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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On December 22nd Nintendo released a free downloadable beta version of the internet channel that wii owners could snag from the wii shop channel. The internet channel was developed by Opera software and Nintendo. The internet channel is an internet browser which runs in Opera 9.
On April 17th 2008, High Voltage studios revealed footage for a new and mysterious game called ‘The Conduit’. The footage was a tech demo which displayed some of the visual effects that they had managed to achieve on the wii.
Almost exactly one month later, on May 16th 2008, High Voltage released more in-game footage of a beta version for their new, highly-anticipated first person shooter, ‘The Conduit’. The beta pushes the potential of the wii hardware visually, showing off some fancy effects and detailed textures.
In a later video, the developers show an interesting comparison between the first build of the game and the almost-final version. Props to High Voltage Software for showing this!
The final version of The Conduit have a hidden file called CDGame.txt in which can be changed some options to play with the debug mode. If you change the debug options to “ON” you can play the E3 demo with debug features. Also, by activating the conduit’s debug menu you can access a secret test level. The Test level – thanks to hackers – can now be played in multiplayer!
…you can also access an unused/beta level called the sanctum.
Thanks to tgarciao and DCodes7 for the contributions!