Unseen News

U64 is YOUR site: edit pages and add more games, like in Wikipedia (almost)

From many years we are collecting info, screens and video in the Unseen 64 archive, to try to preserve the changes and the cuts in our loved videogames. A lot of contributors help us everyday, sending more info, more screens and more videos to add to the U64 archive. We are happy, really happy, but we dont have enough time for all this stuff! Should we just close the site? Should we wait for months before a new update?

So, here’s an idea. From today, if you want to edit a page or to add a new game in the Unseen 64 archive.. you’ll be able to do it by yourself! In this way it should be faster for everyone, and your contributions will be added to the site in a few days, instead than to wait for 3 or 4 months before monokoma can have enough free time to organize them.

This new feature should work a bit like Wikipedia.

1) If you want to create a page for a new beta / cancelled game that is still missing from the U64 Archive, go to www.unseen64.net/contribute-to-u64 and write your new article in there, with HTML codes for the images and youtube videos.

2) If you want to edit an existing page, under every post you will find a blue “Edit” link:

From there, you should be able to add more text, new images (not directly in the Images Gallery for now) or Youtube videos, writing / pasting them in the HTML field.

Keep in mind that every new page and edit will be reviewed by the U64 Staff before being published! So don’t worry, you will not find Zelda-Yaoi-Porn in the beta-galleries (maybe).

This new Wiki-Alike feature is still in early testing, so let us know what you think about it! There are some bugs, but we’ll work to fix them with your help :)

Thanks for all your support! 

The Incredible Shrinking Character [Cancelled – PSX SAT PC]

The Incredible Shrinking Character is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by Go-Go Interactive Studios and that would have been published by Cyberdreams for the Playstation, Saturn and PC in 1996. The plot involved a crazy doctor that shrinked the main character with an experimental potion. Players would had to explore the (now) huge laboratory resolving puzzles, to find a way to return to normal. As we can read at Bill Narum’website, former owner of Go Go Studios:

The year is 1959. You are a Private Investigator hired to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Julie Caldwell, daughter of a wealthy east-coast industrialist family. The subject, in her early twenties, was last reported heading to visit the home and laboratory of Dr. Warren Franklin. […]

On the afternoon of January 30th, you head off to the doctor’s castle for the interview of a lifetime. Unknown to you, Dr. Franklin has laid a trap, and you awaken in a stupor to find yourself only 3 feet tall and gradually shrinking. You realize now that finding Julie will be no simple task. […]

Another reoccurring sound you can’t help but notice is that of a female screaming, most likely the victimized Julie. The volume and intensity increases as you approach the dungeon. You must find the antidote and save Julie soon, but first you must evade becoming dinner for the doctor’s house cat, and numerous other deadly creatures, bats, rats, roaches and ants, etc. that inhabit the mysterious castle.

They planned at least 10 levels in the game, in which the main character would have shrinked more and more each hour, leaving us to deal with big ants and size-based puzzles. A short preview of The Incredible Shrinking Character with some screens were published in NextGeneration magazine issue 14 and some more info on the project can be found at Bill Narum’website. You can even download a playable beta demo for PC! Huge props to Bill for preserving some documents of this lost game!

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Thanks to Ari for a backup of the demo!

Images:

Videos:

 

[Project] The Axel Project: Half Life 2 beta restoration

Founded in 2009, The Axel Project aims to recreate the original Half Life 2 beta leak story line as envisioned by VALVe circa 2003. Their upcoming binary patch features numerous fixes to engine stability as well as the addition of retail engine features (such as background maps, bloom). For a full list of features and fixes, see The Axel Project blog!

Some key highlights:

* Updated water shader

– Fixed blackness

– Improved refraction

* Fixed several engine exploits

* Improved rendering performance

* Updated VGUI (transition effects and improved stability)

* Added FP16 HDR

– With luminance-based bloom

– Controllable via ConVars

* Fixed terrain morphing

* Added background map support

* Updated post processing shaders

* Fixed all reproducible bug reports from Alpha 1

* Fixed BSP V19 and V20 loading algorithm

* Improved overall security of engine and closed several exploits

 

The cancelled Titan A.E. game is almost restored

Based on the animated film with the same name, Titan AE for the playstation and PC was in development in 1999 by Blitz Games, but it was never released. Only a 1-level demo was somehow leaked online, but thanks to John Doom we can now play some more beta levels that were still hidden in there!

  • Tau14 (the original demo level)
  • Trade
  • Vigo 1st Prime
  • Drej Ship
  • Derelic ship

To activate these lost levels, you can download John Doom’s patch. Check the video description for more info.

Q:What is “A.E.FULLGAME_v1.ppf” ?

A:It’s a specific patch file for the psx demo disc “Titan A.E. Demo [U] [SLUS-90082]”

Q:So how can I patch the demo?

A:You need the program “PPF-O-MATIC” and a BIN image of “Titan A.E. Demo [U] [SLUS-90082]”. You guessed it! (I hope…): select the demo image in “ISO File” and “A.E.FULLGAME_v1.ppf” in “Patch”. Ok, now press on Apply and… GG! the demo is patched and now you can play 5 levels!

 

[Project] The Advent Rising restoration

As we read in the Advent Rising beta article, there were a lot of stuff planned for the game that never made it into the final, especially in the PC version. Advent Revising is a fan-made patch  that aims to restore the cinematics of Advent Rising to their intended quality. This English patch adds back thirteen movie files cut from the PC version of the game, corrects cases of desync and playback errors present in cutscenes, corrects and retimes all of the game’s subtitles, enables full 4:3 display with Vsync and trilinear filtering, and adds additional functionality to the player such as teleportation and level skip.