[Mister Syd]

I was stumbling around youtube today and came across this:

ClayFighter III (Ultra-Early Beta Video, Not Mine)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iRQ_wiUJN-Y

The most notable difference is that they were still using 2D backgrounds in these shots.

Then I remembered ages ago I bought an UltraGamePlayers Magazine with CD-Rom and recalled it had a beta video of it's own, which has quite a few notable differences but is much closer to the final build... but the engine still looks incredibly buggy:

UGP Clayfighter 63 1/3 Beta Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpCGx9HvuU8

(Sorry that the video is a bit buggy with the sound, it was originally a .mov and encoded in 1998.)

Clayfighter isn't by means popular or well, any good, but I still wonder why they completely ditched the neat looking health meters that were exclusive to each character?

Perhaps one day we'll stumble upon a beta that has a playable version of Hobocop who was completely cut in the end, even after sculptor's cut.

Also, on a side note, how in the hell did Interplay manage to always have ungodly delays on all three clayfighter games and still have a ton of cut content or cheaply shoehorned in?

[Richter Belmont]

I kinda like the 2D backgrounds better. It is odd that they would cut the custom lifebars after creating them... maybe it was to conserve memory. They couldn't have possibly thought the spartan lifebars in the final looked BETTER.

Thanks for the videos!

[ICEknight]

Hmm, those 2D backgrounds look like simple placeholders while they were making the 3D models, seeing how they don't even scroll.

They might have just taken the concept art they had at hand.

[Mister Syd]

It is likely that the 2D backgrounds are just the concept art, but it's strange that only one of those stage designs loosely exist in the final version (the one with the cannon was in the military stage as a break-through arena if I recall correctly) - everything else was scrapped.