Supposed Mario Kart XXL Prototype

My point there is that I've been around development builds enough to understand the things you assume I don't. You don't know me, so don't act like I don't know shit just because I happen to hold the opinion that this game looks like shit.

 

This would seem like a pointless hoax (a hoax is supposed to generate attention... this footage can't possibly excite anyone that much). I see no reason not to believe the uploader.

It looks decent enough to me (for a prototype)! It's not like the GBA was outputting particularly noteworthy 3D in any games, anyway. Some honorable mentions could be the THPS titles (character/board models), as well as 007 Nightfire.

 

Wow that looks great. The gba is a 32bit device. I remember it even had some psx ports too.

 

Vrally 3 was pretty impressive, early PS1 quality apart from the cars being sprites. To a lesser extent TG Rally. Hot Wheels Stunt Track and Lego Drome Racers also had decent flat shaded 3D.


Asterix XXL was pretty impressive to look at too.

 

Top Gear Rally for GBA was impressive too, the cars were 3D.

Also, that GTA Clone wich I forgot the name was also totally in 3D

 

I don't remember if it was in full 3D or not, but Driver 2: Advance wasn't too horrible either. For a 2 disc mid-generation PS port it could have been far worse.

I was just hoping it would be somehow related to MK DD!!.

 

I thought the cars in TG Rally were sprites? Will dig the cart out and have a look. Also the GTA style game you're thinking of is Payback I think, also check out Urban Yeti (best plot ever!).

Driver 2 was pretty impressive, Driv3r was even more technically accomplished, looks like an early version of Cop the Recruit on DS. GBA also got a port of Crazy Taxi, as terrible as it was ambitious though.

As you might have gathered I have a bit of a thing for GBA 3D, the NFS games are also worth checking out apart from Porsche Unleashed.

 

Need for speed underground 2 was fully polygonal and quite impressive for gba. Top gear rally had some cool warping mode 7 type effects, with a polygonal car (low frame refresh on the car though), but the smooth moving track made it easy and enjoyable to play.

 

Ah right, I always thought TG Rally was sprites for the cars. It's a great game though, fun handling and lots of speed, something the NFS games lacked. Loved the NFS games though, still play them from time to time.

Been sorting my GBA, GB and GBC carts today as I just bought a new box for them (£7.99 in Aldi if anybody is interested btw) and ended up playing GBA for a couple of hours!

 

Nah, they used a strangely low frame rate polygonal car. I always wondered why, my best guess being they could either have a smooth track or smooth car but not both. I always had a thing for 3D GBA games too, mainly because when they announced it and they were all YEAH it's 32 bit(!!!) I sort of expected ps1 quality games. That was the downfall of their marketing, which you thought they would have learned after doing the EXACT same thing with the Virtual Boy only 6ish years prior. Never over hype the power of your system to try and rival obviously more powerful 32 bit consoles.

More on topic, I really do wish Nintendo incorporated this dual plane mode 7 engine. Even though the final game is pretty good, the engine is much more simple. Hell, there isn't even 'hills' like in Top Gear Rally.

 

I forgot about the Driver games on GBA. Those were pretty impressive, certainly for the scale of the map, anyway.

I think 007 Nightfire is more or less on the same level as most GBA 3D engines, though. THPS was probably a bad example, but it did have 3D character models, which was pretty cool (at least impressive with THPS3 and onward). The trade off, of course, was having static isometric levels.

You could even paint the texture on the bottom of your board in Tony Hawk's Underground. Pretty pointless during gameplay, since your board is barely visible at a distance, but still neat.

 

I think Darcagn's professional trade is designer. Designers hate Comic Sans the same way certain hate Justin Bieber.

 

Payback which , with V-Rally 3, has the better polygonal graphics on GBA.

TGR is nice looking but the tracks are essentially flat and then distorted to simulate turns and hills.

Another cool polygonal prototype for GBA was the futuristic racer by Shin'en .

(the slow downs in the video was caused by the video capture if I remember correctly)

 

Wow, that Shin'en title looks really clean. Shame it was never released.

 

Any idea what happened with that?

 

Well, it's years since I've talked with Manfred, I believe they were distracted by other contracted works with publishers.
The engine was used for small portions of Iridion II and Maya the bee Sweet Gold (a quite good Yoshi Island clone).

http://www.unseen64.net/2012/07/02/shinen-gba-racer-gba-prototype/

 

Wow I've never seen that before. I love Shin'en, have both Iridion and both Nanostray games as well as Nano Assault on 3DS, those guys were the kings of impressive handheld shooters. The 3D sections of Nano Assault are particularly amazing, Iridion II is my favourite though (apart from the password save).

 

I recall an cancelled game called TWOC/Zero Tolerance that was an GTA like game for GBA in the C2 Engine.

 

I briefly remember a small article about Zero Tolerance in a UK magazine, looked for it but never found anything more about it. All the references on the net show the same screenshots as the magazine so I never knew if they were from an actual game or just proof of concept/mockups.

 

There is this video of TWOC



It appears that TWOC means Taking Without Owner's Consent