Black ICE / White Noise (originally known as Chaos Agenda) is a cancelled action game that was in development for the Jaguar.
In 1995 Atari corporation was desperately rushing to keep their Jaguar system alive and in competition with the next generation of gaming systems such as the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. Atari promised a Virtual Reality helmet and cd add on in order to try and keep up with Sony and Sega.
Unfortunately the VR helmet was canceled due to how expensive production of the unit would have been. However the cd add on eventually made it into mass production and was released in mid 1995 along with about 15 games and promises of more to come such as Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf which was canceled and Atari’s major in house project for christmas 95. Originally Atari planned to release a platforming mascot game which would rival Sega’s Sonic or Nintendo’s Mario.
Some designs that were suggested were ducks, alligators and armadillos but none of these mascots ever caught on so Atari decided to go with a more adult cyberpunk game that would star a “slick, stylin’ Aresenio Hall-esque black hacker dude, a beautiful, ass-kicking Japanese female street samurai, and a long-haired, mirrorshaded, leather-jacketed caucasian borderline alcoholic burnout” (copy and pasted from an inteview with one of the game’s designers).
The game would have been quite similar to Grand Theft Auto 3 in that the player could wander through a huge city and either talk to people or shoot them and would have featured a fully 3d environment as well as fmv cutscenes.
Players could have stolen a futuristic air car and gone for a joy ride or gone on foot. Players could also use something called “My first deck” in the game in order to jack into something called the the C net which would allow players to hack into companies c space in order to access information, get addresses or look for job opportunities. Players could then accept missions from a variety of different characters.
Missions included finding someone in C net, hacking into a part of C net to get information, destroying a renegade C net program, Breaking into a building to rescue someone and successfully take then back to safety, or taking out a gang.
The game takes place 40 years in the future in the city of New San Francisco where a large company known as Megasoft is attempting to gain control of the C net and apparently the world. In the game you could either work with Megasoft or against them.
If you blast a couple of cops and they begin chasing you all over the city you could simply enter the C net and hack the police data base to get rid of your police record. Or you could do a favor for the government to get your record wiped clean.
Unfortunately the game was not to be, after Atari laid off an integral part of the Black ICE/White Noise development team a Christmas release slipped away and instead the game was targeted for a July 1996 release.
However very quickly more team members were laid off as Atari went further and further into bankruptcy. Finally, the game was canceled and drifted into gaming history.
However recently two different prototype builds of the game have surfaced / leaked and are available for purchase for your Jaguar CD system! One build is Revision 18. Although this build does not have as many features as the other available build it is much more stable and does not crash as much. The other available build is Revision 23, the last build of the game produced. Although there are several new features such as the infamous “zebra hooker” this build is much more unstable.
The official soundtrack (created by Andy Armer) is also available for purchase since it was never implemented into the game.
Overview: Tomb raider was not only one of the best selling, early 3D games, but it was the most recognizable icon of the PlayStation brand. Tomb Raider’s design and concept started in 1994, Core Design, of Derby decided that they wanted to make a video game based on ‘Tomb Raiding’. Subsequently the game was released early October 1996 on several platforms such as: PC, Sega Saturn and PlayStation. Tomb Raider was then re-released on the N-Gage Nokia phone to promote the franchise further. The original concept showed early drawings of a male character which they changed to a female named Lara Cruz then to the heroine we know as Lara Croft.
It is *rumored* that early revisions of Tomb Raider were to be planned be released on:
3DO
Atari Jaguar
It has been confirmed that there was an N64 port in progress but this got cancelled due to “contractual agreements” presumably with Sony.
As Tomb Raider was in development through 1995. The expected release date had been targeted for 1st QTR 1996. It has been confirmed that this revision was cancelled. This led to Tomb Raider being rescheduled for QTR 4 1996 after Eidos acquired U.S Gold.
As noted in an interview by Ross Sillifant with Mike Fulton:
Mike:This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about Tomb Raider and Jaguar in the same paragraph. It seems very unlikely to me… the first released version of Tomb Raider was late 96, even later than Quake’s release.
Tomb Raider, in anything like the form we know, would have been very difficult to do on Jaguar. It used OpenGL for 3D and there was nothing like Open-GL for the Jaguar, and few games had made any sort of attempt at texture-mapping the entire display. I’m not saying it would have been impossible but it would have taken a pretty good development team to pul it off.
Also Core in early interview with Edge talk of Tomb Raider starting out on MCD, 12 months BEFORE BC Racers was finished, but could’nt get camera system working. Interview with Core Design in EDGE issue 41 (Jan’97) Has Jeremy Smith talking of concept of character in a cinematic enviroment, being inital concept for T.R, but they had immense issues designing a system around the character that would let them move within a camera system and Artist, animator and designer at Core, Stuart Atkinson said: ‘We already had the sketches and ideas for the game for about a year before we even finished BC Racers (on MCD). So any claims Tomb Raider was ORIGINALLY designed for Jaguar CD is not true, it was designed during MCD era, Core just waited for tech to reach point concept/ideas could be turned into full blown game.
Also Ross Sillifant wrote us that: “The Jag Tomb Raider claim? Comes from a SUPPLEMENT MAG, EDGE supplied in a 1-off, back in it’s early days, paid for by ATARI to promote up coming Jaguar games. I’ve never seen said supplement itself, despite owning complete eDge collection, and no-one that continues the claim seems to have copy either, lol. Basically in it were up coming Jaguar games from Core Design, Soulstar (which we know was being worked on) but claim has Swagman down for Jaguar as well (only early confirmed version i know of, was 32X) and very early Tomb Raider, with character known as Laura Cruz or something similar. Myth made ‘worse’ by a PHOTOSHOPPED image from sister mag Next Gen (i think) from USA where SAME screen shot, but in box out detailing system info someones (crudely) photo-shopped Jag CD logo over where it originally said Next-Gen systems.”
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Prototype Concept & Game Design – Date, 20th March 1995
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Scans of a game design booklet from early 1995 arrived on the internet a few years ago. This booklet shows a similar story line, featuring a character named ‘Lara Cruz’, she was supposed to activate the Pyramid using the Scion supposed to be found within the first 3 levels of the game. This variant of the storyline also suggests that Natla used to be a male character named Hamilton who sent Lara Cruz on this path to retrieve the artifact. The original games design document currently resides within a museum.
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Prototype Stage – Date, October/November 1995 Platform: Sega Saturn
The screenshots come from a Sega Saturn preview magazine which also claims the game was supposed to be released ‘1st QTR 1996’ it seems that CORE must’ve scrapped this nearly complete version of the game and remastered it ready for the year after! The levels look early, huge and the models all seem to be different, Lara, bear, wolves etc. The simplicity of the levels may have a negative impact in comparison to the final release. But I find it quite intriguing and it’d be great to see more of this prototype! Magazine scans are from both an October/November issue.
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Pre-alpha Stage- Date, Early 1996 Platform: PC
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The first video on this page, is one of the earliest known builds of Tomb Raider. It was compiled some time late 1995, apparently used to show U.S Gold the progress of what Core Design had made with the game. The video, shows early footage of the first installment of Tomb Raider, it seems that she has a braid. There are also rumors that the braid was removed because it caused frame rate drops in-game. It was then remastered for the next game Tomb Raider: II. Also, her main weapon is the ‘Magnums’, Core Design originally planned for Lara’s main weapon to be the Magnums, rather than the pistols. In this build, Lara’s model is very reminiscent of what is seen in the final. All that was changed was the head mesh and removal of the braid. There are also various animations which are significantly different from the final. It appears, that Lara Croft has the Sunglasses on her face which was removed from the final version but she has them in FMVs. The levels are currently unknown, the textures resemble the second level (City Of Vilcabamba), it looks more like a test level. The build comes with a debug feature, it allows you to pause, change the camera angle and even zoom to take a look around in other places. The enemies are barely different from the final version, it seems that the AI is less challenging. The locations, while only early placeholders, already display complex and haunting environments. ——
Early Prototyping Stage FMVs – Date ???? 1995 Platform: Sega Saturn / PC
These videos apparently come from a similar or possibly the same prototype or press-kit as the one above. They show a completely different intro to the game with a brand new ambiguous storyline. The Scion also looks different and it appears that she already has all the pieces.
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Alpha Stage – Date, Early March 1996 Platform: PSX/SATURN
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In this version you can see the deleted jump animation is present, there is no water in this version so we know it’s before the alpha shown below where Lara cannot swim. Some of the screenshots of the third level show how different is was, it’s just not recognisable anymore.
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Alpha Stage – Date, Late March 1996? Platform: PC
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This alpha version of Tomb Raider was compiled before May 1996, the May 1996 version has the ability to swim. Therefore, I can tell this was compiled before May 1996, the Diary, Dynamite and placeholder inventory items are included in this build, just as seen in later builds such as the May 1996 version.
It’s the first level, ‘The Caves’, but it seems that Lara spawns later in the level, Lara’s model is final, the animations are still different in some cases such as climbing up and jumping. She also has the ability to aim on 2 targets also shown in Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition (CORE) trailer. The skulls in the pit, are not present in the final version. The gun fire effects are simple sprites which resemble stars, Similar to the ones on the July 1996 PC Demo and May 1996 Alpha. Although Lara cannot swim the room flags can be set to water so the effect can be seen.
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Alpha Stage – Date, March 1996 Platform: PC
Here is a video similar to the alpha above this, it could be the same. However, it was shown at an E3 expo video and looks like it’s for the PlayStation 1. It ends with and unused intro/cut scene deleted sometime in August to make way for the final cut scenes/FMVs ——
This is the build shown at E3 1996 and is similar to the build shown above. It contains deleted diary and dynamite, it seems that dual aiming has been removed. There is still no sound in this version and a lot of the swimming animations are different, exiting water is different. Items on the floor are way larger than the final version. Dynamite icons are only seen in this version of the game so far. It is barely functional and has many minor bugs. There are different animations like the vaulting and land from jump animations. Lara cannot dive or roll, the circle button is used to swim. Lara cannot shoot without being locked onto an enemy, the controls are slightly different since circle button is walk rather than R1.
Video 2 also shows footage of the ending of the level which required Lara to be ‘moved to the next room’ in order to get there since the trap door causes a crash. They must’ve been out of time and hadn’t finished the trap door features.
Video 3 shows the early ‘prototype’ jump in action, it was activated by manipulating the E3 version. It also features a new animation where Lara crosses her arms. The jump animation is exactly the same as the ones shown in the first two videos, but was removed later in the June/July versions.
Video 4 shows a series of animations, there are several unused animations, it’s fun to watch.
Video 5 shows the unused sprites.
Video 6 shows the unused in-game models.
Video 7 shows an unused Lara croft model found in-game with no braid unfortunately. Must’ve been used for testing at one point in time and is most likely a very early revision of the Doppelganger.
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Alpha Stage – Date, 7th May 1996 Platform: PC
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This build is very similar to the PSX E3 demo. Containing differences to LEVEL2 in particular. It contains the first 3 levels of Tomb Raider. The third which is in very early stages. All the sound effects in this build are placeholder and were not present in the final game. The first level shows some significant differences in some rooms.
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Beta Stage – Date, Late May/June 1996? Platform: PC
This beta shows Larson in the second level of the game. He normally appears in the fifth level of the game, Tomb Of Qualopec. You can see his gun is untextured, the star sprites are still present when Lara Croft shoots. They must’ve been experimenting with Lara competing against Larson in the first level so that Lara would get the scion before Larson, ordered by Natla would. You may have had to kill Larson before he kills Lara of course.
Also, in the Lost Valley, you can see that there are crocodiles which were deleted form the final. There are some minor level differences like the bridge debris, waterfalls in different places and missing dinosaurs.
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Beta Stage – Date, 2nd July 1996 Platform: PC
This build, is similar to the one above in some aspects, it still contains the star gunfire. There are several texture issues which can be seen throughout the demo. In this build, the Diary was replaced with the Passport, the fonts are different, and the Golden Idol is positioned above the collapsible ledges where a health kit is in place in the final version. It also contains a debug option, the map allows the user to explore a birds eye, view of the entire level. It is currently unknown if it features anything else since it’s a self playing demo. Similarly, in the inventory, the Grenade is present, Core design decided they’d like to replace the Dynamite with a more modern explosive device, ‘The Grenade’. Also, the doors which open to the Caves aren’t actually there.
There are various texture bugs and pressing E/F will change some texture rendering options. Pressing Z will also initiate “DOZY” where Lara can swim throughout the level and it also replenishes health. The map feature is handy as it allows viewing of all rooms which have been visited dynamically.
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Beta Stage – Date, 22nd July 1996 Platform: Sega Saturn
In the first video, there are several differences. Lara has her original costume (not gym), she has the ability to shoot. The level is called ‘Gym’, rather than Lara’s home, there is no voice overs, several collision issues (Lara can walk into objects), and there is no end trigger so the level cannot end. There is a bear in the gym room which isn’t there in the final version. In addition, it features a record demo option, this option isn’t functional like some of the other place holder options in the inventory screen. Level select is automatically unlocked like most other Tomb Raider Betas, however, this is only a 2-Level build. Notably, her footstep sounds are different, when she draws guns, multiple annoying sounds are played which is a glitch and was only fixed Late August 1996.
In the second video, there is pistol ammo. Core Design, planned for the Pistols not to be unlimited, there is ammo placed in various places of the level. The health bars are also different, the level is pretty much the same, just that the Golden Idol is placed elsewhere and that there is no end trigger. This version, also has the Grenade feature, once selected, it does not work since it’s a place holder option. Core Design, decided to scrap it, it is no longer present in builds after July 1996, removed possibly due to time running out.
In the third video i show you some unused models from the game including the doppelganger which shouldn’t even be in this level. She’s quite different as she moves a few seconds after Lara Croft.
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Beta Stage – 2nd August 1996 Platform: Sega Saturn
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Tomb raider development continues, this build still contains no Cut scenes, no FMVs. The grenade is also removed from this version, Pistol ammo is still present, they scrapped the Pistol ammo late August 1996. Again, the first video, is very similar to final, there is a missing slope, missing darts, and the buggy weapon draw issue is still present. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same as the final build. It is only a 4 level build.
Very similar to the final version, the doors have finally been added, where the Golden idol should be, the items from late July 1996, have been removed. It’s just an empty room.
In the third video, there is no entrance to where Lara comes from in the FMV, Pierre is missing from the game, Lara doesn’t have the ability to jump off slopes, the first secret at the top is missing. Some of the rooms such are very unfinished. Thor doesn’t have lightning, nor does the hammer appear to be there. In addition, the Damocles room has no swords which are supposed to drop then kill Lara.
In the fourth video, this level is also very similar to the final build, but it is also very buggy. Accessing certain parts of the level will result in a crash, some of the objects are texture less especially doors. Pierre still isn’t on this level either. When you complete any of the levels, it shows a deleted stats screen which shows how many rooms have been explored.
In the fifth video, I demonstrate the debug option camera freeze. It allows you to change from an automated camera to a frozen camera to check out Lara or play with a fixed camera etc.
In the sixth video, I show another hidden debug option which allows you to place the camera where ever you like.
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Beta Stage – 16th August 1996 Platform: Sega Saturn
This is a demo, from the Sega Saturn preview vol, series. It is similar to the August build above, some bugs have been fixed, the weapon draw issue is no longer present, health bar colour is now final. All pistol ammo has been removed from the stage. The level ends after pulling one of the blocks. This is actually identical to the final version now. Just the ammo display text is different.
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Beta Stage – 4th September 1996 Platform: PSX
This rare beta version of Tomb Raider for the PlayStation has different sound effects, those of which are exactly the same as the ones in the August, July beta versions for the Sega Saturn. There is also an ammo count at the top right of the screen which counts differently compared to the final. In addition to this, another difference is that the Golden Idol is in a different place. The save crystals are Gold but in the final they are purple. If you try to use one of them the game will freeze as the feature was not implemented yet. The title screen picture is also different.
An amazing FULL beta version located on a magazine disc. There are several differences but it’s very close to the final game.
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Beta Stage – 26th September 1996 Platform: PSX
This is a video of a PS1 beta which is close to final. There are several differences such as names, inventory items missing etc. The controls are also similar to the Saturn version for some reason.
Editors: 1. SquarePulse 2. Gh0stblade
Change Log:
Gh0stBlade – Added very HQ 1995 screenshots.
Gh0stblade – Updated some small things 23/11/14 Gh0stblade – Added new videos PC Sept 4th footage 12/08/14 Gh0stblade – Added new footage and updated some areas 20/01/14 Gh0stblade – Added more info and fixed errors. 08/12/12 Gh0stblade – Added PSX Early September 1996. 08/07/12 Gh0stblade – Fixed mistake, added Early September 1996. 02/04/12 Gh0stblade – Added new footage, layout changed. 19/08/11 Gh0stblade – Added E3, August video footage + descriptions. 23/10/11 Gh0stblade – Added 12 videos, edited spelling errors and mistakes. 21/11/11 Gh0stblade – Added 2 new videos, screenshots. 24/11/11 Gh0stblade – Added 1995 images, Merged October/November, Fixed mistakes. 05/12/11 Gh0stblade – Added new alpha magazine scans (before May), changed date 08/12/11 Gh0stblade – Added Concept & Design 20/3/95, changed May/June 10/12/11
It looks like that at Sonic Retro they have found a playable proto of Sonic’s Edusoft, a cancelled sonic game for the Sega Master System: “Sonic’s Edusoft is an unreleased educational game for the Sega Master System developed in 1991 by Tiertex. The unofficially licensed game had been unknown until a Wikipedia page was created in September 2006 by an anonymous programmer involved with the game. This page has since been removed from Wikipedia. In March 2007, “the programmer” replied to an SMS Power topic concerning the Wikipedia page, revealing more details about the game. On April 27th, 2008 the ROM was finally brought to the attention of the Sonic Retro community.”
In 2002 Team ICO began to work on Shadow of the Colossus, initially with the WIP name of “NICO“. The NICO concept can be seen as an early design of the final game, were some of it’s core gameplay ideas were already exposed. You can read more about the NICO Concept in here. After Shadow of the Colossus was officially announced, various trailers and screens were shown during the development of the game, and in these media we can still notice many differences from the final version.
In the gallery below you can see some of these screens and videos with early versions of the colossi that you can fight in the final game. Also, you can notice some colossi that were never used in the game, probably because Team ICO did not had enough time to finish them all.
Thanks to Team Ico Gamer Blog we found out the “official reasons” why some of these colossi were removed:
Unused “Bird” Colossus: it was too similar to Colossus #5 and Colossus #13, also the team encountered difficulties with collision detection.
Unused “Phoenix / Ostrich” Colossus: it turned to be way overpowered and it had to be fight in an huge arena, because of its attacks.
Unused “Spider” Colossus: Team ICO was not able to implement a good way to let the player to hit the legs of the Colossus with the sword while guide the horse between them.
The “Bird Colossus” was seen in the desert, maybe it was an early version of the one that we can fight in the lake in the final game. Another unused colossus had a “worm-alike-mouth” that maybe we had to enter into to find the sigil. In a screen we can see a beta version of the flying colossus (the 13th), with red stripes on his wings, that are not in the final design. There was also a removed “spider-alike” colossus, somehow similar to the aliens from “War of the Worlds” or some enemies in Half Life 2. Other colossi that were never used in the final game looked like a “dragon”, a “boar”, a “bull” and an “ostrich”. We can feel that Team ICO spent a lot of time to design the colossi and created many versions of them before to chose the final ones.
The video of the “Secret Garden” was taken from a beta demo: you can notice that the garden design is different from the one in the released game. Also, Pikol was able to pass across the broken bridges and closed passages in the same PSU demo, to find more interesting differences! Check the 5th video to see all his finds! Also, umjammerlammy and wwwarea modded Wander in this version to see if the temple was solid and had a nice trip at the top of the beta “Secret Garden” (check the 6th video).
Even Wander / Wanda, the protagonist of the game was changed through the development: in the original NICO concept, it looked more like the character from ICO, but while the game evolved in SotC, Wander became more and more like the final design. Some beta designs of Wander show him with horns, yellow pants and a blue shirt. This beta model was still a WIP, probably used just to test the gameplay before the final design was chosen.
In February 2009, Pikol from the Team ICO Gamers Blog was able to find an unused area in the Eastern section of the world that is still hidden in the final game. This area remains hidden by clouds on the game map and usually it’s not possible to reach the place without any GameShark codes. This zone was probably meant to be used as the “arena” for one of the removed colossi.
Also, originally there was meant to be a “secret alternate ending” in the game, that would play if an Ico save was on the memory card. This alternate ending was scrapped because Team ICO felt it would be unfair on those who never played ICO to never be able to see this different epilogue. You can read what happened in the removed ending at Team Ico Gamers Blog!
Thanks a lot to Robert Seddon and CoalarDrake for the contributions and props to TIGB for all their researches on the game! HUGE props to Unclejun for sharing various demos of the game, that were an awesome way to explore its early versions and learn more about their differences!
Recently, three new Atari 7800 protos, Sirius, Plutos, Rapart, were finally recovered. This is an interesting news because they represent some of the most complex titles ever developed for the ill-fated console. You can read all about them on http://www.atariprotos.com/
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