Unseen News

Storm Riders [Xbox – Cancelled]

Storm Riders is a cancelled action game that was in development for the original Xbox, that could have been based on a korean film / comic with the same name. There are not many info on its development, but an early beta version / prototype of the game was somehow found on an old Xbox Debug Kit by Museman and it was shared online thanks to the Assembler Games Forum. The menu, HUD and some of the character’s moves are really similar to Ninja Gaiden, but there aren’t any connection with Tecmo’s game.

As wrote by Andrew Borman in the Assembler Forum:

Storm Riders was built really, really late in the Xbox’s life, July 22 2005, NG started life in like 1999 before being announced at e3 2002 and released in March 2004. I havent found any evidence other than one comment that seemed to think it came from a Tecmo Xbox. Ive dug through the XBE some more and didnt find anything. It was compiled from a folder called Phoenix, which I thought might be related to Iron Phoenix, but beyond that I havent seen the evidence to link it, so I moed on.

Borrowing assets isn’t all that unusual in the dev world, so the NG assets are meaningless. But if you look up Storm Riders Online, which was to be an MMO, it was made by a studio called Phoenix Games Studio, which with the compile info points to it being from them, which is a studio in Malaysia. This also links back to the fact that the Xbox it was found on was 220v, which wouldnt be the case for a Japanese box, but does match for Malaysia. So that is much more likely

Thanks a lot to MegaMoto85 for the video!

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[U64 Italian Podcast] Episodio 2.1: Super Mario Beta Saga (Parte 2)

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The Unseen 64 Podcast is only in Italian, sorry!

U64 Podcast: Episodio 2.1 – Super Mario Beta Saga (Parte 2) [105:03] (streaming) ebbene si, siamo riusciti a registrare una nuova podcast! In realtà questa la abbiamo registrata la scorsa estate, ma tra una cosa e l’altra abbiamo avuto tempo per sistemarla e uploadarla solo oggi. Assieme a mono, Reno, Bakka, Yota e Mr.Game ci siamo incontrati di sfuggita per parlare di Mario Galaxy e delle sue caratteristiche rimosse, con una introduzione sulle leggi di censura online (che probabilmente saranno ormai superate), strani fenomeni paranormali e suoni che uccidono nascosti in pokèmon, il mistero dietro l’urlo di munch, e forse si, abbiamo anche fatto una lunga e approfondita discussione su tutti i modelli inutilizzati nascosti nel codice del gioco! Solo i veri fan o chi non ha di meglio da fare, riusciranno ad ascoltare questo episodio fino alla fine.. buon ascolto! >> U64 Episodio 2.1 – Super Mario Beta Saga (Parte 2) [105:03]– Download Versione in MP3

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Melon Brains [Beta – LaserActive]

Thanks to the LaserActive Preservation Project, we can take a look at a beta version of Melon Brains, a dolphin edutainment title for the platform. You can find the beta footage at the 5:30 mark in the video below. The main menu is in a very unfinished state, as is the interface while the video is playing – white boxes and stand-in text are in place of the later finalized icons and banners.

Thanks to Max Krieger for the contribution!

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KotOR 1 & 2 beta restoration mods

The original Knights of the Old Republic had a lot of beta / unused stuff and KotOR 2: The Sith Lords, so many fans decided to work together to create a couple of mods for the PC version of the game to be able to play some of those beta elements that were changed or removed before the final version!

The KotOR 1 Restoration is an attempt to restore almost all the content that was cut from the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic by BioWare Corp. Of course, these restorations will be within reason and things that were cut because they did not fit with the plot, and cannot be made to fit with the plot, will most definitely NOT be restored. Remember, this is only the demo, not the full mod.

Most of the content that has been released in this demo is from Taris. However, there are few pieces of restored content that pertain to Dantooine as well as a difficulty option restoration.

– Impossible Difficulty, a cut option for difficulty that is harder than the Vanilla “Hard” difficulty
– Carth dialogue when the PC first awakens on Taris, Carth makes a few comments about the PC’s injuries. (Thanks to zbyl2 for this!)
– Lower City, numerous restorations to the Lower City
– Under City, numerous restorations to the Under City
– Restoration of the Black Vulkar Base Sublevel
– Restored Droid Items
– Restoration of some dialgoue with Niklos in the Uppper City Cantina
– Restoration of the Duel Ring announcer in the Taris Upper City Cantina. The announcer will be available to speak to in between fights.
– Zaerdra Swoop Platform Dialogue, Zaerdra will make some final comments to the PC on the prototype accelerator before intitiating your first run with it
– Sith Base, numerous restorations
– Sarna and Yun Genda are available to talk to members of the same sex and can be used to further the plot of Taris. Albeit, in different ways than they normally do.
– Iriaz Restoration, returns the Iriaz to the plains of Dantooine. (Thanks to Seamhiann for this!)
– Garrum and Tar’eelok Restoration, returns a cut padawan and master to the Jedi Enclave. (Thanks to Seamhiann for this!)
– Restoration of cut items within the Jedi Enclave
– Shen and Rahashia Indecent Proposal, the PC can make a rather indecent, and awkward, proposal to either Shen or Rahasia depending upon the PC’s gender.
– The file called plc_glowpudl.utp had the name of “Glowing Puddle” however when placed in game it looked like a blood puddle. The model file and textures have been changed so now the glowing puddle placeable makes a glowing puddle of green liquid. It can be seen in the new module, tar_m03ac, or the swoop platform non-racing version.
– Modified Iriaz from Seamhiann’s modules so there were less of them, they fought against the Kath Hounds, and usually stayed in their small areas.

The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM). This mod’s intention is to restore much of the cut content to The Sith Lords, that was lost to the main game due to a rush to release the game. This rush also left the game with a plethora of bugs (some of which also blocked out content, so not everything restored was really “cut”, for example the quest ‘Corrun Falt’), this mod should seriously decrease the buginess that plagued TSL. 

Time Crisis Adventure [Xbox – Cancelled]

Time Crisis Adventure is a cancelled Xbox game pitch that started at Darkworks in 2003 after Capcom abandoned their other project, Lost Mantis. Time Crisis Adventure was a collaborative work with Namco US. In 2004, for unknown reasons, Namco dropped the title. However, Darkworks found a new publisher (Ubisoft) and it seems that they changed the game to release it as Cold Fear on both PS2 and Xbox in 2005 – with no references to the Time Crisis franchise.

Thanks to Warkdo for the contribution!

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