Avatar Sports was a sports game in development at Rare Ltd. in 2007 / 2008 before Kinect development started. It used an unpublished motion controller that can be compared to the Wii Remote. Little is known about this title apart from the use of Microsoft’s Avatars and the inclusion of tennis. Development was halted when the motion controller was abandoned and first Kinect/Natal prototypes emerged. Rare then started to create their Kinect Sports, released in november 2010.
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DOAX is a title most people don’t take very seriously, and I guess that’s fair in a way. Regardless of the nature/content of the game, I was curious to find out if there had been any interesting changes during the course of its development. While browsing the image archives of such sites as IGN.com, I stumbled across a few screenshots that depict early versions of certain items, etc.
Anyone who is familiar with the interface of the retail version of DOAX should instantly notice slight differences in the look of these early menus. It isn’t incredibly unlike the ones we have now, but the icons for the items/bikinis appear to be 2D as opposed to the 3D rotating models that appear in both the icon view and the main window of the final. The names for most of the items are quite different from what we see in the final game as well, not to mention sold at a drastically reduced rate than we are used to now (the devs must’ve had a VIP membership at Zack Island). For example, the “camisole” bikini is shown in one screenshot, and is listed at $900. Certainly a more realistic price than the released version (in a twisted way), as this same bikini is sold as “Ariel” in the final at a whopping $80,000… although, assuming that the Zack Island currency is based on yen, then the former price would have been a bit silly.
Anyway, it seems like at this stage of the game the developers were simply labeling the bikinis by type or style. Maybe they were cheaper just to make testing easier, or maybe there really wasn’t much of a reason at all. An entirely unused item can be seen in one screenshot, labeled as “cat ears.” Interesting that this was intended to be a separate accessory, because ultimately the devs instead included them as additional pieces to specific bikinis. In other words, they cannot be worn unless the player equips their character with a bikini like the “raccoon.” Regardless of this fact, the original cat ears accessory still remains unused because the color and exact texture is not found for ears as an addition on any bikini.
So, it’s safe to say we got shafted with the released version of DOAX, right?! Nah, just joking… it really isn’t much different.
Article by Trebla Yevrah
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This is the beta for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. There were very big differences from the beta to the final game. Some levels are heavily edited from their final versions, and some levels didn’t make it at all. In the character select screen, the characters (save for Bucky Lasek) are very unchanged from their final versions. Chad Muska is used as placeholder for some of the characters.
The School is the first level in the beta. There are some differences, like the fact that the rooftop is blocked by fans, and that the pool area is also very changed. Instead of collecting 1 secret tape for each level, there are multiple secret tapes to be found in each level. The “Bonus 500” and the “Bonus 200” point symbols are now just plain rings.
Thanks to Christopher Mauro for the contribution!
Some more details about the early prototype version of Tony Hawks were shared with us by Teetha Mundo:
“Based on the information from the source, a forum post from 1998, these screenshots are from a Pre-Tony build, or a build that was shown to Tony Hawk.
This build features one of the first original skateboarders in the game, being built a month or two after the Apocalypse-Build. There’s actually a hologram of Bruce Willis in one of the levels, it’s the same model from the Apocalypse game. In some of the screenshots you can see early versions of existing levels or even levels that didn’t make it to the final release. The skater and skateboard model still exists in the games files up to Tony Hawk‘s Pro Skater 2.”
Here is footage of some levels that didn’t make it:
Downhill: This level didn’t make the final cut because it looked too similar to a level in the arcade game, “Top Skater”.
Classic Concrete: This level didn’t make it because it was just a physics test, to see how the skater model reacted to terrain like grass, dirt, etc.
Suburbia: It’s unclear why this level didn’t make it. Some say that it was an early version of the San Francisco level, And I definitely see similarities. But for the most part, it doesn’t look anything like it.
Freeway: This was probably taken out because it was boring and didn’t have many things to trick off of. I think some of the level was used in the second level of Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX, like the grindable steel girder and the porta-potties.
Chris also recorded many videos from beta and test levels:
Recently rewatched the didyouknowgaming video about the tony hawk pro skater series and they really skimmed over a lot of the content that was cut. Such things like the (inaccessible) test level, freeway map, downhill map and more. I decided to play the betas myself and see what I could do to try and get into the test level without a cheat device. Well I succeeded. I took the betas, mixed certain build files together and rebuilt the rom (and can play it on hardware as of yesterday so yay for this) and realized I had forced the test level to be a selectable stage.
Heres the levels (excluding Suburbia) that I recorded for Tony Hawk’s beta. The title says “MIXED BETA” because it’s not the original build. The 2 betas that are online I mixed together in some ways so it’s not truly the original rom, but all the stages are in tact and all stages are from the original builds (again except Suburbia which was overwritten by the test level).
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