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CLAYFIGHTER Company: Interplay Released: November 1993 Genre: Fighting Graphics: 7.0 Control: 5.0 Sound/Music: 6.5 Storyline: 6.0 Review by: Corbie Dillard ©2008 SUPER-NES.COM

Visual Concepts and Interplay came up with a unique way of combining "claymation" into their videogames. Done first in a very mediocre side scroller, Interplay decided to take this new game animation technique and build a fighting game around it. With the extreme popularity of fighting games at the time, it must have seemed like a good idea. However, something seeming like a good idea, and actually being a good idea are two completely different things and the result of this Interplay brainstorm is one of the most unique, yet terribly mediocre fighting games available. Once the novelty of the game's style wears off, there's not much left in this game. The main reason Interplay gave for using this claymation technology in their games was that it offered much smoother animation. The only problem with this is, it really didn't. Most of the characters animate just as clunky as sprite-based characters in other mediocre fighting titles, and sometimes even worse. Granted, the characters do have a slightly more detailed look to them, but given the cartoon-style of them, it doesn't really make much difference. Most of the backgrounds look okay, but they certainly don't have anything ground-breaking about them and they sometimes don't seem to fit in with the clay look of the fighters. You'll also notice that some of these backgrounds look pretty good and some of them look pitifully bland. As much as interplay touted this game before its' release I was expecting much better and this game just never really came anywhere close to my expectations. When you first start up this game you're given the expectations of something great coming. The opening music track even features vocals which, at the time, was nearly unheard of. I'll admit I was impressed. The only downside to this is that the openeing song is the high point of the game and the music only manages to head downhill after that. Most of the music is silly, circus-style music that seems a bit catchy right at first but quickly begins to grate on your nerves. There was one more highlight that I feel the need to mention and that's the game announcer. He sounds about like every circus ringmaster you've ever heard with loud and pronounced vocals, but when this is the high point of your game, things aren't good. I guess you can't expect much more from the music in a game this off-the-wall anyway but I still think given the power of the Super Nintendo's sound chip, the music could have been much better. One of the biggest flaws in Clayfighter is the fighting system. It just has a very sluggish and sometimes unresponsive feel to it that tends to make performing moves more tedious than fun. What makes this stick out even more is the fact that at the time of this game's release, the fighting system's in games were getting better and more intricate all the time. Fighting games now had tons of moves, flashy special moves, and combo systems so in-depth that they took months to perfect even one character's arsenal of moves. Then you have Clayfighter. Each character not only doesn't have very many moves, but even the few special moves these characters have are nothing special at all. To add insult to injury, the game only has 8 playable characters, which when compared with the 14+ of most other fighting games, it makes this one pale in comparison. It's probably not fair to compare Clayfighter with the other serious one-on-one fighting games as it's really not intended to compete with them. You just have to be willing and able to accept the fact that Clayfighter is more of a parody of the more popular fighting games of this time period and leave it at that. I do still think this game could have been a lot more playable. You have to take this game in the context its intended. It's a silly game poking fun at more serious fighting games and it accomplishes that task just fine. But for those who are expecting this game to be strategic and varied in its' gameplay, you're setting yourself up for some dissapointment. Clayfighter is what it is...a completely off-the-wall fighting game with just enough playability to keep you entertained for about an hour. Once the novelty wears off, you're left with another SNES cart that's going to collect a lot of dust on your shelf.