Maybe you have already seen some of these, but Carnivol has a nice list of beta videos in his YouTube channel, like an old presentation for Mario RPG, an interview about Parasite Eve with some “work in progress” parts, a look at Chocobo De Battle in motion and an early footage of Chrono Trigger. Props to him!
On IGN we read that a PC version of Seaman was in development some years ago, but it looks like it was never released: “The PC version of the game was announced by Vivarium founder Yoot Saito today at a conference in Japan. It’s entitled Seaman for Windows Ver. 1.0 and will be available in the 1st quarter of 2001. Seaman on the PC will be completely different from his DC brethren. It’s not a game, says Mr. Saito — rather, it’s a communication tool and a pet for your desktop. As shown in the screen shots, which have been taken from Japan’s PC Watch website, the virtual fish exists on your desktop, rather than in an aquarium. Seaman is automatically launched when you turn on your computer, and resides in memory, running in the background, swimming around on screen… hopefully behind your application windows. Seaman is still drawn in 3D, but he’s kept tiny so as to not interfere with your other work.” Read more
This article is only in italian, sorry!
I ragazzi di www.gamescollection.it hanno organizzato l’evento 2008 per tutti i veri maniaci di videogames, con una fiera interamente dedicata alle collezioni di pezzi rari, retrogaming, riviste d’epoca e tornei con ricchi premi. La parte davvero interessante per noi beta geeks, sarà la possibilità di osservare dal vivo un’affascinante raccolta di materiale “unseen”, con kit di sviluppo originali e prototipi di videogiochi mai usciti.. un occasione per conoscere e parlare con i maggiori collezionisti italiani e magari scoprire che posseggono qualche beta del nostro gioco preferito! L’incontro è previsto nelle giornate di venerdi 23, sabato 24 e domenica 25 maggio, si svolgerà a Monza, in via Filippo Turati 8, presso l’Urban Center (Aperto tutti i giorni dalle 11 alle 20).
Per maggiori informazioni: www.gamescollection.it/events/show/4
Lo staff italiano di Unseen64 cercherà di essere presente all’evento, almeno in una delle giornate, per un po’ di sane pubbliche relazioni con i collezionisti, cercando qualche informazione esclusiva sui loro prototipi, foto e video ancora unseen! Se passate anche voi da quelle parti fateci sapere, potremmo anche svolgere un piccolo U64 meeting ;)
Spore is a video game under development by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. The game has drawn wide attention for its promise to simulate the development of a species on a galactic scope, using its innovation of user-guided evolution via the use of procedural generation for many of the components of the game, providing vast scope and open-ended gameplay. Spore was originally a working title, suggested by developer Ocean Quigley, for the game which was first referred to by the general public as SimEverything. Even though SimEverything was a first choice name for Wright, the title Spore stuck. The gameplay itself had numerous changes during development. The most striking was the shift in realism, from the gritty depiction of cellular and animal life in the GDC 2005 debut, to the current iteration of a more round, softer edged depiction of the creatures. The most visible change was in the cellular phase, which transformed the monocellular organisms into strange insects with cartoonish, human-like eyes, which were Read more
Robert Seddon has found some interesting beta-related links: in one of these, there is a mod for Baldur’s Gate II, that tries to “restore many of the cut items, quests, and encounters from the game’s final release”. Trouble is – as Robert says – it also tries to add new stuff to ‘tie up loose ends’ in the plot, and it’s sometimes slightly unclear from the notes what was Bioware’s and what was added by the modders. You can check this mod by yourself if you follow these links:
Some of the restored stuff should be:
Probably if you are interested in this project, you know Baldur’s Gate II better than us, and so you will not be too much confused between restored beta stuff and new added content. Even if we are a bit lost about this, we are always happy when we see sexy geeks like these, that try to explore and restore cutted games. Huge props to them and thanks to Robert for the link!