ClayFighter 63⅓: Глина, Мутация и Остров Клаймодо

1997 video game

ClayFighter 63⅓ is a 1997 fighting game developed and published by Interplay Productions for the Nintendo 64. It is the third installment of the ClayFighter series. The title is a parody of the 64 suffix common with Nintendo 64 games. Upon release, ClayFighter 63⅓ was negatively received by critics for its gameplay, animation, and AI. An updated version entitled ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut was released in 1998 as a Blockbuster rental exclusive. As it did not receive wide distribution, Sculptor's Cut is one of the rarest and most valuable Nintendo 64 games.

Like its predecessors, ClayFighter and ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay, Clayfighter 63⅓ uses stop motion animation and claymation as opposed to traditional computer animation to produce a unique effect. The arenas in ClayFighter 63⅓ are unique in that each one, with several exceptions, houses multiple rooms; during fights players can punch or kick their opponents into different rooms and the fight will then continue in that room. There are 26 different rooms to fight in. The game itself parodies other fighting games. It uses a 3 level bar for super combos like in the Street Fighter Alpha series and uses parries like the Street Fighter III series, and many of the super attacks are noticeably variations of attacks from the Street Fighter series. It also features a combo system similar to Killer Instinct, although it makes fun of the combo names (for example, "Itty Bitty Combo", or "Triple Brown Betty Combo"). During battle players can use many different attacks which have their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Isle of Klaymodo is the resting place of "Bessie", the purple meteor that came crashing out of the sky onto Klaymodo Island. Bessie has the essential ingredient, Bawk Choy, necessary for Dr. Kiln's world dominating Mutagen. Klaymodo's chief baddies are the devious Dr. Kiln and local voodooist Happy Harry Houngan. With a combination of laboratory experiments and voodoo spells, they've created an "interesting" assortment of hooligans to help them take over the world. These hideous henchmen include Bonker, a clown gone bad, and Ickybod Clay, the wonder from down under. Dr. Kiln is putting on the finishing touches on his top secret mutagen code named "Clayotic Claymorphisis" as Houngan walks through the lab door. When Houngan finds out about Dr. Kiln's secret formula the clay hits the fan. As the fight breaks loose the vial containing the mutagen breaks in Dr. Kiln's hand and begins to take on a life of its own. The condition begins to spread rapidly and Dr. Kiln has no choice but to amputate his own hand. As the hand hits the floor it scurries out of the lab and into the dense jungle of Klaymodo. Houngan quickly exits the lab in pursuit of the Hand as Dr. Kiln writhes in pain. Meanwhile, as Dr. Kiln deals with his newfound stump, a ship on a 3 hour tour capsizes just off of Rubbage Reef. The ship contains a lively crew of characters, each with their own agendas. There's Bad Mister Frosty®, a one time bad guy who's turned his life around and Kung Pow, a Wok cookery Chef Boy R' Clay. Taffyman and Blob round out the castaways of the SS Manure.

There are twelve characters in ClayFighter 63⅓, six from previous games in the ClayFighter series, four debuting in this game, and two from other game series. The first nine are available for play immediately, and the latter three are hidden characters (shown below) that can be unlocked with cheat codes or to finish the game with each character. All twelve characters from ClayFighter 63⅓ appeared in the updated version of the game, ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut, along with four new characters, increasing the total character roster to sixteen.

ClayFighter 63⅓ was developed by Interplay Entertainment as an entry in its ClayFighter series that originated on the Super NES. The project, under the working title ClayFighter 3, was produced by Jeremy Airey, who had helped create previous titles in the franchise alongside designers Eric Hart and Rodney Relosa. With the ClayFighter series, the development team's goal was to build a legitimate fighting game while comically parodying popular franchises in the same genre such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Killer Instinct. Airey explained that this meant replacing the extreme violence from said franchises with either gross or humorous action: "Buckets of blood and gore get boring after awhile. We want to make a game that stays fresh [ ] We think this sort of thing works better than gore because each character has something unique and funny to show". The N64 allowed the team to render the characters within 3D environments and easily maintain 24 bit color depth.

ClayFighter 63⅓ was met with a negative critical reception. The game held an aggregate score of 47.96% on GameRankings based on 13 reviews. Matt Casamassina predicted that ClayFighter 63⅓ would "remain a prominent title in the N64 library for years to come" because the game "is so terrible it sets the standards for bad." The Sculptor's Cut version of the game remains one of the rarest North American N64 games. It was released as a Blockbuster rental deal and only 20,000 copies were manufactured. In September 2009, Interplay said that they would update the ClayFighter series for the WiiWare and DSiWare services with ClayFighter: Call of Putty. Development was being handled by StudioBlack Games, which included Eric Hart, a programmer on the original ClayFighter. The title of this installment is a parody of Call of Duty, a series of popular first person shooters. Nintendo Power revealed that Call of Putty would have featured all the gameplay, fighters, and modes available in ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut and an expected release date in late 2010 or early 2011. However, after continuous delays, the game was listed as TBA release status on Interplay's website. Interplay commented in 1999 that "Clayfighter broke a million on the Nintendo 64". They did not mention if the Sculptor's Cut edition was part of that figure.