Yep, that’s right, you can download the various beta builds of Spore at www.spore.com/comm/prototypes . We can only hope that more software houses follow the example of EA and release as many betas as possible!
As they say in their site: “Spore has been a huge undertaking. Along the way we ended up exploring countless design directions in gameplay, simulation and user interface. One of the ways in which we explore possible design directions is by
Mellahan has sent us a mail to make us to notice that Protodude’s Rockman Corner blog has just gotten a hold of a beta build of Mega Man Legends (Rockman DASH) for PSX. The first link contains info over the beta build, while the second link contains the files to download the beta. From the blog we can read that “the (Rockman Dash) beta contains a vast amount of differences from the final retail version, specifically in the graphics and audio department.” It seems that this is considered to be one of the rarest betas around with only ten to fifteen copies in existence! Huge props to Protodude for the sharing!
You can find an interesting list of screens and informations from this beta at MegaMan Legends Station’s. About the differences in this version, another post from Protodude’s blog has a collection of videos from the beta demo and he tell us that there are “different title screen, differend Rock’s character model (smaller, different hair style/color), weird Special Weapon gauge, different Data’s boots, different Buster animation, different Roll’s eyebrows.. and oh so much more!”
Thanks a lot to Mellahan for these links!
Some more differences from Ian & Makubeku:
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OKeijiDragon has even found some unused dialogues hidden in the XA directory in the final disc! Those unused voices include alternate lines for MegaMan on unlocking the portals to the living quarters, unheard cheering from the TV Reporter after presumably clearing the Bonnes’ robots in City Hall, and more intended dialogue from the Inspector after foiling the “bank robbery”. You can check one of the videos below to hear those dialogues.
Videos:
Soulstar was a Mega-CD game created by Core Design, and after its release, two seperate conversions were planned. One was a port to the Jaguar CD, under the same name, whereas the other was an updated version for the 32X, under the name Soulstar X. In the end, neither of them were released.
Corn Buster is an unreleased Super Nintendo game developed by Engine Software. The game is the story of a dragon named Globey, who sets out to defeat the person who’s stolen all the cornflakes in the world. The gameplay is an interesting mix of an Arkanoid-Style ball-and-paddle game and a vertical scrolling shooter. The game quietly began development around 1994, and was canceled soon after interest in the Super Nintendo waned in light of the release of Sony’s Playstation. Some time ago, Engine Software released a ROM of the game for free download on their website. The download page has since been removed, but the ROM is still easily obtainable. The game was 70-80% completed before it was canceled.
Thanks a lot to Marshall Leslie for all these information and screens! If you are a collector, you can buy an official cart of Corn Buster for SNES thanks to Piko Interactive.
Images:
Probably it’s an old news for some of you, but if you still did not know, the Neopong team has shared with the public a ROM of their cancelled GBA / DS game, a shmup named World Reborn. As we can read at the WD Forum “My partners and I have finally completely given up on the ability to get this game out in some form or fashion (DS/Wii remake, Cellphone version, etc…), so rather than let it never see the light of day or be played by anyone, we’ve decided to just make it freely available for download. So here it is, 4 (or 5?) years after completion, World Reborn:
www.neopong.com/download/worldreborn.bin [4MB]
[…] you’ll need the ability to play GBA ROM files. Various ways you can do that… I’d recommend grabbing VisualBoy Advance (just Google search for it), it plays well in there.”
You can read more about the project at the Neopong website, with some interesting informations like the Design Document, Game Spreadsheet and the Stat Balancing Sheet. We are happy to see that some developers have decided to freely share their work that could have been lost, props to them! If you are a fan of the shoot ’em up genre, you should try this cancelled-one. Here’s a video if you want to take a look before the download: