Hi there everyone. Just letting you know that my website, Past to Present Online, just made a quick Wrath of the Lich King video. If you would like more, just leave a comment! The expansion is due out sometime this year in official form. So keep on seeing the unseen! Link: PtoPOnline
About a week ago, IGN has published a nice article about the development and the cancellation of Sonic Xtreme: “Under names like Super Sonic, Sonic Blast, Sonic Bluestreak, and half-dozen others, SEGA toiled away on countless concepts and prototypes on at least four different platforms. Up until the bitter end, SEGA had two teams working separately on completely different concepts, each competing to be the “real” Sonic X-Treme.”
“The project began, predictably enough, after the completion of Sonic & Knuckles in late 1994. The fourth game in the flagship Genesis series was a success, but SEGA was looking to push their mascot in a new direction — it just wasn’t sure what that direction was. Like a good fisherman, SEGA kept several lines in the water. There was the experimental multiplayer Sonic Crackers, eventually to become Knuckles Chaotix; there was the nebulous next-gen reimagining that was X-Treme; and eventually, there was their backup plan, the outsourced Sonic 3D Blast.”
“The public didn’t get to see much of the project’s earliest days. SEGA Technical Institute, the US-based team behind most of Sonic’s Genesis games, was assigned the weighty task. Everyone knew that the next Sonic would have to be a step in a different direction, but there was a lot of uncertainty about what that direction would be. The title was first pitched as another Genesis side-scroller, but was soon moved to the 32X, under the codename “Sonic Mars.”
We are happy when “traditional” gaming websites decide to talk about lost games, so props to them! You can read the full article in here: Sonic X-Treme Revisited @ IGN
In this link from the long list of beta-related websites that Robert Seddon sent to us, we can find some informations, sounds and images about unused stuff hidden in the memory of Grim Fandango: “Grim Fandango came with a considerable amount of content which was included with the game, but not made available without delving into the game’s resource files and extracting them.”
Calavera Bar Alternate Angle
You can read the original story @ Grim Fandango Network
N64scener has added in his Youtube channel a video from and old version of Carmageddon 64: “prototype built May 4 1999 (23:05). The build is quite early, the game freaks out if an expansion pak is inserted and the car is completely uncontrolable”. The final game was released in 2000, but i never played it so i’m not sure if there are any major differences in this video, but maybe you’ll find it interesting, check it out!
Pokèmon Snap [N64 – Beta]: Various beta images of Pokèmon Snap show a bar in the bottom right corner where you can select Pokè Flute, Apple, and some bomb thing. Also unseen in the same images are shots of a desert area not released on the final game. There’s also some screens from the forest and swamp, showing some pretty big changes. Ekans, the snake Pokèmon was also in the beta version, but not in the final. Why Ekans was cut is unknown.
Sonic [DS – Tech Demo]: The core gameplay of Sonic DS was to rub the bar on the touch screen as fast as possible. The fast you rub, the fast Sonic goes. There also seems to be some sort of obstacle jumping element. In the end, the whole idea was scrapped for the 2D platformer, Sonic Rush. Playable characters in Sonic DS included Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Shadow, and Blaze.