
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