Cel Damage is a vehicular combatvideo game developed by Pseudo Interactive and published by Electronic Arts. 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 remake, developed and published by Finish Line Games, and 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 cartoony 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 thirteen 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. The three game modes are Smack Attack, in which players attack other players and/or computer players to gain a certain number of points first; Gate Relay, in which players race to checkpoints; and Flag Rally, in which players race to collect flags. Smack Attack is the only mode not initially locked. Additional characters and areas are also unlockable in the game. The HD re-release in 2014 contained small differences from the original such as including life-bars and altering the method to unlock certain items, but otherwise contains the same content with a few new weapons and a new stage. Cel Damage features ten characters, six automatically given at the beginning of the game and four unlockable "guest star" characters.
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. The characters use their own vehicles 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.
Development
The Cel Damage graphics engine uses a rendering technique called cel-shading to produce this cartoon-like appearance. 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 more. Chris Hecker, editor of Game Developer magazine, described Cel Damage's cartoon-style graphics as "state-of-the-art for computer-game physics". Cel Damage was released as Cel Damage: Overdrive, a Europe-only title for the PlayStation 2. Play It released the game on 12 December 2002.
Reception
Cel Damage was generally praised for its cartoon graphics, but received "mixed or average reviews" on all platforms according to video game review aggregatorMetacritic. Gerald Villoria of GameSpot called the Xbox version's visuals "impressive," and stated that the player "can easily think that playing a real-time cartoon". 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. Vincent Lopez of IGN said the cel shading in the same version "was one of the best examples of the effect on the market," but that the game play is too difficult due to both the computer players and the small arenas. 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.
Sequel
In 2002, Pseudo Interactive created an early prototype for a sequel to Cel Damage and pitched the project to Electronic Arts, Sega, Ubisoft, and Midway Games. The proposal was declined by each of the publishers it was offered to, due to the poor sales performance of the first game and concerns with the marketability of the property.
