Cel Damage is a vehicular combat video game developed by Pseudo Interactive and published by Electronic Arts (EA). The game was first released for Xbox on 14 November 2001, and for GameCube on 7 January 2002, in North America respectively. In Europe, the game launched for both consoles on 3 May 2002. A Europe-exclusive PlayStation 2 port, titled Cel Damage Overdrive, was released as a budget title by System 3 under their Play It label on 12 December 2002. A high-definition remaster, developed and published by Finish Line Games, titled Cel Damage HD, was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita on 22 April 2014 in North America and 14 May 2014 in the PAL region. An Xbox One port followed worldwide, via the Xbox Games Store, on 11 March 2016. A Nintendo Switch port was released via the Nintendo eShop on 28 March 2019.
Cel Damage is a cartoonish take on vehicular combat games, like those from the Twisted Metal series. The story focuses on six cartoon characters from a fictional cartoon show called "Cel Damage". The characters annihilate each other to the delight of TV audiences and, since they are cartoons, instantly regenerate. The player battles through 12 different levels and three game modes. Weaponry for Cel Damage includes cartoon staples like vacuum nozzles and portable holes, mundane weaponry like chainsaws and baseball bats, and items like freeze rays, giant springs, and portable nuclear devices.
Gameplay
Cel Damage is a vehicle shooter in which players compete against one another using weapons to either gain smack points or stop other opponents from achieving their goal, depending on the game mode. Weapons include black holes, boxing gloves, grenades, chainsaws, baseball bats, chain guns, axes, and freeze rays.
Plot
In the game, Cel Damage is a popular animated demolition derby series that airs weekly on the fictional network "'Toon T.V." The characters in Cel Damage are a select few of cartoon characters who battle every week to achieve fame and glory. and battle using a variety of deadly weapons. Because the characters in Cel Damage are cartoons, they cannot be killed and can continuously come back to fight again. Furthermore, the physics engine in Cel Damage is unique. Rather than aiming to simulate realistic real-world physics, it emulates complex cartoon physics; the physics engine calculates the relevant parts of physical interaction as they would in reality, and then distorts the physical laws to produce a cartoon-like interaction. This can be seen, for example, when a car turns and the entire shape of the car deforms and flexes into the turning direction. Cars and game objects can realistically be sliced into pieces, flattened, frozen, shattered, shredded, impaled, lit on fire (and subsequently burn to a crisp and fall into ashes), and more.
| GR_PS2 = 51%
| GR_PS4 = 59%
| GR_VITA = 60%
| GR_XBOX = 66%
| MC_NGC = 67 / 100
| MC_PS4 = 58 / 100
| MC_VITA = 58 / 100
| MC_XBOX = 65 / 100
| Allgame_XBOX = 2.5/5
| EGM_XBOX = 7.67 / 10
| EuroG_PS2 = 5 / 10
| GI_NGC = 5 / 10
| GI_XBOX = 5 / 10
| GamePro_NGC = 4/5
| GamePro_XBOX = 4.5/5
| GameRev_PS4 = 3/5
| GameRev_XBOX = C−
| GSpot_NGC = 5.7 / 10
| GSpot_XBOX = 5.7 / 10
| GSpy_XBOX = 61%
| GameZone_NGC = 7.9 / 10
| GameZone_PS4 = 4.5 / 10
| GameZone_XBOX = 6.5 / 10
| IGN_NGC = 6.3 / 10
| IGN_XBOX = 6.5 / 10
| NP_NGC = 3.2 / 5
| OXM_XBOX = 6.8 / 10
Cel Damage was generally praised for its cartoon graphics, but received "mixed or average reviews" on all platforms according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. However, he added that some weapons in the game were far more useful than others, making the game a repetitive race to get the best weapon. Brian Davis of GameSpy praised the same version for its characters and maintaining its cartoon feel, but found that the game play was too short.