Another interesting link from Robert Seddon: on Wikipedia we can read that “Ant Attack is a ZX Spectrum computer game by Sandy White. It was published in 1983 by Quicksilva, and converted to the Commodore 64 in 1984. The code for the ZX Spectrum version of Ant Attack contains graphics depicting a plane although these were not used in the final game.” We can see this unused plane in the screenshot below on the bottom-left!
A new RS Links chapter: Robert Seddon sent to us a link to an interview at IGN with a couple of Baldur’s Gate developers, in wich we can read some interesting informations about the creation of the game and its characters:
Imoen’s popularity was a surprise, mostly because she didn’t exist. What’s that mean? Her character was a late addition to fill a non-psychotic-thief gap in the early levels. We had no recording budget left, so I assembled her lines by editing voice-over left from a scrapped demo. The original character was a guard named Pique. That’s why she has no standalone confrontations / interactions with other party members, which makes her relationship to the player seem closer, and led to making her a half-sister in BG II.
I was hired by BioWare just before Christmas in 1996, but didn’t actually start until May of 1997 when I actually completed my Computer Science degree. Between those two dates, our original concept for a game called Battleground: Infinity had begun to transform into Baldur’s Gate.
MajorasWrath97 has made us to notice about an interesting glitch in Pokemon Gold / Silver / Crystal: if you connect the japanese version to an english version, you mysteriously battle Giovanni, a character that you cant usually meet in the “normal” game. It seems that Giovanni was going to be in the final game, but it was taken out for some reasons.
Some more infos on the subject can be found here and here.
One day a friend brought a japanese gold version to my house, and we decided to battle to see if it worked. When the battle started instead of the pictures of our trainers, the image of Giovanni appeared. This mean that Giovanni does appear in the gold/silver version, or it was supposed to appear and he was removed from the games.
I remember along time ago I was battling my friend. Instead of him being his Silver character, he was Giovanni, and he sent out his Rhyhorn and it looked like a Butterfree.
Thanks to MajorasWrath97 for the contribution!
A message from Azim Germany:
Hello,
Iam from Germany and i was searching for more people who has seen Giovanni in Gold or Silver as trying to fight a friend via Link Cable.
We got both the German Silver edition and by trying to fight Giovanni apears, he sends out himself and was poisioned, his name was gift (german for poison).
Sorry for bad english
Azim Germany
Continuing our trip through the various websites and communities related to beta & cancelled games, this time we had the chance to make some questions to Frank Gasking, main webmaster of Games That Weren’t. As always, in this new Unseen Interview we’ll try to better understand who are these lovely geeks that work under the site, to talk about the story of GTW, the unseen gaming world, digital preservation and to discover some of their personal tastes. >> Read the full interview!
The Unseen 64 Podcast is only in Italian, sorry!
U64 Podcast: Episodio 1.6 – Metal Gear Solid (Parte 1°) [49:25]Ebbene si cari fans della podcast di U64, ecco a voi un nuovo episodio a poco più di un mese di distanza dall’ultimo! In questa puntata lo staff si è riunito per parlare dello sviluppo della saga di Metal Gear Solid, superando qualche problema tecnico e la stanchezza dopo un’intera giornata di lavoro o di studio (aspettatevi qualche voce registrata più bassa del solito e delle P molto rumorose). Questa prima parte sarà dedicata alla beta dell’originale Metal Gear Solid per Playstation 1, partendo dalle origini della saga su MSX, il progetto di Metal Gear 3 su 3DO, il passaggio su Saturn e PSX, i collegamenti con Policenauts, aspetti segreti della vita di Kojima, le ispirazioni che hanno portato a Metal Gear, dispersioni mentali su Suda 51, i rumor della versione N64 di MGS, l’implosione della podcast e la morte di Skype, la presentazione al Tokyo Game Show, le prime tech demo e l’evoluzione alla beta, le caratteristiche rimosse e le ricerche filologiche sulle vecchie riviste di videogames. Pronti a perdere un’altra ora della vostra vita ascoltando un gruppo di tragici nerd? >> U64 Episodio 1.6 – Download Versione in MP3
