Clay Fighter

Clay Fighter's a great game for beginners, anyone with a sense of humour and all of you stressed-out street fighters who could stand gettin' the clay kicked out of you now and then.

If you love fighting carts and are sick of lousy SF II and MK copycat games, CF may be just he medicine you need. All we want to know is: where are the Claytalities?

The title's self explanatory, really. Play dough fighters take on formidable combat. Its quirky characters and settings work in its favors - and another player can jump in at any time with the "join-in" button.

The end-boss looks like a bunch of grapes. He's kinda easy to beat, but this is a great game and you must have it.

Everything on the Super NES version has been faithfully carried over --- all the moves, all the fighters and remarkably, clear and crisp voices! This was always a clever parody of the fighting genre and I can't wait for C2: Judgement Clay to arrive. The control, however, is a little bit touchy and you will definitely want to use the six-button controller to fully enjoy this one.

For some reason, however, I still like it, after all that. The game can get kind of challenging at times, but it's mostly on the side of controls instead of a tough opponent. Even the N.Boss isn't much more than a computer generated necklace with eyes and pearl projectiles and a throw move. Clay Fighter is not hard to find and not that expensive, so if you don't have it, there's no real problem with picking it up, but just remember that the controls may need a bit of getting use to really have fun with it.

ClayFighter was a timely idea back in the middle of the fighting game craze of the early-to-mid '90s, and its unique visual style and use of clay modeling techniques to render its cast of characters was bold enough to make it something of a cult hit in that age. But, removed from that time period, this fighter falters. Its graphics are no longer anything special, and its combat is stiff, stale and boring.

I will give Clayfighter credit for being imaginative. The well-rendered but unlikeable clay characters include an Elvis impersonator, a scarecrow, a blob, a fat opera woman, and an evil snowman. These are not exactly your usual suspects when it comes to fighting games. They perform some humorous animations and sound bites, including Elvis saying "thank you very much" after winning a bout. When executing their bizarre attacks the fighters will sometimes transform into oversized weapons like hammers and buzz saws. While amusing at first, you can expect a lot of cheap hits and minimal technique. Although the characters are nicely rendered, they lack smooth animation, making it hard to tell what's going on in the heat of battle. You can adjust the game speed, difficulty, and controller configurations. Clayfighter is amusing for the short term, but in the long term it's more irritating than anything else.