Hello everyone I'm XboxClown89, today I'm going to review Cel Damage HD. I also want to give special thanks to Tactical Bacon Productions for a particular video they made. It inspired me to find me a copy of Cel Damage, I'm very glad I did. I actually got a lot to say here. Considering I haven't talked about Twisted Metal or anything remotely similar in a while why not?
A long time ago in an old gaming magazine, they covered Cel Damage. I remembered looking constantly at pictures of the game really wanting to play the game. Then I came across The Twisted Metal Knockoff Collection on YouTube by Tactical Bacon Productions. Among ten games he talked about, Cel Damage was one of them.
Also according to his own list very late into the video, this was the fourth best game of the line up. Now I totally agree why he got requested by a lot of people to include the game in that long video of his. Cel Damage is a rather unique Twisted Metal clone. It is more of a cartoon style car combat game. Imagine if Twisted Metal and Wacky Races came together but even wackier.
Interesting fact Twisted Metal: Black, Twisted Metal: Small Brawl and Cel Damage all originally came out in 2001 within the United States. Cel Damage came out a week and an half before Small Brawl. Twisted Metal: Black predates it by five months. There's no question release wise it counts as a Twisted Metal clone.
Of course, there's more than that going for it. Some similar weapon concepts with many done notably differently. I'm not going to lie Cel Damage has a lot more weapons. You do get the option to set up the power ups to none or all of them enabled. Which is surprisingly not in any Twisted Metal game. Not only that, there's three modes of play.
Smack Attack is more about who reaches the total amount of hits within a match. Which means even on it's lowest of 300, there's a lot of deaths. This is also the closest it gets to being like an Twisted Metal game within the game play. Gate Relay is virtually a race you go through checkpoints. The lowest lap amount is 8 laps but the tracks are a little smaller than expected.
This is strangely interesting because Twisted Metal (2012 game) done racing within it's online multiplayer. Which wasn't well received, let's be honest you don't think a death race when you think of Twisted Metal. The last mode is Flag Rally where the characters fight each other to score enough points with flags to win. On default of 10 points, you can instantly win by bringing in all flags I'm not kidding.
There's a handful of characters that's kinda similar to actual Twisted Metal characters. Like Sinder was a demon fired from Hell before joining the show Cel Damage, more on what that is later on. In the original Twisted Metal timeline there's a demon named Minion. Also Count Eart in a few ways would be similar to Twisted Metal 4's Mr. Zombie aka Rob Zombie.
Twisted Metal: Black had eleven weapons while Cel Damage has a lot more weapons. Also has some interesting power ups not even in Twisted Metal series like Spring and Portable Hole. Spring allows the user to notably jump much higher. Portable Hole plays off of a cartoon joke that could instantly kill your opponent if you can place it correctly.
Cel Damage show is where most of the playable characters including the bosses comes into play. This is essentially they're variation of Twisted Metal in a nut shell. Which most Twisted Metal clones doesn't even do that. ! item is that character's favorite weapon, their answer to Twisted Metal's specials. The fact I could make that the only power up in a match is rather ridiculous.
Another power up transforms your vehicle into an aircraft with nice guns to boot. This was a huge surprise when I found out about it. This also interesting because Twisted Metal doesn't technically do except for a particular boss fight, Iron Maiden in Twisted Meal (2012 game). Unofficially through Gameshark, you can play as Warhawk who pilots an attack helicopter.
I should mention this, Twisted Metal 4 and Twisted Metal: Small Brawl lacks endings for hidden characters. For Twisted Metal games, they were short on time. Although, Axel's ending in Small Brawl did leak online. There's an interesting variety of stages. Another concept they actually beaten Twisted Metal to the punch on was this.
In Small Brawl, if you fall out a particular stage with a huge lawnmower. There's a chance you might get bounce up from the trampoline instead of death. This actually got predated by a particular stage in Cel Damage with a small planet that would bounce you right back to the ring of it. There's also more notable voice overs in the game play.
When a character's vehicle gets destroyed for a few seconds you'll see that character moving around. Now why is this not in any Twisted Metal games? The bosses are notably more like your rivals in Vigilante 8. Thus they are notably smaller scale but they are mostly fun to play as. I should mention there's four boss characters.
Which does top most Twisted Metal games before except Twisted Metal 4. Like Vigilante 8, this also on a few platforms. Not many Twisted Metal clones used that strategy. What's mind blowing is Cel Damage HD ended up on even more platforms. Thus this likely could be the most successful Twisted Metal clone ever made!!!
The method to unlock stuff is very different as well. Like Black, most characters has an intro as well as their ending called finale here. Also like Black, there's a mode to rewatch those cutscenes. In terms of it's tone it technically would be lighter than Twisted Metal 3 but darker than Twisted Metal 4 and Small Brawl combined.
Every character is rememberable in their own way. This felt like a surprisingly huge improvement over previous Twisted Metal games. Yes the story isn't as important but it's still there. The damage can be quite ridiculous at times. Not like one weak weapon does a lot of damage. No we are talking about if you aren't careful even going in with full health you could quickly get killed off in record time.
You constantly take damage at a fast rate. I will say some of the best weapons so happens to be melee weapons. Now those are a lot of fun to use in this game. Another concept Twisted Metal series never attempted. I do love the artwork very much with the audio department knocking it out the park. Cel Damage from the game play is even crazier than most Twisted Metal games.
Like the physics can be ridiculous at times. In two modes if you fall off a ledge you will die. But in Smack Attack, as long you have health you will be quickly reset to continue the match. Even getting stuck or flipped over is a small issue. Cel Damage virtually doesn't hold back how twisted it gets. The humor may not be for everyone but I grew up with a lot of slap stick cartoons.
Obviously, this was a long wait that was well worth every minute of it. Cel Damage has some space stages, something Twisted Metal done little to nothing with. The closest being two particular Outlaw endings. You can destroy parts of the stages but they'll quickly respawn. Power ups including health respawns a lot faster than in Twisted Metal series.
Twisted Metal is getting a show but still haven't release any further games. Then again Cel Damage never gotten an sequel which got canceled. Maybe it's for the best it never got one. The achievements are mostly on the easy side but a lot of fun in their own right. The price for it, Xbox One version was less than ten bucks.
Sadly there is no online feature, considering how that got used in Twisted Metal (2012 game) as well as not wanting to ruin the overall experience by including it was a good but risky move. Honestly, not only it should be considered as an Twisted Metal clone. Like Vigilante 8, I actually think this is better than most Twisted Metal games I'm not kidding.
They made even aspects I wasn't a huge fan of for Twisted Metal series surprisingly fun here. Cel Damage might be seen from not having much content. It sure is a lot of fun for hours to play. So I don't really see that being an issue here. If it's that level of fun then I'm happy with the game. Cel Damage also has a final stage that connects piece of all the areas together.
Now this was a clever idea to end with such an stage. It was obviously ambitious but a fun, crazy stage. Even for racing this stage surprisingly works wonders. Cel Damage is one of the most creative car combat games I have ever played in my entire life. You have no idea how long I wanted something close enough to Twisted Metal on an Xbox console, it took such a long time.
Honestly, not only I'm going to highly recommend this game. Especially to those who can't get enough car combat games. I felt this is one of the best underrated classics within the genre that could give Twisted Metal for it's money. It might never did before but it has a notable chance more recently doing so.
Cel Damage has characters even crazier than what you would expect from those of Twisted Metal or the genre as a whole. The weapons are some of the craziest I have ever seen. I also liked every character gets a process on every stage in every mode, checked off means you won there as that character. Yes Vigilante 8 series done that before but surprisingly Twisted Metal series never has.
Twisted Metal is meant for a more mature audience that's into dark things while Cel Damage being more of everyone else with a good mix of good and dark stuff. The fact it ended up competing against two Twisted Metal games in the same year is something most Twisted Metal clones can't say. Personally it was way better than Small Brawl.
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