Beta + Cancelled Unseen Articles Video Games - Page 2 of 8

And now we can move on to the beta multiplayer of Perfect Dark.

Beta Multiplayer

One of the most interesting rumors for the Multiplayer mode of Perfect Dark N64 is the one about plans for the game to have an online mode too. During the initial planning there were some ideas to develope Perfect Dark for the 64DD and to use the built-in modem of the add-on for the Multiplayer mode. However, due to many problems the 64 DD was delayed for months and years, and eventually this peripheral was never released outside of Japan. It seems that Rare even though about a special cartridge with an internal modem (as used already by another game, released in japan. See the picture above), but as you can imagine the online structure would have been difficult to develope and soon the idea was scrapped.

Unseen Articles, Unseen Features

Perfect Dark Beta Analysis: Beta Weapons

A journey in the evolution of the various weapons in Perfect Dark!

Beta Weapons

In this screenshot you can see that Joanna is holding a very raw / early version of the Falcon 2 / Magsec. The way the weapon is raised is very interesting as it’s not possible to see it like that in the final.

Unseen Articles, Unseen Features

Perfect Dark Beta Analysis: Beta Missions

In 1997 RARE made their first appearance in American stores with a FPS that revolutionized multiplayer on consoles. 007 Goldeneye, released for the Nintendo 64, made use of the 4 controller ports to let gamers to waste hours and hours of their free time in front of a TV screen, playing the addicting multiplayer mode. It was probably the first time that it felt so much fun to play a multiplayer FPS on a console.

When RARE decided to work on a sequel, having lost the rights to make another James Bond game, they had to create a new character and a brand new scenario from scratch: the end result was Perfect Dark, still one of the best multiplayer games ever.

Perfect Dark had a long development cycle and it changed a lot before being finally released in 2000. Nobody, except Rare of course, really know how the game evolved, but thanks to all the early images released online, we can try to get an idea of what has changed over PD’s development. In each of these beta screens we can notice what has been changed, added or cut.

Original article written in italian by monokoma in December 2001, english translation by DCodes7 in 2010. Please let us know if you notice some english errors!

Beta Missions

This first image is very strange. The color of the walls are different from what we know today, but looking carefully, it may be from the “Air Base: Espionage” mission. The corridor that we can see in in this screen remained the same in the final game, but the walls of the room were initially of a “greeny” color. Also there are 2 computer screens (one at the top and a second on the left of the picture), which if I’m not mistaken are not in there in the final version.

Unseen Articles, Unseen Features

Goldeneye 007 Beta Analysis

[Article and Translation by Yota]

In the middle of the nineties, Rare, thanks to releases such as Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct, had already become an important partner of Nintendo. Nothing strange, then, that at the time the British software house was working on various new projects. One of these was a tie-in of the new James Bond movie, Goldeneye. Initially the game was supposed to be a 2d platform for SNES, but the development was quickly switched to the Nintendo 64.

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Silent Hill 2 Beta Analysis

Silent Hill 2 is a survival horror developed by Konami’s Team Silent and originally released for the Playstation 2 in 2001. Unfortunately we don’t know much about the development of the game, but in this page we’ll try to analyze some beta screens using all the informations at our disposal.

[Article written by Yota]

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