The original Perfect Dark is a FPS developed by Rare and released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000. In 2001, monokoma wrote a long article about all the beta differences that can be noticed in the early screens and videos. That article was only in italian, but now with the recent release of Perfect Dark Remake for the Xbox Live Arcade, we finally decided to translate the Perfect Dark Beta Analysis in english, thanks to DCodes7! >> Read the full article
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis is a Puzzle Game developed by NST as a sequel to the GBA MvsDK, a follow up to the Game Boy Donkey Kong game. A playable beta demo of MvsDk2 was available at various gaming conventions, from where it was saved on the DS and then shared online.
Upaluppa noticed many differences in this beta demo, as wrote in his videos on Youtube:
– The music sounds quite different
– There are hearts instead of big coins
– The small coins are rotating
– Mushroom Mayhem is called Mushroom Kingdom
– The status screen is completely different
– There’s a level map available by pressing Select
– The map looks VERY incomplete…
– The first level is completely different
– Later levels have some minor differences
– Some sound effects are different
– There is no time limit
Thanks to Hiccup for the contribution!
Videos:
After that awesome Ocarina of Time debug ROM (that still had some beta / prototype areas in it!), the lovely Zelda-hacker Cendamos was able to buy and share a Debug version of Zelda: Majora’s Mask! Will there be any unused or beta rooms still hidden in there? We’ll have to wait and see what those zelda-hackers will be able to find.
You can read more info about the Majora’s Mask Prototype / Debug ROM in the Zelda 64 Forum. If you can feel the love of this release and want to help Cendamos to repay his debt after this important acquisition, share your paypal donations to [email protected]
In the meantime, here’s a nice video of the Majora’s Mask Debug:
Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green is a FPS based on the George Romero zombie horror movie Land of the Dead, that was developed by Brainbox Games (now Digital Extremes) and published in 2005 by Groove Games, for PC and the original XBOX. As we can read on Mobygames, the project was originally developed as a singleplayer PC game called “Day of the Zombie”, which had a 4 months development cycle and was ready for October 2004 release.
Day of the Zombie was shown to Universal Studios around the time the movie Land of the Dead was being filmed in Toronto, Canada (where Groove Games is headquartered) – this is how the license was secured. The game was ported to Xbox, multiplayer functionality was added and environments were added to tie the game to the movie.
In April 2009, a Youtube user posted a video from Day Of The Zombie, with a link to download a playable beta of the game. This leaked version is very similar to Land of the Dead, but it’s currently unknown if it’s really the original Day of The Zombie project or just a mod of the released game.
Thanks to Alex for the contribution!
Videos:
Then this would happen when loading Zelda: Ocarina of Time:
Basically Zelda Ocarina of Time is ready-to-connect to its 64DD expansion, even if it was never released, and that DISK icon would have marked the URA save file to distinguish it from the normal game. The DISK icon was already found sometime ago thanks to GameShark codes / hack, but this is probably the first time that i see the Zelda URA startup in motion.
Jimmy130 posted this video and a little article on his Nintendo 64 Disk Drive blog (in french). Here’s a rough translation:
I found a solution so that the game starts with the disc Ura Zelda in the 64DD. The result is an unprecedented title screen and selecting the backup disk with the logo.
It is legitimate to ask how I did. And if I had the disk Ura Zelda? Or if not, is it a stupid action replay code? Has this to do with my 64DD development? I do not intend to say right now, I’ll leave the mystery.
I’ll also tell you a little more about how the save. When Zelda OOT detects Ura Zelda in the 64DD, it proposes to start a backup version 64DD (as shown in the video). By cons, now that I have created my backup disk, it is stored in the 256 Kbit SRAM cartridge. So if, for a total coincidence, I restart the game without the 64DD, the backup should be inaccessible.
To know more about Zelda URA and the Zelda 64 development check our article: Project Zelda 3D: The Development of Zelda 64. Props to Jimmy130 for the video!