At E3 2006, the first beta-gameplay was revealed of the excite bike spin-off, Excite truck. The beta features a few minor yet distinct differences. These include small font alterations, a different map on the lower right corner of the screen anddifferent designs for environment change buttons. These all be seen in the videos below:
Wii drums was a tech demo which was playable at the E3 2006. It was titled then as another part of Wii Music, aside the orchestra game but at E3 2006 was the last time it has been seen since. Wii drums featured a two player jam sessions like mechanic in which players hold two wii remotes each and have to move the wii remote to bash the onscreen drums whilst simoultaneously having to hold different buttons to switch between them to create a different sounding beat. Satori Iwata speculated after E3 2006 to Official Nintendo Magazine that Wii Drums was at the time a tech demo made to show off one of the many things the wii remote could simulate. He added to that “That was not only to give the public a better understanding of the new technology but to show third-party developers what opportunities there are”. With that said, it makes me think this is perhaps what inspired Sega to bring back Samba de Amigo on the wii as it uses a similar gameplay mechanic.
Below is one of the few videos you can find of wii drums in action:
Thanks to Sttnw we know that “at one point, the Wii version of Activision’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (developed by Vicarious Visions) was going to feature Link and Samus Aran. However, the deal between the two companies fell through and the characters were cut from the final release”.
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Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage is a video game developed by H2O Interactive and published by THQ. It is one of the few console RPG released for the Nintendo 64. Due to a combination of the poor reviews and even poorer sales, projects for a sequel were dropped. The game has developed somewhat of a cult following, leading some groups to try to remake the game for Wii or DS homebrew with improved graphics and more rigorous bug testing. [Info from Wikipedia]
In the gallery below you can see some screenshots from a target render that was created in the early days of the project, when it was still know as “Nomen Quest“. In these images the graphic was much more detailed and definited than the one in the final game. Some other screens are from a later beta version, with a different HUD.
Thanks to Myron Mason, we found out more beta differences in these early screens:
The beta for Aidyn Chronicles is indeed very different from the finished game. I have the game and I can already noticed the major differences. The characters are either wearing different clothing or have different colored versions in the beta version and the compass and solar/lunar indicator are different as well. Some of the monsters looked different like the Minotaur as well as the cities. For example, in image 5 it shows the observatory in Gwernia castle, the first city you basically start in. It stands next to the shops and is black in the beta version, but in the finished version it is inside of the castle.
Also, it appears that in the beta version you could pick who you wanted to represent the party when walking around outside of battle. And you could also make that character carrie a weapon around with them. In the realeased version, only Alaron (the main character) represented the party and no weapons could be carried around.
Update: Lisa wrote to us for some corrections:
Although I do realise Myron Mason is only claiming he has the retail game and has spotted some differences in the beta pictures it should not be there as non of it is true. The only true part is that clothing is different on a very few characters.
If you played the game and you can notice some more interesting changes, please let us know!
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Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by RareWare and published by Midway and Nintendo. Initially released in arcades in 1994 it was later ported to the Super Nintendo. In the gallery below you can notice some early character designs for B.Orchid and Glacius. As they wrote at the Killer Instinct Arena, the earliest version of Black Orchid was a blonde amazon, but a later version of her featured a black outfit. In the final game Orchid wears a green and yellow dress.
Also, thanks to Lucazz we found out that a beta Killer Instinct ROM was somehow leaked online, and it contains many differences from the final version:
Thanks to Robert Seddon and Lucazz for the contributions!
In a promotional video of Killer Instinct, embedded below, we can see an early version of the coin-op with some differences:
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