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10 RANDOM CELEBRITY VIDEO GAME APPEARANCES

7/6/2018

40 Comments

 
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Celebrities are the best aren't they? They're like us, except they're famous for some reason or other, and they go to the gym and watch what they eat and they get photographed with make-up and nice lighting and that, thus reminding us what ungodly, useless, hideous, monstrosities we ordinary folk really are. 

They're like normal people, but with all the flaws edited away or airbrushed out; sort of the other end of the primate scale to monkeys, I suppose. No wonder we idolise them - and then point and laugh when they show signs that they might be human after all. "HA HA! That'll learn 'em to be portrayed as better than us!".

But anyway. Celebrities haven't just been confined to films and television and magazines and stuff. Sometimes they also appear in video games. Here are 10 of the more unlikely celeb gaming cameos.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
DEUS EX MACHINA
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Mel Croucher's impenetrably bizarre Deus Ex Machine was probably - nay, definitely - the first bona-fide multimedia computer game.

Loosely based on Shakespeare's Seven Ages Of Man, it boasted an original soundtrack synchronised to the game, and voice-overs from a number of bona-fide mid-80s celebrities - including Jon Pertwee, Ian Dury and Frankie Howerd... as well as socialist campaigner E.P. Thompson (son of L.P. and father of Cassette Single). 

This was no mean feat given that it was released on the ZX Spectrum, a computer better known for shrieking at the player as if it was having some sort of seizure. Consequently, it came with a separate audio cassette which had to be timed to run alongside the game. 

Though there can be few of us from that era who really understood what the ruddy Jeremy it was all about, Croucher released anniversary edition a couple of years back, featuring "Sir" Christopher Lee and China Whyte, whoever that is.
APOCALYPSE
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This PlayStation shooter featured a digital recreation of one Bruce "Bruno" Willis - who also loaned his dulcet can't-really-be-arsed tones to Activision for the protagonist Terry Kincaid.

Given that his actual face was plastered onto the main character, Willis remained a slight presence in the game; his dialogue was limited to the occasional one-liner or spurt of exposition.

Curiously, the game engine was reworked for another celeb-endorsed offering: the wildly different Tony Hawk's Round Ireland With a Fridge (Pro Skater).
POSTAL 2
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From Bruce Willis to "What you talking about, Willis?", Gary Coleman appeared as himself in the sequel to the controversial mass murder simulation. Coleman acts as a boss character, who ends up incarcerated following an altercation with "Postal Dude" at a book signing - during which it was possible to urinate on Coleman. No doubt this was wish fulfilment for many a fan of Diff'rent Strokes.

He also appears as a horde of zombified versions of himself during a hallucination sequence, and goes on an anti-police rampage of his own, during which he exclaims - while gunning down police officers - "I got your Willis right here".

On a related note, why was Diff'rent Strokes written like that? Why is that apostrophe even necessary? It always bothered me. Was it meant to be urban?
TEKWAR
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In the early-90s, William Shatner attempted to reinvent himself as an author, by not bothering to write any books. "His" series of ghost-written TekWar novels were set in a future ravaged by a powerful narcotic called Tek - a self-confessed blend of Star Trek and TJ Hooker.

When the books were made into a TV show, Shatner appeared as the character Bascom - a role he reprised in cut-scenes for the TekWar game. A first-person shooter for the PC, TekWar - or, rather, William Shatner's TekWar to give it its full title - was reviewed mostly favourably at the time. Funny how history has been less kind.
CHUCK NORRIS SUPERKICKS
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Released on the Atari VCS, Colecovision, Vic-20 and Commodore 64, Chuck Norris Superkicks was simple beat 'em up, with Norris kicking his way through waves of monks and ninjas to rescue some kidnapped bloke from a monastery. 

Get this: Norris's first wife was called Dianne Holechek, which sounds a bit like Holodeck - another thing from Star Trek.
DEVO PRESENTS: ADVENTURES OF THE SMART PATROL
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Remember Devo? They were that band who sung Whip It! while wearing plant pots on their heads.

​Sporting all the worst excesses of the CD-ROM interactive movie era, Adventures of the Smart Patrol had the player attempting to capture the cruel "Turkey Monkey" - "an insane, horrible freak mutant, the result of a rogue recombinant DNA experiment" - who wants to unleash  a bone-dissolving virus on Spudland.

The story - such as it was - had been co-written by the band, who also composed the soundtrack (later released as an album). If you can imagine Myst, but even more boring and all sort of wacky, then congratulations: you have successfully imagined Adventures of the Smart Patrol.
THE WACKY WORLD OF MINIATURE GOLF WITH EUGENE LEVY
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Eugene Levy probably remains best known as playing Jason Biggs' inappropriate dad in the American  Pie movies. It shows the desperate flailing of Philips' CD-i that the company considered a pre-Pie Levy the sort of star signing perfect to narrate a "comedy" crazy golf game, that played more like a pre-animated laserdisc arcade game. Albeit not as entertaining as even that might sound. 

Oddly, this wasn't Levy's only encounter with gaming; he also created the TV sitcom adaptation of LucasArts' Maniac Mansion. Astonishingly, it ran for three awful series in the early-90s.
MIKE TYSON'S PUNCH-OUT!
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Nintendo these days tends to gloss over the fact that Punch-Out! was originally called Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! The boxer not only lent his name to the game, but also appeared as a final boss - though was replaced by Super Macho Man when Nintendo's license to use Tyson's likeness expired.

​Nevertheless, the original Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! remains one of the few Nintendo games to be endorsed by a registered sex offender.
OMIKRON: THE NOMAD SOUL
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Omikron was a weird mash-up of various different genres - adventure, puzzle, first-person shooters, and beat 'em ups - given a sort of "cyberpunk" spin.

David Bowie was originally approached with a view to composing the soundtrack, but requested that he become more intimately involved - ultimately having input to the story and gameplay, and appearing in-game as two different characters; a fugitive revolutionary, and a fictional musician. In the true spirit of nepotism, he even got his wife Iman playuing another role, and roped in several of his band members.

The soundtrack featured eight original tracks composed by Bowie, most of which appeared on his album Hours, with others being utilised as b-sides.
CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 2
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US comedian and late-night chat show host Jimmy Kimmel - a man who always seems to be squinting - appeared as himself in two different endings to Black Ops 2.

​Depending on how you completed the game, you either saw the heroic character of Chloe "Karma" Lynch appearing on Kimmel's show, or - if Lynch died in the game, leading to the escape of her target - Kimmel joking about the absence of fugitive Nicaraguan terrorist Raul Menendez. 

​That doesn't sound very funny.
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40 Comments
Orless
7/6/2018 10:39:41 am

Don't forget the various games that Lemmy "Ian" Kilmister has graced through the years. Motörhead on Amiga and a a recent Victor Vran expansion being just two.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
7/6/2018 12:25:10 pm

Not to mention appearing as The Kill Master in the fun but wrongly marketed Brutal Legend, where he lived atop a mountain full of mechanical spiders.

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Reversible Sedgewick
7/6/2018 10:55:35 am

I once played a version of GTA Vice City Stories where the military attack helicopter turned invisible in multiplayer.

Combining that bug with the game's celebrity cameo, it meant you could have Phil Collins flying around the Miami skies, sh*tting a rapid stream of bullets at the passers by.

Which I reckon if he could, he would. He looks like the type.

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David W
7/6/2018 11:12:34 pm

In The Air Tonight joke.

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Wormy-Klaus
12/6/2018 02:26:06 pm

It makes me so happy that someone else had this experience. See, I worked on GTA:VCS. I was implementing the multiplayer character select screen one day, and saw that ol' Phil was a selectable character. It was me who ran the message up the company hierarchy resulting in a Rockstar lawyer phoning Phil Collins and saying "I know you've agreed for your likeness to appear in the single player campaign, getting up to all sorts of madcap capers with your manager Timothy Spall, but are you okay with being player-controlled in multiplayer? Stealing a motorbike from a zombie and using it to drive-by old ladies and such?"

To which Phil Collins replied "Sure. I don't really understand this GTA malarkey, but my kids will find that hilarious."

And that's my Phil Collins claim-to-fame story.

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Biscuits
7/6/2018 11:16:16 am

Super Furry Animals were unlockable characters in Actua Soccer 2

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Spiney O'Sullivan
7/6/2018 12:28:49 pm

This is a very 1990s sentence. I forgot that series even existed... I think it was on a Sega Saturn demo CD.

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mikeyc
7/6/2018 11:22:00 am

it's not Violet Berlin in Micro Machines 2 is it

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Bluto
7/6/2018 11:37:26 am

It is!

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Kieren
7/6/2018 11:43:55 am

Welsh comedian Rob Brydon features in the Atari Jaguar CD game BattleMorph!

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colincidence link
7/6/2018 07:11:52 pm

I'm now half-remembering something about recurring-theme-of-this-site David Walliams appearing as a space pilot in a '90s video game, but can't find source it at all. What am I thinking of?

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Not the Gamesmaster
10/6/2018 01:31:18 am

Incredible Games?

Not the GamesMaster
10/6/2018 01:32:00 am

Ignore that, I didn't read what you wrote. Like a muppet.

colincidence link
11/6/2018 09:44:01 am

Eh, I've lost it. I'm guessing that some other British comedy guy did before-he-was-famous visual acting for a '90s spacey video game. I remember a gulf between the Serious, Handsome role he was playing and the more showy, comedic persona he's known for. I'll re-encounter this someday.

McHawkeye
7/6/2018 12:40:06 pm

Oddly enough, as I was reading about Adventures of the Smart Patrol, Devo and Whip it! came on BBC Radio 6 Music.

In other news, Mike Oldfield also had a game out called Tres Lunas. Not sure if he was actually in it, though.

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CJJC
7/6/2018 03:17:34 pm

He was not, but unlike most of these cases he had a strong hand in the actual physical making of the thing, having pissed about with 3D graphics since the early 80s when they were bleeding edge stuff.

In addition to the above, Tr3s Lunas is a) a bit odd and b) quite, quite tedious.

I have not played Oldfield’s other “Music VR” game, Maestro.

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mchawkeye
7/6/2018 03:45:48 pm

I tried to run it, but my pc back then wasn't that gutsy and it was just a shit show.

Odd game from a wonderfully odd gentleman.

CJJC
7/6/2018 04:09:24 pm

Have another go!

https://tubular.net/forums/music-vr-now-available-from-tubularnet--?act=ST;f=41;t=9438

Chris
7/6/2018 12:45:37 pm

No Sam Fox Strip Poker? ☹

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Ste Pickford
7/6/2018 12:52:11 pm

Frank Sidebottom was going to be the voice of Plok when were were developing it as a coin-op, before the SNES version. He'd agreed to do it and everything ("I suppose there won't be any fee?" was his ace contract negotiation). Sadly that version was never completed.

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Orless
7/6/2018 02:23:50 pm

And of course there was Speccy game The Biz which was a Sievey joint.

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MENTALIST
7/6/2018 02:33:05 pm

I've got a little bit of a soft spot for Postal 2.

The overarching game design of giving the player ostensibly simple, mundane tasks to complete, but making them so frustrating or unexpectedly hostile to the player that they inevitably give in to the temptation to go on a violent rampage, whilst giving them the freedom to engage in all manner of ridiculous nonsense, seemed to me a genius idea.

It's just a shame the fundamental game mechanics, and certain aspects of the game engine weren't up to the task of realising that properly. And I've yet to see any games try to replicate that template better. Perhaps Octodad comes closest to the concept. Maybe the Stanley Parable, too, but both of those sacrifice whole swaths of gameplay mechanics by being non-violent.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
7/6/2018 03:27:45 pm

My Summer Car, which I am currently hooked on, allows for similar misanthropy... you can swear, urinate, and flip people off constantly. I also managed to convince a car to overtake my truck just in time to meet another car coming the other way (not unlike the Not The Nine O’Clock News “I Like Trucking” song) resulting in an almighty smash that send one flying into the air.

There is a joy to hurtling down the road in a huge tanker full of effluence, cases and cases of beer on the other seat, only interrupting your guzzling thereof to smoke fags and lean out the window to flip off oncoming traffic.

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superfog
7/6/2018 10:38:02 pm

Nice to hear about your friday nights, but we are supposed to be talking about video games!!! :-(

Sad Spod
8/6/2018 12:38:03 am

Oh man MSC is incredibly addictive for what outwardly appears to be a daft novelty game, spent most of last year playing that. Got to the stage where I invented my own challenges - won the rally with 100% crappy stock parts, would be hard as nails to do now that it's a 2 day event.

My proudest life achievement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sAo8EvpESE

Gordon Cluck
7/6/2018 03:22:21 pm

The protagonist of TekWar is called Jake Cardigan. I wanted you all to know that.

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Quffles
7/6/2018 03:25:55 pm

Imagine my dismay when my local leisure centre replaced its awesome T2: The Arcade Game cabinet with a Revolution X - the lightgun game starring soft-rock gizzards Aerosmith (with a plot pretty similar to that Queen musical). Still played it to death mind - it was either that or Mad Dog Mcree

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Smilin'Peter
8/6/2018 07:04:04 pm

Wash your mouth out young man.

Aerosmith are HARD rock gizzards!

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Damon link
7/6/2018 03:26:47 pm

Eugene Levy was hilarious in SCTV and you will not tell me otherwise.

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Ewan Kerr
7/6/2018 04:32:04 pm

Didn't Ricky Gervais do a brief stand up gig on GTA IV, before he turned into a massive bellender?

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MENTALIST
7/6/2018 04:52:03 pm

No.


But he was in GTA 4, right enough.

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colincidence link
7/6/2018 07:07:52 pm

I dunno if you're making a joke about it being after he was already a massive bellend, but there's standup footage of him in the game, in my header link thingy!!!!

Ewan Kerr
7/6/2018 10:35:09 pm

It was a long time ago, and my memory is hazy at the best of times - thanks for confirming he was in GTA IV!

Jaques Ouef
7/6/2018 05:21:07 pm

William Shatner looks much more like Jerry Seinfeld

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James of the North
8/6/2018 12:14:52 pm

American wrestling legend Ric Flair was in Red Alert 3. Woooooo!

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David Heslop
8/6/2018 01:18:20 pm

My two main takeaways from this:

1) I am now imagining a Round Ireland With a Fridge game, where you play Tony Hawks, negotiating Ireland's rugged geometry whilst having to transport a fridge in gameplay that's part Chariot and part Thrust.

2) THERE WAS A MANIAC MANSION TV SERIES?!?!?!?!?!?!

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Smilin'Peter
8/6/2018 07:05:37 pm

Have we all forgotten about Michael Jackson's appearance -- as a playable character- in Ready2Rumble boxing?

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Marro
9/6/2018 12:08:06 am

Clumsy Colin in Action Biker. Ahhh, the days when a game could be sponsored by the most pungent crisps around.

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Stephen Botting
12/6/2018 11:57:06 am

It's not necessarily random but I think my favourite celeb games appearance would have to be Stephen Spielbergs Directors Chair.
Editing, cutting together and adding sound effects to awfully acted scenes starring Jennifer Anniston, Quentin Tarantino and magicians Penn & Teller gave me much amusement 20 years ago. I tensed to conclude all my movies with a scene where QT woke up from a nightmare screaming about his burning hair.

I would also give a bonus mention to the celebrity cameos in the Yazuka series especially Paul "they show my 9 darter on BBC every year" Lim.

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Starbuck
13/6/2018 11:05:15 pm

Jim'll Savile in, if I remember correctly, the ende scene of a N64 game that I've not played (Jet Force Gemini?)

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