Reviewed: December 11, 2008
Reviewed by: Arend Hart

Publisher
Electronic Arts

Developer
EA Canada

Released: October 20, 2008
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-4

8
8
8
9
8.4

Supported Features:

Celebrity Sports Showdown allows you to play by yourself or up to four players at one time. Depending on how many of you play, you will get to play only as the celebrities or get to play with the celebrities. After you decide whom you want to play as and with you can choose a free play or a tourney mode. With the tourney mode you get to choose a solo mode or party mode. You have a big points, super dash, team rivals, and custom modes to pick for your tournament settings. Each one is what they sound like. There are nine different rounds that each one needs to be unlocked. Each round you have three games that are picked at random for you to compete in.

The best way to really enjoy Celebrity Sports Showdown is with the free play mode. Here you can pick any of the twelve games to compete in. You can play volleyball, go canoeing, joust, Inner Tubing, Cliff Hanging, Air Races, Slalom, Hurdle Derby, Dodge ball, Badminton, Archery, and Curling. Each game is exciting and fun in their own way. Each game has their own controls and life like feel.

Dodge ball: Here you get to move around to run over a ball and use it to hit the other players to earn points. Points are added as a team and the team with the most points at the end wins. To throw the ball all you have to do is flick your remote and depending on how hard you flick it is how fast your throw the ball. There is no catching and blocking is hard to do. Your best bet to not get hit is to dodge. To do that you hit the directional pad on what way you want to roll and then flick the remote in that directions.

Volleyball/Badminton: The controls are the same in these two games. Swing the remote up to set in volleyball and then for both games you swing the remote down to slam a powerful spike or powerful shot in badminton. You don’t have any control on which character you play as because the computer changes the character you play as to whoever is closest to the ball or birdie.

Inner Tubing: You have three different courses to choose from. The goal in this game is to collect as many stars are possible. You can jump onto the other players and cause them to fall down and miss out on collecting stars for a little bit. To jump over obstacles or onto your opponents you just lift up on the remote. Whoever has the most stars at the end of the course wins.

Canoeing: You must use the nunchuck on this game so you can get a true feel of how canoeing really is. You have three courses to choose from and it is a race to the finish. Depending on which way you want to go you have to flip the remote or the nunchuck.

Cliff Hanger: Here the goal is to beat the other team up the side of the cliff. To move all you have to do is use the directional pad and press the direction you want to go. You can jump in order to go faster and pass certain obstacles. To jump you just flip the remote up and then to grab the cliff you hit the B button. You have a jump meter that will drain when used and replenish when you are just climbing.

Solemn: Here you are racing down to the bottom of the hill through the flags as fast as you can. To control where you go you just tilt the remote and for your speed boost you just hit the B button. If you go off a ramp you just flip the remote to earn boost.

Derby: During the derby jumping competition you hold the remote sideways and shake it up and down to gain speed. When you come up to a jump you hit the 2 button to jump over the hurdle. To steer you just tilt the remote just like any other racing game out there. For every hurdle not jumped you get time added to your overall time.

Archery: Speed Speed Speed. That is the name of this archery game. Hit the targets before the other players can to earn the most points. To fire all you do is hold down the B button until you want to shot. You have the aimer always shown on the screen so just point to the target and fire away. The most points at the end wins.

Jousting: You can play a quick, standard, or epic mode. The modes just deal with the length of your battles. You just swing the remote as much as possible to land devastating blows. There is no need to block because you will do better just hammering away at your opponent. To do that all you have to do is swing the remote in any direction.

Curling: Here you use the d-pad before your shot to control where to want to role your stone. You hit the B button to shoot and to give you a heads up you will have hardly any control on your speed because the controls are a little lagging. To help speed up your shot you just shake the remote up and down to sweep your stone down the ice.

Air Racing: You just steer you plane through the canyon. You have two types of weapons at your disposal; mines and missiles. Just hit the A button to drop your mines, and B to shoot the missiles. If you run out of any of them you can fly through the icon to pick more up. To get some speed fly through the rings. First on to go down and back wins the race.

Celebrity Sports Showdown is a huge upgrade from its big competitor Deca Sports. You have more lifelike characters and surroundings. And the music is much more in the moment and really adds to the feel of the game. Each character has their own sound and when something happens you get the appropriate groan or moan out of them. The characters actually resemble who they are supposed to be, even though they are still cartoony. The water looks great and splashes when necessary. You even have tracks left in the snow when you ski and in the dirt in derby jumping. This game is better in every way shape and form from its main competition.

Celebrity Sports Showdown is a must have party game. It is the best out there right now. I wasn’t really looking forward to playing this game since I already had Deca sports, but man I was quickly changing my tune. I couldn’t put this game down. I just had so much fun playing this game.

At the same price as Deca Sports I strongly encourage you to buy this one instead. You have twelve games to play and in most of those you have different course to play. You can play up to four players at time and even if you only have yourself you can still enjoy yourself with the tourney modes or just play in the free play mode.

Celebrity Sports Showdown is exactly what I loved about Deca Sports and then they fixed what I said was wrong in that review. Makes you think that your voice really does have an impact and if you just say what you really feel you can get the game that you want.