Saturn

Mega Man 8 [PSX SAT – Beta / Unused Stuff]

Mega Man 8, known as Rockman 8: Metal Heroes in Japan, is the eighth installment in original Capcom’s Mega Man series, and was originally released in Japan on the Sony PlayStation on December 1996. The following year, Mega Man 8 saw a release on the Sega Saturn and was localized for both consoles in North America and the PlayStation in PAL regions. Director Hayato Kaji revealed that he initially designed Duo as robot created by the Mega Man 4 character Dr. Cossack. When it was decided that Duo would instead come from outerspace, his appearance changed but still retained remnants of Russian traits, such as his headware. [Info from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Proto1, we found out that MegaphilX uploaded an interesting video from a Mega Man 8 beta in his Youtube Channel.

Everything is practically unused in the footage. The background, the effects, no bolt item, Mega Man’s got a strange running animation and towards the end of the video, you can see early footage of the stage select screen. The bosses have not been made yet, so their Metools act as their temporary icons. Also, a sprite of Duo appears here as well, something that isn’t in the final at all.

– Completely unused BGM
– The background for the stage is unused and unfinished.
– Mega Man has an odd running animation. He’s very stiff in comparison to his final running animation
– His color when using the MegaBall is Green and Yellow instead of Pink and purple.
– Enemies appear at places they don’t usually in the final.
– Big yellow blocks have a blue streak through them. In final, they’re solid yellow.
– at one point in these videos, there’s an elevator lift moving downwards. In the final, elevators never go down, only up.
– No enemies in elevator portions.
– No hit detection with Whale Airship enemies.
– Bolt items weren’t implemented yet
– Beginning at 5:04 in this video, you can catch a quick glimpse at a work-in-progress stage select. Mettools represent stages under construction, and the Duo character is shown as the boss for the Island stage. Duo isn’t a boss in the Island stage, so perhaps he was in this particular build.
– Also at the stage select, Tengu Man’s mugshot appears on the top right column where Frost Man should be. In the final, he’s on the top left.

Thanks to Proto1 for the contribution!

Videos:

For comparision, here’s the final frost man stage:

Here’s an update showing the beta in more detail by DeGamer (aka Henger83)

Two more additional stages in this version seen above are covered here by JosephCollins

An even later beta build with many more differences can be seen in action here:
 

Opposite Lock (Wreckin Crew) [PSX Saturn – Beta]

Update: thanks to GalacticeMage, we found out that Opposite Lock was an early beta version of Wreckin Crew! The graphic style remained the same, but the screenshot in the gallery below is probably from a target render (also the HUD is different). Check the video from the final game for a comparison.

Opposite Lock is a cancelled racing game that was in development by QUICKDRAW DEVELOPMENT / Telstar for the Playstation, Saturn and PC. Celine found a screenshot of this project in PlayMag magazine issue #4: it seems that Opposite Lock was going to be an arcade with colorful graphic and stylized vehicles based on real-life cars (as Chevrolet and Ford). It’s currently unkown why the game was canned.

Here’s the original press release:

Based around a blisteringly fast game engine, Opposite Lock is an arcade style, 3D hot rod racing game that also includes combat and stunt driving aspects. With most driving games nowadays concentrating on showing off the polygon engine rather than presenting a fast and furious racing game, Opposite Lock sets out to redress this balance by putting the FUN back into the genre. Modern racing games tend towards the simulation end of the driving spectrum and ignore the qualities that made Hard Driving, Power Drift and Mario Kart so popular. Opposite Lock offers you the chance to drive a whole host of stylised and customised vehicles from 1957 Chevrolets to Ford pickups, each with their own individual attack moves. There are stunt tracks, cup competitions and head to head modes,  not to mention a demolition derby competition and a complete action replay and video editing suite to play back and save your favourite moments.

– Multi-player option that allows up to 32 players on a network.
In-game pickups and upgrades, including weapons, nitros and repair kits.

– Over 100 different road side objects which interact with the players car. Hit a tyre stack and the tyres bounce all over the track!

– Full screen VGA and SVGA modes ensure that you are in the thick of the action at all times.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Video (from the final version):
 

Gex [3DO PSX SAT – Beta / Unused Stuff]

Gex is a 2D platformer game, developed and published by Crystal Dynamics in march 1995 for the Panasonic 3DO and later for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. Thanks to Gexthegecko we found out that in the final game it’s possible to reach an unused shooting level: it involves taking a certain route in Planet X (check the videos below). There’s also a test levels that include unused sprites from the 3DO version.

Beyond this, there are loads of concept artworks to unlock in the special ending (after the credits roll). It seems that the original plot never involved television and in the early prototype Gex was set in our world instead of its very own fantasy oriented one. There’s also an article with one of the game’s developers, which exposes even more pre-production goodness:

The game was about Gecko X, a Hollywood stuntman (stunt Gecko). The studio he worked for was in financial trouble and helping it fail were the enemies Karl Chameleon and his henchmen like Guido Gila. Each level would be themed around a Hollywood action movie genre. For example the Western. The level intro would show stock footage of old Hollywood western movies (for some reason marketing thought this was the greatest idea ever) and then the level would have Gex going through it doing “stunts”. The better he did the more money the ‘Movie’ made and therefore the better the studio did. One level was designed using that theme and it was just awful. […]

They wanted a 32bit game that would be the next Sonic but they were not willing to put the resources into it that would be required to do it. They had come from a 16 bit world and still thought they only needed a 16bit size team. […]

By June we had decided to get rid of Mode 2 and make each world have only one art set so for example the Horror world dropped the Haunted House art set and became just the graveyard. Done by that time were the graveyard art set, cartoon and sci-fi and almost no enemies. It was around that time that Silicon Knights (creators of Legacy of Kain) were asked to do some enemies for Gex. They cranked out about 26 enemies in about 1 month. Also Steve Suhy was hired and was asked to do many of the enemies.[…]

Since it was now June and the project was not even 50% finished, the company decided to cut the sci-fi levels since none had been done and since they didn’t like the art. That brought the game down to five worlds and they hoped would get the game done by Sept in time for Christmas. […]

Evan had programmed a shooter for his Senior project at Stanford (he was finishing his degree at Stanford and working on this nightmare project and competing in National gymnastics) and we decided to stick that shooter in the game as a bonus. […]

Gex 4 was in early development for the PS2, but it was soon cancelled and only few artworks remain to preserve its existence.

Thanks to Gexthegecko for the contribution!

Videos:

 

Tarantula [PSX Saturn PC – Cancelled]

Tarantula is a cancelled action game that was in development by Scavenger (Team Mescal) in 1996 / 1997 for the Playstation, Saturn and PC. The concept of the game was somehow similar to the released Spider (PSX) and Deadly Creatures (Wii), in which the player would had take the role of a spider to explore natural areas and human houses, fighting against other insects and animals.

As noted at  Sega Collection, Tarantula was shown at E3 1996, along with other Scavenger’s games that seem to have been vanished too: Angel, Aqua, Into The Shadow, Mudkicker and Spearhead. Sadly the studio was closed down in 1997 / 1998 for economic problems.

As we can read at MobyGames:

Scavenger, Inc., with offices in Boston, California, Denmark, England, Sweden, was a short-lived interactive entertainment company specializing in the development of video games […] The President of the company in 1996 was Daniel Small. In April of that year, Scavenger and GT Interactive Software Corp. entered into a publishing agreement for several titles.

Problems occurred between the two companies concerning GT Interactive’s failure to pay according to contract, and a lawsuit resulted. Debt forced Scavenger to close its doors in approximately 1997. Even though Scavenger was awarded $1.9 million in the Supreme Court settlement (Feb. 2000), it was not enough to resurrect the company.

Thanks to Celine and Rod_Wod for the contribution!

Images: 

Jet Ski Rage [Sega 32X / Saturn – Cancelled]

Jet Ski Rage is a cancelled sport / racing game that was in development by Velocity for the Sega 32X add-on. The game was going to be something like Wave Race but in first person view, with detailed water physic and a rumored multiplayer mode. Jet Ski Rage was likely canceled early in development as the failure of the 32X became apparent shortly after launch and then moved to Sega Saturn.

In the process Velocity added a “fighting” component to it (deadly courses, floating spikes, bounty hunters etc.). Even on its Saturn incarnation Jet Ski Rage would never seen the light of the day for unknown reasons.

Celine was able to find some screens of the 32X version (probably target-renders) in CD Consoles magazine issue #7 while the Saturn article was found on Sega Vision issue #25. Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

Images:

Saturn article on Sega Vision 25