sport

GameCube, Nintendo

Super Mario Strikers [GC – Concept / Beta]

monokoma
24-07-2009
No Comments

Super Mario Strikers, known as Mario Smash Football in Europe and Australia, is a five-a-side football game developed by Next Level Games for the Nintendo GameCube. In an interview, game director Mike Inglehart and marketing director Grace Kim revealed that Strikers was originally intended to be a more realistic Mario sports game, but the development team opted for an “over-the-top” style after numerous consultations with Nintendo. [Info from Wikipedia]

Robert Seddon has linked us to an interesting article on Press The Buttons, in which we can look at some early concept arts, that show a different character design. The final  Mario Striker’s art-style was one of the most interesting Mario-designs from the last generation and it’s nice to see how the concept evolved.

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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Playstation, Sony

WWF SmackDown! [PSX – Beta]

monokoma
19-07-2009
4 Comments

WWF SmackDown! is a professional wrestling game released on the original Playstation by THQ and developed by YUKE’s Future Media Creators in 2000. Lionheart was able to play a beta version of the game, with some  interesting differences:

  • Start screen is different, different background plus it has “Jan 06 2000” in the top left-corner
  • Debug text is visible during fights
  • No interactivity at all backstage
  • In the final game flames would be coming from the cooker when you whip characters into it, but nothing happens with anything backstage in this version
  • Tables, toilet seats, caskets, steel steps, Handcuff’s and trolleys / shopping carts can be used as weapons. They arent anywhere to be seen in the final game
  • Season seems to be very unfinished (random crashes, storyline text not making any sense) also shows writing with random superstars names with 255 by their name, pressing “R1” or “L1” changes these superstars, “O” views a list of wrestlers in the game.
  • On the screen before you see who your fighting in season pressing sqaure on pad 1, plays a storyline (usually wierd things like 2 of the same wrestler speaking to each other)
  • Pressing start on Pad 2 lets you move the camera around freely during a storyline using the second controller, Pressing Triangle on Pad1 restarts the scene
  • Pressing start on pad 2 during menu screens lets you move the menu screen itself
  • The one handed weapons dont do any damage unless thrown, and the thrown animation is abit glitchy the weapon leaves there hand after the animation has finished
  • “Two groups of two people” mode?
  • A few other small things like Chyna’s skin tone is alot darker in this one, ill try and take a few pics later if anyones interested

For more info you can check his post in the U64 Forum.

Thanks a lot to Lionheart for the contribution!

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma
03-07-2009
1 Comment

WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain is a wrestling game released on the PlayStation 2 by THQ and developed by YUKE’s Future Media Creators. WWEDX2007 has found some interesting beta stuff from early videos and screenshots of the game: it seems that there are 3 lost Beta characters that were removed from the final version. There were Jeff Hardy, Hulk Hogan, and Ultimate Warrior. Two screenshots of Jeff Hardy were taken from the March 2003 beta trailer, while in the two videos below we can seeHulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior.

Thanks to WWEDX2007 for the contribution and credit to Nutjow for the beta pictures of Jeff Hardy and to WrestlingVideoGames for the beta videos!

Images:

jeffhardyhctpbeta2

jeffhardyhctpbeta1

Videos:

 

Nes / Famicom, Nintendo

Arcadia VI [NES – Cancelled]

monokoma
27-06-2009
No Comments

Arcadia VI is an unfinished multi-cart that was intended to be released on the NES with 6 games. The only know proto, currently owned by BeaglePuss and MrMark0673, only has 4 games. Of the 4 games, only one game (Tennis) has been completed. The 4 games on the cart are:

  • Tennis
  • Xerxes
  • Ghurka
  • Twin Cam Turbo

The first game is an interesting pseudo-clone of pong. It supports up to 2 players and the single player mode has 4 difficulty levels. The players compete in a pong like game, but are allowed to move in all directions as opposed to just up and down. There are 2 “Arcadia Men” located on the screen which make faces depending on how well a player is doing. The game is scored in the same way as Tennis, the first player to win the match is the victor.

The second game, Xerxes, is a vertical space shooter. This game is incomplete, but is playable ina demo form. There is not music (although there are sound effects), some enemies can be shot while others cannot, you can be damaged but not destroyed, there are a few power ups, and the only level is on a continuous loop.

The third game, Ghurka, is an unfinished Commando clone. Again, there is no music, but there are sound effects. You cannot be damaged by enemy fire, but you can destroy most of the bad guys. You have a limited number of bullets (the amount is unknown to the player) but an infinite number of grenades. The “game” ends when you reach an unpassable bridge.

The final game, Twin Cam Turbo, is a top down Spy Hunter like racer. There are various power ups and obsticles to avoid, but no enemies and the one and only playable level is on a very short loop. Of all the games available, this is the least compelte.

Thanks a lot to Mr Mark for the contribution!

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Nes / Famicom, Nintendo

Kitty’s Catch [NES – Cancelled]

monokoma
22-06-2009
No Comments

Kitty’s Catch is a cancelled NES game that was discovered and purchased by Matt (aka BeaglePuss) from a lot on the Digital Press forums. The game is a two player fishing game where both players play as cats: Pitter vs Patter. It seems that Kitty’s Catch was an independent project by a GameTek developer that was pitched around to different production companies to find a publisher. You collect fish while avoiding jelly fish and electric eels, the first person to fill their bucket then receives a shell. The player with the most shells at the end of the time limit is declared the winner. There are also several power ups obtained by collecting tin cans. You can obtain a larger treble hook, or even summon a shark that can greatly weigh down your bucket. The game is currently owned by BeaglePuss and MrMark0673.

Thanks a lot to Mr Mark for the contribution!

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