Sony

Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf [X360 / PS3 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
20-07-2009
No Comments

The original Witcher is a action adventure / RPG for the PC developed by CD Projekt RED STUDIO and published in 2007 by CD Projekt in Poland and Atari for the rest of the world. The console version of the The Witcher (known as Rise of the White Wolf) was to be the best version yet, with enhanced graphics, new combat system, and rebuilt pixel by pixel for the consoles. Soon followed financial issues between co developers CD Projekt RED STUDIO and co Widescreen Games as CD Projekt had not been financed in three months after fully committing to the new project. Michal Kicinski, Joint CEO CD Projekt Group for Widescreen Games response popped up as a comment on the VG247 article:

  • All payments were done on time according to milestone plan.
  • Truth is that payments were later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production. The delays were growing in the project due to WSG continued to miss the deadlines.
  • Delays and risks of further development by WSG were unacceptable by CD Projekt (this happened even though CDProjekt RED was constantly increasing main team involvement to help in the production). The most important fact is that development process didn’t make planned release date possible and moreover propositions of the new release date were changing few times. Besides the schedule, technical incapability created a risk of missing planned quality which is absolutely unacceptable. And this brought an end in our cooperation with WSG.
  • Currently the works are on hold. We are evaluating all possible options to continue the production.

Some time later CD Projekt officially canceled the console versions of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf and is currently working on the sequel The Witcher 2 for PC.

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Playstation, Sony

WWF SmackDown! [PSX – Beta]

monokoma
19-07-2009
4 Comments

WWF SmackDown! is a professional wrestling game released on the original Playstation by THQ and developed by YUKE’s Future Media Creators in 2000. Lionheart was able to play a beta version of the game, with some  interesting differences:

  • Start screen is different, different background plus it has “Jan 06 2000” in the top left-corner
  • Debug text is visible during fights
  • No interactivity at all backstage
  • In the final game flames would be coming from the cooker when you whip characters into it, but nothing happens with anything backstage in this version
  • Tables, toilet seats, caskets, steel steps, Handcuff’s and trolleys / shopping carts can be used as weapons. They arent anywhere to be seen in the final game
  • Season seems to be very unfinished (random crashes, storyline text not making any sense) also shows writing with random superstars names with 255 by their name, pressing “R1” or “L1” changes these superstars, “O” views a list of wrestlers in the game.
  • On the screen before you see who your fighting in season pressing sqaure on pad 1, plays a storyline (usually wierd things like 2 of the same wrestler speaking to each other)
  • Pressing start on Pad 2 lets you move the camera around freely during a storyline using the second controller, Pressing Triangle on Pad1 restarts the scene
  • Pressing start on pad 2 during menu screens lets you move the menu screen itself
  • The one handed weapons dont do any damage unless thrown, and the thrown animation is abit glitchy the weapon leaves there hand after the animation has finished
  • “Two groups of two people” mode?
  • A few other small things like Chyna’s skin tone is alot darker in this one, ill try and take a few pics later if anyones interested

For more info you can check his post in the U64 Forum.

Thanks a lot to Lionheart for the contribution!

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Playstation, Sony

Driver 2 [PSX – Beta]

monokoma
19-07-2009
5 Comments

Driver 2 was developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Infogrames for the original Playstation in November 2000. Some beta screens were released in May 2000 and as Vicente has made us to notice, there are some little differences in there: the car shown in the early images is similar to the president’s one seen in Driver 1’s last mission but that model is not in the final D2 game. Also, the car is in an unkwnon area in the Rio De Janeiro city. In the video from Driver2Vegas Youtube Channel, we can notice some other removed cars (the Trans Am) without tinted windows, longer drawing distance,the Chicago landscape with skyscrapers looks slightly different, early HUD and gates on the bridge.

Thanks to Vicente and Gamersin for the contribution!

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Playstation, Sony

Driver [PSX – Beta]

monokoma
16-07-2009
9 Comments

Driver is a 1999 action / driving game developed by Reflections Interactive (now known as Ubisoft Reflections). In the screens and video below, you can notice an early version of the game, with various differences: in the beta the Miami city main car was yellow with a black stripe (a kind of vehicle that is only used in Driver 2), an early pause / debug menu and the car resists to more damages than in the final version.

The HUD wasn´t complete and the map color is green instead of red. Some cars seen in the beta Newcastle city were not used in the Playstation version, but they can still be “unlocked” with gameshark / AR codes. The PC version of Driver could be considered as a director´s cut since the city and the unused cars can be normally unlocked in the game.

Super Slav has made us to notice that in the beta demo you coud drive your car into the water as there are no barriers to stop you in some parts of Miami area. Also some of the boats do not have textures. Hacking the demo to have unlimited time and damage, it’s possible to roam the beta map and to found some interesting stuff! (Check the third video below) Only half of the Miami map is avalable, peds can walk on water, and the boats are not solid. The water has no effect on the civilian cars (they can drive on it like the they drive on roads), the water only affects your car. Also, the map was a bit different in the beta demo.

Also, the original beta featured screenshots and videos of a yellow Buick GSX, but this car did not feature in the final game. It was, however, included as a bonus car in Driver 2.

Thanks to Vicente, Martin, Gamersin and Super Slav for the contributions!

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