Earthworm Jim 2 [MD/G - Beta]

In the August issues of British publications Sega Power and Mean Machines Sega, three different prototype versions of Earthworm Jim 2 for the Mega Drive were previewed. Each of them have some minor yet interesting changes compared to the final product, including a lot of material cut from the game.

The earliest versions are in Sega Power- a magazine notorious for using extremely poor quality screenshots- and two different prototypes appear in the same article! The only difference between them is the health and lives display

The first picture is the earlier prototype, and uses the same display as the first Earthworm Jim game (and also shows a completely different Inflated Head sprite); the second is a later version and uses one with the number of lives and health percentage on the same line (and also shows an idle animation from the first game that was cut for EWJ2); the third is a picture from the final for comparison. The other major change between the prototypes shown here and the final is the background for Level Ate- it’s completely different than the one in the final game:

Sega Power prototype (earlier) on top, final version beneath

There are a few other miscellaneous pictures from Sega Power in the gallery, showing some of the same differences highlighted here.

The version previewed in Mean Machines Sega seems to be much closer to completion, but there are still some changes- most notably, this prototype has some unused enemies on the stage Anything But Tangerines:

The giant green tentacle enemy doesn’t appear in the game at all, and the final version uses a different design of the flying green enemy (for whatever reason, the PC version of the game actually uses the older flying enemy design!)

Also, the Inflated Head sprite has been corrected to be the same as the final version… But this one isn’t coloured in yet!

Other differences between this version and the final game include many name changes to the actual levels, a scrapped ‘Straw Maze’ in Level Ate, and a piece of concept art for an unused enemy. There’s also a little information in the gallery about the animation process.

All Images (Final version x3, then Sega Power protos x5, then Mean Machines Sega proto x8)

 

This is a French promotional video for Earthworm Jim 2. It shows a very incomplete version of the game, judging from the lack of collision detection evident in most sections of the video, and there are a few things different between this one and the final.

Major differences include:

• 0:00 – 0:05 – An unused tentacle enemy on the Anything but Tangerines stage (it may have been scrapped because of the impressive animation on it!)
• 0:08 – 0:015 – Some strange and unused animations for Jim on The Flyin’ King stage.
• 0:15 – 0:22 – Jim on the Blind Cave Salamander stage. As well as some strange glitchy graphics, and odd-coloured walls, there’s no collision detection at all- Jim passes harmlessly through the walls.
• 0:22 – 0:24 – Jim’s gun is using the animation from the first EWJ game.
• 0:27 – 0:29 – The Door fight on ISO 9000 takes place in a completely different area in the final game.

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