In the gallery and videos below you can see many concepts and beta differences from the early design of Viva Pinata, one of the most beautiful games developed by Rare LTD for Xbox 360. You can see that some animals were never used in the final version, the stile of the project was a bit different originally and as we can read on Wikipedia, the original concept for the game began under the name “Your Garden” in 2002. If you have more info about Viva Pinata and its development, let us know!
The original Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64 was loved by many because of it’s action and stealth. It was also one of the few First Person Shooters for the N64. Development of Perfect Dark Zero, the sequel of Perfect Dark, began on the Nintendo Gamecube but as it was almost completed, RARE was bought by Microsoft so all development had to be ported to the original Xbox. Around the same time, RARE released some screen shots that revealed a “cartoony” or cel-shaded Joanna Dark.
A couple of years later and then another console switch occurred… this time to the Xbox 360. The Xbox version was about 12 months away from shipping before the switch and this caused many problems as to updating the engine, graphics, etc. The scenes and characters that you can see in the screenshots below (as those soldiers), were not used in the final game. Joanna Dark’s design was changed many times before the final one.
Finally, after many ports and switches, Perfect Dark Zero was released as a launch title for the Xbox 360 by December 2, 2005. If you notice some interesting differences in the concept arts from the videos below, please let us know!
Also, as wrote on Wikipedia, Rare had announced plans to make the multiplayer feature matches of up to 50 people, an upgrade from the current 32 player limit. As of March 2010, this update has not been released and Rare has stated that they will not be releasing any more downloadable content. A new Counter-Operative mode, much like the one found in the original Perfect Dark, was also promised to eventually become available as a new game mode for Perfect Dark Zero. However, this update is not available and Rare has no intention on bringing it out. Counter-Operative is a mode where one player plays as Joanna whilst the other player takes on the role of Joanna’s enemies, in the original title this took place in the same setting as the Single Player Levels.
We all remember Conker Bad Fur Day as one of the most original (at least conceptually) games ever released on Nintendo 64. But we also remember how it looked before, when it was called Conker: Twelve Tales or Conker’s Quest: the quintessential cute-looking platform. However, apart from the graphic style, the first version of Conker had some interesting features not found in released version. The overworld was probably bigger and there were more levels, like, as you can seen from the screenshots on this page, a Toy and an Ice stage, more bosses,more moves and gadgets (including vehicles) for Conker. Also, the game was slightly different if played with Berry, the cute friend of Conkey, because she would have had to raise monsters in order to fight the enemies. The most significant feature was however the co-op mode, which allowed two players to cooperate in the adventure mode. Unfortunately, only some places and characters were ported to BFD, although with heavy changes, like the Scarecrow, the Cyclops (that became the giant boss of the prehistoric world), the windmill, many locations and gameplay ideas of the phehistoric world, etc. We can only hope that in the future a proto of this game will be leaked for everyone to enjoy.
Donkey Kong 64 (also known with the work in progress title of Ultra Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong World or Donkey Kong Universe) is a platform developed by RareWare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. The game is a follow up to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. There were some rumors about the original release of the game for the 64DD, but in the end DK64 was released on the normal N64, using the 4MB expansion pack.
In the beta version of the game, the characters used “real” weapons models. In the final version they have “fruit” weapons, like coconut gun and peanut shooters. Also, various unused rooms and models were found in the game’s code thanks to hackers! You can see these in the gallery and videos below.
Also Mad Jack, the insane Jack in the Box that Tiny Kong fights in Frantic Factory in the beta was actually going to be called Junk-in-the-box and have the appearance of an old decrepit clown. The area he’s fought in isn’t Mad Jack’s either (info from Mario Wiki). It seems that that when they took him out, the toy box mini boss that Chunky Kong fights was put in instead. It does look like they are fought in the same room though. It also seems that Junk in the box would have shot fire balls (as Mad Jack does now) and would eventually become vulnerable to a TNT barrel instead of being electrocuted.
Dinosaur Planet was going to be Rare’s swan song on the Nintendo 64. However, the game was finally released in 2002 only on the Gamecube, and the title changed to Star Fox Adventures. According to many, in the porting Rare dropped some of the most interesting features, so we may never know if the Nintendo 64 version was better. Certainly much has been changed in the porting process: the main character, Saber, became Fox Mc Cloud, Crystal’s role was heavily cut (she should have been a fully playable character), and many scenes from the old Dinosaur Planet build are missing. Even more interesting are the pre-production artworks, which shown a more adult version of the characters, maybe because Saber was required to grow up during the adventure, or because there was a time traveling device like in Ocarina of Time.
Thanks to Karrunaniara and Ducky Wensel for the contributions! Huge props to IOnEIFalcon for sharing more than an hour of gameplay from Dinosaur Planet’s E3 1999 / 2000 (?) demo!
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