Cel Damage

"Cel Damage? More like Brain Damage!"

Have you ever whined about a lack of cartoon theme car-combat titles?
No? Well, neither did I my friend. Personally, I would much rather take the dark macabre atmosphere of Twisted Metal: Black any day.
However, it seems that EA has decided to fill this void regardless; cartoon style weapons included.

GamePlay: Take Twisted Metal, strip it off all semblance of strategy, crank things up to a hyper speed of frenzied death and destruction; and you'll have Cel Damage. The main draw of Cel Damage, is of course, ''Smack Attack''; which pretty much plays out as a lighthearted Twisted Metal. There is no thoughtful conservation of health over the course of a battle; since your health meter is literally snuffed out in a single attack in many instances. You are then dropped back into the fray, only to get wiped out in seconds once again. This cycle endlessly repeats itself until some combatant manages to reach the set score for the match. The levels also don't yield any rewards for thoughtful exploration; such as secret areas or characters. To make matters worse, every single character sounds as if he (or she) is getting high off helium! Let me tell you, this gets old really fast. Cel Damage also has two other modes, which are even less interesting if you can believe that. First off, we have ''Gate Relay'', which is an overly simplistic racing mode. Secondly, we have ''Flag Relay'', which is a simple take on capture the flag; only this time, the flag runs away. Multi-player is (of course) available for all modes of play, and even makes use of the four controller ports on the Xbox. (I can't even begin to count how many titles that have failed to include for anything above two players.) However, the modes are not really all that more enjoyable with extra players; so it's pretty much a wash.

Graphics: You can't help but love the visual presentation.
Never has a title so faithfully portrayed a cartoon world as Cel Damage does. Everything is cel-shaded; down to the very last stick of dynamite. I was also impressed how the game calculates exactly where an attack (such as the axe), slices a vehicle in two.

Sound: Who the heck handled the voice acting? It really begins to grate on your nerves after awhile. The music is suitably bouncy; but lacks enough 'oomph to really push the Xbox's sound capabilities. The abundance of cartoon theme sound effects sound like they were lifted from shows such as ''Looney Tunes''; and go a long way towards drawing you into this ''drawn'' world. (Get it?)

Control: Control is very user friendly and responsive.
However, I highly doubt you'll really get a chance to appreciate them; since you most likely will die in very short order.

Cel Damage is much to chaotic for my taste.
Perhaps, some players will appreciate the sheer insanity of it all; but that is not for me.
I have to say, the developers did an admirable job of creating a believable cartoon world to rampage through.
(Well, as believable as a cartoon world can be.)
If you ever want to feel like you have stepped into a cartoon; simply pop in Cel Damage.

Score: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/03