Unseen News

Widget [NES – Not Beta, but an arrow!]

Update: as noted by Ian and Yakumo, the “4” is an arrow!

Widget was developed by Atlus in 1992, for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was based off the short-lived cartoon series of the same name. Upon analyzing the game’s instruction manual, TheActionGameMaster spotted a minor difference in the password screen on the twelfth page, which discusses the game’s extended play features. In the manual, there are seven digits to be inputted. It reads “5,2,5,7,142”. In the final game, you may only input six digits on the password screen. This minor difference suggests that the photograph in the manual was taken from a later build of the game, or that it was some sort of tester’s code.

 

[Unheard Interview] Retro City Rampage Creator talks about the game and its unseen features

After starting life as Grand Theftendo, an NES de-make of Grand Theft Auto 3, Retro City Rampage has become what the creator calls an “Open World Action Parody”, and all that remains of GTA is the gameplay. In an audio interview for Unseen64, the creator, Brian Provinciano, reveals a new vehicle, the reason behind parodying the TMNT Water Level of legend, and a feature he wanted to include, but plans instead to use it in a hopeful sequel.

Retro City Rampage should be available for download on WiiWare, PSN and XBLA in the next few months! Check www.retrocityrampage.com for more info and news about the game, or listen the video below for our interview with Brian!

 

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