2010 - Page 78 of 93 - Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!

Diddy Kong Racing is an arcade / multiplayer racing game developed by Rare and released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997. As we can read in an interesting retrospective article on the game published on GamesTM (an english magazine) and reported by MundoRare, originally DKR was born as a prototype for a new Real Time Strategy game for the N64 with a caveman / time-travel theme, worked on by a team of four (Chris Stamper, Lee Musgrave, Rob Harrison and Lee Schuneman).

The RTS proto did not last long and soon the team decided to evolve the project into a fun racing game, that would have been more compatible with N64 gamers. The previous work did not get wasted as they used some of the RTS assets (as a mammoth) to populate the racing game in its early stages of development.

As we read on Nintendo Life:

Musgrave confirms that this was never the case. “Just before Diddy Kong Racing, there was a month’s worth of work on a strategy game that I did with Chris Stamper, but that was in the style of Command & Conquer and not related. I rendered a few catapults, but other than that it didn’t go anywhere and died after a month. We had a go at it, but in the end it looked like the racing game had more legs”.

As Rare did not want to just create a carbon copy of Mario Kart, they decided to add some adventure elements in the game, that were influenced by Disney World. At this point of development, DKR was known as “Wild Cartoon Kingdom” and the world was a lot more theme-park based, with a central HUB that interlinked the different attractions (idea that was keep in the final game).

As the Wild Cartoon Kingdom concept convinced the bosses at Rare, they decided to organize a whole team to work fulltime on the game, and the project evolved into “Adventure Racers“.

Nintendo had no involvement in DKR’s early stages and Rare was free to develope their racing game as they want: and that’s how Adventure Racers became a sequel to RC-Pro AM, an old Rare title published for the NES. In June 1997, the game was known as RC Pro Am 64. There were no cars or go-karts, but 3-wheeled vehicles.

As we read on Nintendo Life:

But when — and more importantly, how — did Pro-Am 64 actually become Diddy Kong Racing? Musgrave fills us in: “Pro-Am 64 had gotten to a stage where it was being called exactly that; the title screen was done, and it had all new IP invented characters. We got to July 1997, and it turned out that Banjo-Kazooie was going to be the game for Christmas”.

At E3 1997 Rare finally showed RC Pro Am 64 to Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, that offered Diddy Kong to the game. The Pro-Am 64 team wasn’t happy with having Diddy Kong in the game but finally agreed as the Donkey Kong franchise was a more sellable one.

Some assets from the RC Prom AM 64 stage and other unused / beta items were left hidden in the game, and they were recently found using WWWarea‘s image modifier code. Check the RC Pro-AM 64 balloon at 1:30!

Lucas used to change the magic carpet and there the result http://www.therwp.com/forums/

Also an interesting beta video was found in an old german promo-VHS, uploaded on Youtube by AlanarWindblade. As noticed by LerakoLanche from the Spiral Mountain Forum, there are a lot of differences in this footage:

1:01 – Krunch used to be called Krash. There was probably a dispute between Rare and Naughty Dog for the similarity of Crash Bandicoot which waranted the rename.
1:22 – The inclusion of “Rareware coins” instead of bananas on the tracks. These were most likely removed to prevent confusion when collecting Rare coins and Silver Coins.
1:44 – Different image for the Blue Balloon Boost, looks like a yellow ball with a green N.
2:51 – MUCH different looking overworld. This portion is actually the area around Snowflake Mountain, but it’s been modified signifigantly. The area features a second Taj pad, a second yellow ramp which looks to lead back to the Dino Domain area and a large hole in the wall where the door to Snowflake Mountain should be.
3:00 – NEW area for Dino Domain instead of just going up the ramp, there’s an entire area for it. More footage will be seen at 3:24

While digging through the game, Jake and Runehero came across a list of names for a sound bank. In that list there’s a reference to ProAM64 (that could have been replaced with the voice that shouts ‘Diddy Kong Racing!’ as it was right beside ‘Press Start’) and a level name ‘Jewel Mines’ and ‘Twighlight City’. Jewel Mines was a prototype / beta name for the level Haunted Woods, and Twighlight City was the prototype / beta name for Star City.

It’s interecting to notice, that the cancelled Dinosaur Planet 64 was originally meant to be a sequel to DKR.

Also, Jake is working on a beta hack for Diddy Kong Racing, to restore part of the unused content in a playable form. You can follow this Beta Remake project at the Rare Witch Project Forum!

The last video is an unused music called Sea_2b.

Also, Coolboyman with help from Subdrag found more unused areas hidden in the game’s code (see last video).

0:20 – Generic Level
2:46 – Unused Lagoon
4:15 – Unused Volcano
5:40 – Cube Test
6:55 – Snow Mountain

Some more info from Dave Wise:

Hi Jake
Thank you for your email.
The Sea_2b was originaly planned for the level with the pirate ship in.
As for the Taj – we clearly had a change of plan.
Much too long ago to remember the details.
Kind regards,
Dave Wise.

Thanks to Robert Seddon, Jake Ford and Lucas Araujo for the contributions!

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More beta / unused stuff videos:

GameCube, Nintendo

Resident Evil Zero 0 [GC – Beta]

yota

26-02-2010

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Resident Evil 0 is the prequel of the first Resident Evil. It was originally developed by Capcom for the Nintendo 64, but at the end it was ported and released on the Gamecube. In October 2009, Tyrant of resident-evil-beta.de discovered many beta backgrounds and some removed items in the trial disc of the game.

Also, Trebla Yevrah noticed other unused items in the japanese trial version:

If one has the proper tools available, they can view many unused and early versions of items in the Japanese demo of Resident Evil 0. Using GCNrd, I modified the item slots and browsed through the values. As one would expect, most of the items that can be uncovered cannot be obtained ordinarily in the demo, but the majority of them are found in the finished product.
An unused hand grenade is present in both the trial and the final version of RE0. I was curious to see the state of this item in this early version of the game, but although the model and icon are still present, it cannot be equipped (like the released game). Actually, almost all weapons are unusable in the trial if you hack them into your inventory. The only ones operational are the handguns, knife, and hunting gun. The only exception, or at least, the only other equip that won’t freeze the game, is the shotgun. Your characters can hold it, but the weapon model itself is unfinished with no textures to speak of, and it cannot be fired.
Almost every item that can be examined has a slightly different texture when compared to the final game. One prime example is the key card used to operate the brakes on the train. I have tried using some of the key items in their proper place on the train, but they either don’t work, or freeze the game. For example, the hook shot can’t be used in the window that normally leads to the roof.

Images:

Videos:

Dreamcast, Sega

Little Dream [Dreamcast – Cancelled]

monokoma

25-02-2010

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Little Dream is a cancelled RPG that was in development by Panther Software (the same team behind the Space Griffon DC remake) in 1998 / 1999 for the Dreamcast. From what we can speculate looking at the few screenshots preserved in the gallery below (found by Celine in Console Plus magazine #86), the game was going to play somehow like a traditional (turn based?) RPG, set in a fantasy / crazy world (almost like Alice in Wonderland). There were even a Pig King and police-pigs to battle against! Isnt that awesome?

We dont know why the game was never released and the only images available seem to be target renders more than the real game, so it’s possible that Little Dream was cancelled in early development.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma

24-02-2010

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Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2 is a third person shooter developed and published in 2000 by 3DO for the Playstation, Playstation 2 and Nintendo 64. In the gallery below you can see the first images that were released for the PS2 version: looking at the graphic in those screens, we can notice that it’s much more definited and detailed than the one seen in the final version. We can assume that these shots were just target renders, created with high-ends PCs or a PS2 development kit, to indicate how the game would have look when it was still too incomplete to show.

DCcodes7 noticed various differences:

Then there are the zombie enemies in the graveyard image, each zombie is different if you look at the image and compare each of the enemies closely. In that very same image the female character – which you get to play as in the game – her design is different in this image than it is in the final. One difference – from what I can tell – is her boots (shoes) are white in this image but are brown in the final game.

In another screen we have the helicopter – up right hand corner of the image – that’s shooting while flying straight at the main character: the way the helicopter fires and how it fly’s is different in the target renders than it is in the final.
In that same image we have a tank, again, not found in this level. There is also the “red target” around the tank, this of course means that auto aim is active and is targeting the tank. Of course the auto aim is still in the game, however the red auto aim target is different in the target renders than it is in the final.

The town seen in one of the images is on fire, which doesn’t happen in the game at all.

In another image we see a scoped version of the M16 weapon: of course the M16 is used but the scoped version of the very same weapon is not however.
Then we have the HUD: that’s seen in all of these target renders, the HUD is different in the final.

Thanks to DCcodes7 for the contribution!

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