Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[Jabroniville]

(hey, remember when I demanded MILF pics any time somebody went off about politics in the thread? We should start doing that again)

Okay..... Even though I'm innocent, I'll take one for the team.

Hey, you know who I love? This guy right here.

[Ares]

Also, the character "Dr. West" from the Splatterhouse games (though he was unseen until the reboot) is named after Herbert West.

The 2010 version of Splatterhouse really embraced the Dr. West connection.

I also own the original Lovecraft Reanimator series on audio-book, which are a fun listen.

[HalloweenJack]

(hey, remember when I demanded MILF pics any time somebody went off about politics in the thread? We should start doing that again)

Okay..... Even though I'm innocent, I'll take one for the team.

Hey, you know who I love? This guy right here.

THAT'S A GUY?!!!

[Jabroniville]

I was referring to Spam, ASS.

[Jabroniville]

NORMAN BATES
Role: Genre-Defining Freak, Mama's Boy
Movie Series: Psycho
PL 5 (61)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Expertise (Motel Operator) 2 (+4)
Expertise (Taxidermy) 6 (+8)
Insight 2 (+5)
Intimidation 2 (+3)
Perception 3 (+6)
Stealth 3 (+6)

Advantages: 
Equipment (Knife), Startle

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Knife +6 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +4 (DC 14), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +3, Fortitude +3, Will +4

Complications:
Responsibility (The Mother of all Complications): Seriously. I mean what more can you say? Norman has a split personality. When he's sick he's never completely Norman but can sometimes be only Mother. Even when he's well there's the fear of slipping back into being Mother. And who knows what can set him/her off? Anger can. So can....
Hatred (Filthy Girls): Mother doesn't like it when Norman looks at filthy girls in lust. They have to be taken care of, for the good of her poor, sweet, effete, ineffectual son.
Secret (Identity): Well obviously Norman is going to have to try and keep this! And Norman typically does a pretty good job of it too. Like maybe on some level the two personalities realize they have to keep things quiet.
Weakness (Use Your Words): Like a few other slashers, you may be able to get through to Norman with your words. It actually works more often than you'd think because deep down Norman so desperately wants to be good.

Total: Abilities: 48 / Skills: 18--9 / Advantages: 2 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 2 (61)

-Psycho may be the grandaddy of all slasher movies....or grandmother....or.....you get me. Originally a book written by Robert Bloch, Psycho was optioned as a film WAAAAY back in the late ;50s. Picked up by Universal and directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho was an instant classic and for 1960....incredibly shocking. MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS WRITE-UP.

-You know the drill by now: bank secretary Marion Crane steals a large sum of money on impulse in order to set up a life with her recently divorced beau Sam Loomis (John Carpenter liked the name so much he used it....and Loomis's nurse was named Marion). She becomes increasingly paranoid/guilty on the drive from Phoenix, Arizona to his little town in California and upon stopping at the Bates Motel and having a talk with the nice young man (Norman) who runs it, eventually decides to take the money back.

-Then she's stabbed to death in the shower by what's apparently the proprietor's mentally unstable mother.

-The movie then becomes Norman's as he must cover up the crime and prevent anyone who may come looking for Marion (like say Sam, her sister Lila, or a private investigator) from finding out his mother did her....or any number or people...in.
-And then it turns out Mrs. Bates has been dead for years, poisoned by Norman, who in a fit of guilt had his psyche fragment and often talked to himself in her voice or dressed in her clothes. And when that wasn't enough he dug up her corpse and used his skills as a taxidermist to fix her up somewhat to allow him a physical representation for himself (and to fool the audience). Good ol' mother had screwed Norman up so badly in childhood and in her own death that Norman became psychotic and killed anyone who came upon his secret or any filthy floozy who turned Norman on.
-Great twist, great movie, and that was it.

-Until Halloween hit at the box office and Psycho II was put into production. Mind you Robert Bloch had already written the novel version by this point which dealt with Norman escaping the mental institution and going to Hollywood to prevent a film adaptation from being made.

-The film Psycho II was much different, and is in my opinion a very good sequel to the first movie. Set twenty two years after the original film, Norman is released from his mental institution with a clean bill of health, albeit Lila Crane (who married Sam Loomis) is trying to organize petitions against it. Norman still runs the Bates Motel and also takes up a fry cook position in a local diner to help him acclimatize towards other people. He even meets a young woman, Mary, who he becomes friends with.

-But then people start to disappear. For starters, Dennis Franz's Mr. Toomey, who Norman fired from the motel after learning he was dealing drugs there. Then a couple of kids break into the basement of the Bates house to smoke weed and make out. Only the girl of the pair makes it out when they're discovered....by a large woman who fits the description of Mother. Though the boy's body is never found, eyes are somewhat on Norman.

-Then we find out that Mary is actually the daughter of Sam and Lila Loomis. She and her mother had come up with a plan to drive Norman insane after release with things like phone calls from his dead mother or reordering furniture so he'd be re-institutionalized for life so no one would ever deal with him again. Lila isn't thrilled that people are disappearing, but it just goes to prove in her eyes that Norman will never be well. Mary though....well she's coming to sympathize with Norman. Not only does he seem to be a decent enough guy who realizes he has a problem but....dang it....the afternoon that boy was attacked in the basement she knows she had Norman locked in the attic while she cleaned up "the set" downstairs so to speak. Lila is convinced of course that Norman got out of the attic, while Mary is starting to think her own mother may have slid a bit far of the deep end.

-If you've never seen the movie, I suggest you stop reading now because SPOILERS.
-Lila is killed by SOMEONE at the Bates House. Norman comes to believe that whoever is doing all this is his REAL mother and slips back into insanity. The police are looking Norman's way, but Norman's psychologist (played by Robert Loggia) seems to think Mary is responsible.

-In one REALLY messed up scene a lot of things happen. Someone calls the house and Norman seems to think it's Mother (though no one seems to be on the line) and intuits that they want Norman to kill Mary. Mary, thinking fast, dresses up as Mother to talk Norman down. At the same time, the psychologist enters the house and thinks he catches Mary in the process of destabilizing Norman. He quietly tries to capture her. As he does so, the jumpy Mary turns and stabs him to death by accident. Norman sees this and, thinking Mary is Mother, wants to protect her....forcing her down into the basement. Mary, crying, fights Norman off...cutting him and making him grow weak from blood loss. Then she discovers her own mother's body buried in the coal bin. She immediately casts blame on Norman and goes to kill him.

-That's when the sheriff's department breaks in and shoots her. They'd discovered Mr. Toomey's car in Norman's old dumping spot and were coming to arrest Norman....but found the above scene. The department puts it all together as Mary and Lila having a falling out during their scheme to drive Norman crazy again and that Mary, whacked out of her gourd, lost it all and tried to murder poor Norman.

-But who did kill everyone? Norman finds out in the movie's finale as he sits up at the house and awaits someone. As it turns out, there was an old lady named Mrs. Spoole who worked at the diner with Norman and Mary. Spoole doesn't ring any bells for Norman, but it should. It was his mother's maiden name. Although the woman who Norman thought was his mother was actually Mrs. Spoole's younger sister. Spoole had some...mental issues....herself and was locked up shortly after Norman was born, leaving him to be raised by her sister. By the time Mrs. Spoole got out of the institution, Norman was already locked up. So she waited patiently...and when he got out....well all those damned people were so intent on hurting him that one by one she took care of them....as only a mothe-WHAAAAAM!

-That wham sound you just heard was Norman cracking Mrs. Spoole in the back of the head with a shovel. After she fidgets on the ground for a moment and dies, he starts talking to himself in the Mother voice and carries Spoole's body upstairs to sit in the window of the house as he goes down to run the motel.

-And that is where the series should have ended. But it didn't. A few years later, Psycho III which consisted of Norman in love and the retconning of the retconning of who exactly his mother was took place. Not long after that Psycho IV: The Beginning came out, which was somewhat more interesting. It had Norman married and seemingly cured and calling into a radio program to discuss the concept of matricide, murder, and why he must kill again. There are admittedly some good scenes with a young Norman played by Henry Thomas and Olivia Hussey as Mother....and the revelation that Norman feels he must kill his wife so that his sickness won't be carried on in their child's genes is decent. It's not a great movie though....but I am glad that Norman finally conquered his demons and got a happy ending.

-There have been a lot of other Bates related media as well. There's of course the 1998 remake which proves that making a shot by shot remake doesn't mean the movie will be good. There's Bates Motel, both the A&E series and a tv movie in the late 80s starring Bud Court, Lori Petty, and a young Jason Bateman that was intended to be a pilot for a series. It didn't get picked up. Big surprise considering they were trying to make a Twilight Zone-style anthology set around the Motel. And speaking of anthologies, there was even an episode of Amazing Stories set around a teenager obsessed with Psycho.

-Anywho, Norman's a pretty bright guy (would I say inordinately? Haha....gold star to whoever gets that) but somewhat frail in combat. He needs to sneak attack someone in order to kill them. Make no mistake he's quite good at it, but I think he's only won one straight up fight in the entire series.

Jab's Notes: I had no idea that there were A) sequels to Psycho and that B) they all featured Norman Bates. Very weird. I remember the remake and how odd people found that- a bit of an interesting scholarly device in terms of Film Criticism. But really... that shower scene in the first movie? You could come up with a hundred other famous scenes in movies and not scratch that one with more than a couple of them. That is iconic as BALLS. The little violin "stinger" sound, the knife, the sounds, the blood pooling down the drain, etc. It's so iconic that any clip from it could be played and immediately understood to be a parody of Psycho. Bates is such an iconic character that some poor schmuck has to dress like him, hold a knife for hours, and try to chase down every tram at Universal Studios.

-As for why Norman Bates is here, it's because I enjoyed reading HJ's commentary so much, and had an extra "space" to fill my daily quota of 3 builds per day, that I asked him to come up with another one- he decided on the classic "original" slasher, the decidedly human Norman Bates.

[Jabroniville]

Alright, that's it for the Terrordrome/Horror builds! I enjoyed the commentary so much I actually got HJ to write me up another bio, hence Norman Bates up there.

Before I move on to the next thing, I wanted to say to those of you who'd been asking me to stat/watch RWBY... put in THAT kinda work, and I'll definitely do it . I mean, I couldn't stand the fights in the show, as I got into last time I mentioned it in the thread and a half-dozen of you were like "BUT RWBY IS SO AWESOME!!"- that and the animation style just killed me on it, so I would never do builds for it on my own time. BUT... anyone wanting to give full, in-depth bios with all the information, their opinionated comments, and full lists of their powers and capabilities? THAT might get me to stat up that Americanime.

Next up: ClayFighter! A Fighting Game that managed TWO sequels and TWO updated versions of the games, yet still remains incredibly obscure and almost a non-entity on the competitive or YouTube scenes. I think I'll be spamming these guys out a bit, as most of the characters are pretty weak and simple to stat, but it'll take me at least four days to get through it all. Took WAY longer than I expected it to, because I foolishly forgot that Fighting Games ALWAYS take more effort to sort through!

[Jabroniville]

Just for fun, here's the mammoth description of the "Shower Scene" from Psycho, on Wikipedia:

The shower scene[edit]
The murder of Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema. As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17–23, 1959, with 77 different camera angles.[63] The finished scene runs three minutes and includes 50 cuts.[64] Most of the shots are extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than it would have been if the images were presented alone or in a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".[65]

To capture the straight-on shot of the shower head, the camera had to be equipped with a long lens. The inner holes on the shower head were blocked and the camera placed a sufficient distance away so that the water, while appearing to be aimed directly at the lens, actually went around and past it.[66]

The soundtrack of screeching violins, violas, and cellos was an original all-strings piece by composer Bernard Herrmann titled "The Murder". Hitchcock originally intended to have no music for the sequence (and all motel scenes),[67] but Herrmann insisted he try his composition. Afterward, Hitchcock agreed it vastly intensified the scene, and nearly doubled Herrmann's salary.[68][69][70] The blood in the scene is reputed to have been Bosco chocolate syrup,[71] which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood.[72] The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.[73][74] (Jab's Notes: I love that they know the exact specific type of melon)

There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath. In an interview with Roger Ebert and in the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Leigh stated she was in the scene the entire time and Hitchcock used a stand-in only for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car.[75] The 2010 book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scene's shots.[76] Graysmith also stated that Hitchcock later acknowledged Renfro's participation in the scene.[77]

A popular myth emerged that, in order for Leigh's scream in the shower to sound realistic, ice-cold water was used. Leigh denied this on numerous occasions, saying the crew was very accommodating, supplying hot water throughout the week-long shoot.[78] All of the screams are Leigh's.[10]

Another myth concerns Saul Bass, the graphic designer who created many of the title sequences of Hitchcock's films and storyboarded some of Psycho's scenes, claiming he had directed the shower scene. This was refuted by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people ... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots."[79] Hilton A. Green, the assistant director, also refutes Bass' claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass."[79] Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor, stating, "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene."[80]

However, commentators such as Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass' contribution to the scene in his capacity as visual consultant and storyboard artist.[81] Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, François Truffaut asked about the extent of Bass' contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass providing storyboards for the shower scene.[82] According to Bill Krohn's Hitchcock At Work, Bass' first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution.[83]

Krohn's analysis of the production of Psycho in his book Hitchcock at Work, while refuting Bass' claims for directing the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene—most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn down, and the transition from the hole of the drainage pipe to Marion Crane's dead eyes. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for Vertigo.[83]

Krohn's research also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a BNC Mitchell, the other a handheld French Éclair camera which Orson Welles had used in Touch of Evil (1958). In order to create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a Moviola on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor George Tomasini worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass' storyboards.[83]

According to Donald Spoto in The Dark Side of Genius, Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, spotted a blooper in one of the last screenings of Psycho before its official release: after Marion was supposedly dead, one could see her blink. According to Patricia Hitchcock, talking in Laurent Bouzereau's "making of" documentary, Alma spotted that Leigh's character appeared to take a breath. In either case, the postmortem activity was edited out and was never seen by audiences.[19] Although Marion's eyes should be dilated after her death, the contact lenses necessary for this effect would have required six weeks of acclimation to wear them, so Hitchcock decided to forgo them.[84]

It is often claimed that, despite its graphic nature, the "shower scene" never once shows a knife puncturing flesh.[85][86][87] However, a frame by frame analysis of the sequence shows one shot in which the knife appears to penetrate Leigh's abdomen, but the effect may have been created by lighting and reverse motion.[88] Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open.[89] She never realized until she first watched the film "how vulnerable and defenseless one is".[19]

Leigh and Hitchcock fully discussed what the scene meant:

Marion had decided to go back to Phoenix, come clean, and take the consequence, so when she stepped into the bathtub it was as if she were stepping into the baptismal waters. The spray beating down on her was purifying the corruption from her mind, purging the evil from her soul. She was like a virgin again, tranquil, at peace.[79]

Film theorist Robin Wood also discusses how the shower washes "away her guilt". He comments upon the "alienation effect" of killing off the "apparent center of the film" with which spectators had identified.[90]

I feel like I should see more Hitchcock stuff. I've only seen Rear Window, which was really good, if a bit silly by today's standards. I always loved Hitchcock's thing with Grace Kelly- "she's like a snow-covered volcano" he would say. He once tried to shock her by saying a filthy joke on set, and instead of being offended, she pointed out she went to a convent school, and had heard worse when she was 13- they became fast friends). Fun fact: The piano player seen in many shots is David Bagdasarian, who'd later make a bajillion dollars under the stage name of Dave Seville- he's the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks (there's an adorable bit on a Simpsons commentary where someone points this out, as the listener is like "THAT'S DAVID BAGDASARIAN!?!!?!" with this extreme glee).

[Jabroniville]

Yeah, the "Michael Myers is a force rather than a person" thing is hinted to by the fact that he was originally credited as just "The Shape". He's never actually called that, and it was only in the first movie, though.

I did not mind the second movie but the rest were not needed at all. It would have been fine with the 1st movie ending as is. Just hearing him breathing off camera. Just my opinion.

I feel like a lot of horror movies were like that. I think the fact that they're SO easy to make, yet SO profitable, always means you see endless sequels. Like... the costumes and effects are among the cheaper effects you can make, so there's little need to break the budget. The plot is basically the same every time ("Freddy/Jason/Michael Returns; kills naked teenagers"). The victims can be swapped out endlessly. And you can churn these out like the worst video game shovelware and STILL make a profit, because there is always a legion of people who will see any horror movie, either to be scared or because it's fun.

HalloweenJack told me that the production company was actually embarrassed by the success of Friday the 13th, and the fact that they had to keep churning them out due to the money, and were HAPPY to sell the entire franchise off when they got a second.

I find it funny that as these franchises all died out during the 1990s... CHUCKY of all characters made a resurgence, and is currently the one you're most likely to see in a film (he even has one coming out soon!).

PS: I was totally gonna send you a PM to check if you were still reading my thread- then I checked the member list and saw this post, which I hadn't checked the poster's name from. Glad you're still here !

I actually just sent a similar post to HustlerOne. Seems that when I posted Big Hero 6 builds (which I was just looking at, getting the pics swapped out from the dead PhotoBucket links), I commented on 6teen, and he popped up with some comments about the show. At which point I linked him to the builds someone did on the ATT, even naming the poster who did them... HustlerOne! He was good enough not to point out my mistake ("Hey, HustlerOne- HustlerOne did these builds already!"). Alas, he hasn't been seen since 2015- there's a lot of posters out there who just quietly disappear, and my mission to recapture the old ones continues on when I see old names while nostalgically going through older things.

I STILL haven't heard from Skavenger in ages, and that kinda worries me- he used to be a big contributor to my thread, and we went on like a pair of girls about Disney Fairies via PM a lot. I haven't heard from him since mid-2016, I think. I also wanted Phrozen to come over here, but he never answered either of my PMs, and he still posts at RA. So I dunno what happened there.

[KorokoMystia]

Since Clayfighter's next, I have to say this. I could save it for when the build actually shows up, but: MAN, the boss of the first game, N.Boss, is so lazy. He's just a giant ring made up of beads with two eyes on top, and he just shoots every character's projectiles at you. That's literally it. No wonder he never appeared after this.

[Spectrum]

Before I move on to the next thing, I wanted to say to those of you who'd been asking me to stat/watch RWBY... put in THAT kinda work, and I'll definitely do it .

So.. did anything really happen other than Halloween Jack releasing a product under the Jabroniville brand?

[Jabroniville]

CLAYFIGHTER:

It's funny- whenever I see a new Edition or forum come out, I don't think "Sweet! I can re-build Street Fighter!". I go "Sweet! I can build ClayFighter!"

-Me, when they announced M&M 3rd Edition.

I always had a love for the obscure Fighting Games of the 1990s. Really, there were HORDES of these back in the day- with Street Fighter II exploding in the video game industry and Mortal Kombat running away with scads of money, it was inevitable. BatgirlIII once noted that Fighting Games are easier to make than others, which might explain the "Shovelware" we got treated to during that decade. And she's correct: Fighting Games are among the easiest games to make. You only need a handful of Character Sprites (10-16 guys, typically), fewer bits of animation, MUCH shorter levels (typically just a handful of stages that are 3 screens wide), etc. A half-assed game designer can shovel that together in a few months. So they're easy to make... but they're hard to make WELL. Fighting Game Balance is one of the trickiest things to do properly- screw it up, and your game is unplayable or garbage in competitive play, which ruins replay value (there are STILL people playing SF II- in huge tournaments!).

And thus, the '90s was befouled by horrible Shovelware. Fighter's History was a blatant, litigation-inspiring rip-off of Street Fighter II. Primal Rage was a brilliant idea with junk execution, somehow making a Dinosaur-Based Fighting Game shitty. Double Dragon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles eventually settled for releasing pretty standard-issue Fighters after giving up on the Beat 'Em Up genre. Shaq-Fu was an infamous cash-grab with a celebrity link. There was even a Justice League one! One of the last 16-bit releases was WeaponLord, which I've statted recently- a well-designed gave that came out at the wrong time, and disappeared. There was even the bizarre Ballz, which made up every character with balls, so that the 16-bit systems could imitate 3-D graphics (as you could simply shrink the balls based off of where the characters were on the playing field).

It was into this deluge of Fighting Games that ClayFighter arrived.

ClayFighter- A Weird Success Story:
-Despite the fact that I've never heard even a SINGLE person think wistfully about this game series, Interplay's ClayFighter did better than almost any of the SF Wannabes of the era. Debuting in Nov. 1993 for the Super NES, and coming out for the Genesis in June the following year (do companies still release games all staggered-out like that? It was total one-upsmanship by the system makers), it proved popular enough to earn two remakes and TWO sequels! In an era where Primal Rage, TMNT Tournament Fighters, WeaponLord and more got nothin'.

Though I can't speak for the game balance, and reviews were pretty middling- somewhere between 65%-75% across the board... the use of claymation was a brilliant move- it gave the game a much more noticeable graphical edge compared to the horde of 2-D sprites out there. It didn't look like a mere digitized knock-off of Mortal Kombat, either. The goofy characters (an Elvis Impersonator, an Opera-Singing Fat Lady, sentient taffy) gave it a different feel as well. Interplay advertised it as a "safe" alternative to the blood 'n' guts fighters of the day, too- the cartoonish style saved them from being seen as too violent or brutal. They got an animation studio to spend months making all the characters (Taffy is made up of a harder clay than Blob, owing to his lighter frame; they had to make 70 different models for Blob's multiple forms).

The game's plot is pretty minor: a meteor made entirely out of clay lands on a circus, turning a lot of things into sentient clay creatures that fight for dominance of Mudville. Eight fighters and one Boss make up the first roster. The sequel introduces Dr. Kiln, who wants the ClayFighters to fight for him, battling to determine his top flunky.

The Sequels:
-May 1994 saw the release of ClayFighter: Tournament Edition for the SNES, initially a Blockbuster-exclusive. It fixed some glitches, adding new backgrounds, and had a few more Modes. ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay came out in 1995 for the Super NES, featuring a new animation studio (which was considered to be pretty bad; Tiny, recycled from the first game's sprites, was the best-looking character), proving successful enough to earn a Nintendo 64 release for Clayfighter 33 1/3 (a riff on the Naked Gun franchise and its odd sequel numbers) in 1997.

The N64 game featured multiple rooms on each stage- you could knock your opponent into the various rooms, continuing the fight there (this was better in theory than in application, as is usual of "great video game ideas"). The Combo System mimicked Killer Instinct (with goofy names like "Itty-Bitty Combo" and "Dumb Combo"), while the Parries mimicked Street Fighter III. The next year, this version gained ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut as a Special Edition- the final game in the series. This is the single rarest game on the N64- only 20,000 copies were ever made! The series then died- by the Next Generation on consoles, you needed a hell of a lot more than Claymation to impress people, and the reviews were brutal to this game- trashing it with scores of less than 50% in some instances. The series was now a hopeless relic, and was done for.

Interplay has announced a new game set for 2016, but obviously nothing has materialized. The series doesn't have much of a legacy or an online presence, with all the YouTube clips I could find coming from only two sources. Personally, though I love the art style and concept (claymation & stop-motion is just so NEAT- perfect for video gaming, and has a hell of a lot more character than 3-D animation), the characters leave something to be desired. Bad Mr. Frosty, Hoppy and a few others are okay, but there are way too many half-assed designs in the series. The fact that the games kept exiling characters and coming up with whole new ones in every generation didn't help the staying power- only ONE C2 character makes it to 33 1/3, for example!

ClayFighter:
1) Tiny- A muscular wrestler.
2) Blob- An amorphous blob.
3) Taffy- A stretchy weirdo.
4) Helga- A huge-breasted opera singer/viking.
5) Bad Mr. Frosty- The franchise's signature character- a nasty-looking Snowman.
6) Blue Suede Goo- An Elvis lookalike.
7) Bonker- An evil clown.
8) Ickybod Clay- A Jack Skellington-like pumpkin-headed ghost.
9) N. Boss- A giant ring of black spheres with eyes.

C2- Judgment Clay:
* This game removes Taffy, Ickybod Clay, Bonker, Helga, Blue Suede Goo & N. Boss, leaving only THREE originals left!
10) Octohead- An octopus guy.
11) Nanaman- A Jamaican banana man.
12) Googoo- A giant baby.
13) Hoppy- A bad-ass military-style Terminator rabbit.
14) Kangoo- A boxing kangaroo. Pre-dates Tekken's.
* There was going to be a character called Lucy the Gorilla- a flirtatious-looking brown gorilla with a floral skirt, but she was removed from the game for unknown reasons, and replaced with the returning Tiny at the last minute.

There are also a band of "Mirror Image Villains"- antagonists who swap colors and some moves. These characters take the place of Final Bosses:
15) Ice- Frosty's.
16) Butch- Tiny's.
17) Slyck- Blob's.
18) Dr. Peelgood- Nanaman's.
19) Jack- Octohead's.
20) Spike- Googoo's.
21) Sarge- Hoppy's.
22) Thunder- Kangoo's.

ClayFighter 33 1/3:
* This game drops all the Clones, Kangoo, Googoo, Nanaman & Octohead, but brings back Bonker, Ickybod Clay & Taffy.
23) Earthworm Jim- Interplay's biggest success story.
24) Boogerman- The famously-gross hero.
25) Houngan- Evil voodoo witch doctor.
26) Dr. Kiln- The new Big Villain.
27) Kung Power- A brutal racial stereotype martial artist.
28) Sumo Santa- A big, fat Santa Claus.

ClayFighter 33 1/3- Sculptor's Cut:
29) High Five- Dr. Kiln's severed hand.
30) Lady Liberty- The living Statue of Liberty.
31) Lockjaw Pooch- A vicious junkyard dog.
32) Zappa Yow Yow Boyz- Three cannibalistic pygmy brothers who fight in a stack.

Power Levels:
-ClayFighter does not feature fighters on the level of other games- whereas Street Fighter is a gathering of the world's best fighters, and Mortal Kombat chooses the finest kombatants between Earth and Outworld, this is just a collection of oddball weirdos who suddenly gained sentience in one particular spot. There's little indication that this is "the best of the world". And so I'm making the base PL lower than in any other game- even Virtua Fighter characters are superior. The old standards apply, too- you get lower in PL if you were only in the first game, for example.

[KorokoMystia]

I love obscure Fighting Games, too! The more fighting games get statted, the better.

[Thorpocalypse]

THAT'S A GUY?!!!

I was referring to Spam, ASS.

LOL. Cookies for both of you!

[HalloweenJack]

I for one can't wait till Jab comes around to MK again...noting he should add Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, the Alien, and the Predator when he gets to that as they're all apparently downloadable characters

[HalloweenJack]

THAT'S A GUY?!!!

I was referring to Spam, ASS.

LOL. Cookies for both of you!

Cookies? Well that's good enough for me.