Tomb Raider beta?

A mate of mine has a TR III disk with some unreleased stuff on, Tried to get him to sell it to me as he's using it for his hot drinks but he refused. :'(

He did send me some screenshots last year, But the imagehost deleted them i still have his pm's with a little info about what he has pretty useless but i'll post as it may interest someone.

http://i27.lulzimg.com/88930d071d.png
http://i27.lulzimg.com/f3215c9e76.png

Don't pm me about his name etc as he doesn't want his name public sadly.
I might convince him to make a private dump so nothing is lost though as he won't sell but only time will tell sadly.

 

Is it just an art disc?

 

Sadly i have no idea sorry Decapicitated.

 

I just remembered, That kodak disc is made in 1998, i think? because i remember seeing those in statoninary shop and Kodak shop during that time, it might not be the first original disc or burned by Edios:shrug: but i could be wrong though.

@ Greatest TR Beta

Ahhh, How are you? Yes im great. Alot of things has change and it sad me that Tomb Raider betas is not as big as it used to be. I saw your Tomb Raider beta video and its impressive, i must say:thumbsup: it sure does bring alot of memorys back in the old days. So you actually sold all your Tomb Raider betas? that insane and why!

I think we should continue talk in private message for now on:nod:

 

Even a quick Google shows these Kodak Writable CD with Infoguard were out in 1995, if not 1993.

I hope Edios didn't burn it either ;-)

Edit...In fact upon reflection your post pisses me right off. Of course I do my fucking research before buying a disc of this nature. The seller was / is one of THE gaming proto heads also.

I saw a NIB NES in the shop the other day, must have been made in 2011.

Edit 2...Ok 'pisses' me right off' is a little strong. Any disc media that can't be fully traced back to source (a question I will raise with the seller to try and confirm) is questionable. Rightly so. But even a cursory internet search produces Kodak statements re the life of that media from 1995. Cursory. It was also part of a massive haul of betas, bought by numerous people, that have yielded some fantastic dumps, including Fighting Force. See statement above re doing my research etc. A 2011 NES for me please.......

 

Sorry if i piss you off, i din't mean by that:-0 It just a thought pop up in my mind. I remember the shop selling Kodak disc (same as your beta disc) in year 1999 at the time, usually brand of disc only last 2 years in production before new lable kodak disc come out. Mabey that shop selling it off old version of Kodak disc in reduction price before new comes along during in 1999.
I did a research on google about Kodak disc before i made a comment this thread, but couldnt get the fact of it, so i thought i should say it. Again, as you said Kodak Infogaurd disc made around 1993 to 1995 then i guess that okay, that the kind of fact i was looking for because i see alot pictures of Kodak infoguard through the internet.

I must give you a credit for doing hard work, Good luck:thumbsup: and mabey one day, early TRbeta will see day light, it just kept in darkness for too long.

 

Hey again, So i just spoke to him it seems to be an art disk and this is what he said.

(Had to remove the artists name for now sorry.)

 

Wow, that's quite unique! Very nice!

 

Impressive Gh0stblade, that something i would aways talk about, PC and playstation were to blame for Hardware performance at the time, because Sega saturn were quite ahead of time with power performance, Believe me or not Gh0stblade, Sega Saturn is capable of having full Rendering hair movement like a ragdoll but PC version is having a problem because it slowing the whole game down.

Here my quote from Tomb Raider fourm explaining about console power,

"Reason the braid (long hair) was removed because it was slowing whole game down, don't forget at the time on Tomb Raider 2 the braid was pure realistic like free rag doll . How often you see that in any game in 1997 ? very few. Most free rag doll feature debut in 2006, So it really impressive how Core design manage to do that in early days. Not only that they remove Braid from Tomb Raider because it takes alot of memory space and same time it caused the game to skip.

Do you remember that in early Tomb Raider 2 beta that Lara has TR1 braid at the time? Around that time Core design manage to crack down on prevent having large memory space and solved the lag issue, So that why we see long braid in Tomb Raider 2, However in game magazines, One of core design dev's said " Only reason we removed it because it was lack of storage on Compact disc, so we cannot of do it"

while Sega Saturn is more powerfull than Playstation and PC (in certain areas) Sega saturn is capable having more hardware memory, Means... better, smoother, realistic long hair braid during in the game without slow down but again lack of space on disc.

It was a shame really because Sega saturn version would be first to have it if it wasn't for limited storage on the disc."

http://www.tombraiderforums.com/showthread.php?t=185229&page=2

Again if you look at Dead or Alive on Sega Saturn, you see women figthers as their boobs bounce when jumping up and down while Dead or Alive on Playstation version is downgraded. See interesting right ? What piss me now days, and i sure you get the same thing too Gh0stblade. Alot youtube views watching Tomb Raider beta Sega saturn and write a comment saying " hey i din't know that lara has rounded boobs instead of traingler boobs and why they Core design din't add that in final version"
Well Truth is, Lara never had rounded boob in beta version on sega saturn but reason of that people saying it, is because Sega saturn has full rendered quadrilaterals while Playstation, Nintendo 64 and PC only used triangles on own geometric primitive.

What i mean by that, when Lara croft run in almost 45 degree angle on sega saturn, you just able to see lara rounded boob in few second due to that quadrilaterals graphics and you notice that you don't see square block lines on Sega saturn while Playstation and PC does has that.

That another reason why there is so many Tomb Raider betas test done on Sega saturn than Playstation or PC at the time. It really sad cause feature has been taken away and been downgraded in certain areas.

Like Cutscene 1,2 and 3 on Sega saturn on August beta ( same as video i shown on youtube while i playing and enter to cutscene 1 as lara has the scion on the boat, and shown in GameFan magzines cutscene pictures as Gh0stblade given us a link.

On beta disc i used to have,

Cutscene 1 - lara in mexican motel (as i believed) discoverd scion then ship on the blue boat, simlar texture on Tomb Raider 2. My opinion that cutscene is take place in end of the game.

Cutscene 2 - is where Lara is sort of flirting and sudden punch you and gun you down as it like you were in the game. Not sure when or where that cutscene take it place.

Cutscene 3, it just the intro with Tomb Raider title inside pyramid, quite similar to Tomb Raider 4 and 5 intro.

Those three cutscene obviously been deleted out the final version.




Sorry i kinda went off the topic there.


Edit

I can't see your Tomb Raider 3 pictures yet, i using shitty computer at work, i will see it at home in next 15 hours after i finish my work.

Thanks for confirm,

Yes i agreed with you Tomb Raider 3 went huge changed, and yet Tomb Raider 3 is my personal favourite game throughout the series.

Cool, i guess i learn something today, thanks for explaining, I not quite sure what is the Madroms' Saturn Region Patcher, i never heard it before.

Care to elaborate? The bin/cue I have has no such files
I not sure what you mean by that?

as i quote from my previously post about my Tomb Raider Gold beta disc



Version: V1.210

Game Name : Game Sample, Tester only

CD Lable: Tomb

Size of Disc: 326 MB

Device information: CD 1/2

Peripheral Code: J

this was found in note file in Tomb Raider beta disc

and

Manufacture ID: SEGA TP T999

Product number: T-99901G

Released Date: 19950309 That's 9th March 1995, while in my picture says
26th July 1996, more likely one of Core design dev's
made a mistake by writing on Beta disc or mabey
that date is where Core Design released to reviews but i
don't know.


I got this information from my beta disc, Normally i put my Tomb Raider beta disc inside the computer and open up the files in that disc and you see all the games level file and other things too and also you see a text file that you can open and that were i got the information from.

Im sure Wheela and Kanaka has theirs on the beta disc. but only thing i find it odd, his one is 6mb while my one is 325 mb.

 

It's a shame my version doesn't contain the beta fmvs. There is a text file on the August disc 'Mon2Aug.txt', just explains it being a 2 level beta.

 

Sorry to interrupt the discussion, but upon Decapicitated's request, here is the file listing of my Tomb Raider PSX disc that I've mentioned way back in the thread:

As I said, it plays different from the retail version (different health bars, etc.). Anything useful?

Root of CD:

PSXDATA folder:

Is making an ISO backup in UltraISO with the CloneCD option selected all that's needed to make a working image?

 

I'll hook up the PSX this weekend and have a run through

 

Can you post the video for Tomb Raider 3 Alpha?

 

I posted this in another thread a little while back, might as well post them again if you're talking about TR3

 

I like those scans

She still has classic costumes and everything. She will probrably have the TR2 style gun ammo count.

Debug mode is fully unlocked, I've seen a simmilar one for TR2/4. Shows room number, Polygon count, Room X/Y positioning of Lara.

Thames wharf (London) looks simmilar to the one shown in the video. Would be awesome to find this somewhere but it's obviously impossible now.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7To-vVJbizk

 

Really cool stuff you talking about here.
I have been a great Tomb Raider fan for ages.
Sadly I (and of course others) will never get their hands on the interesting stuff.

 

Looks like mine indeed! (Even the writing seems to be exactly the same, with the 7/96 straddling the lines.) Where did you get the piccie from? Thanks.

 

"Review" versions are hardly worth it most of the time, they're usually so close to final retail if in fact not just being final retail. Occasionally they have something here and there, but mostly they're just a few little tweaks of being done. You'd know for sure if it had a build date, if you come across one ask questions before plonking down any cash :thumbsup: Just my opinion on that. I do have some images from the design document of AOD though that were shown in an interview before the games release. I might dig out the disc i have the interview on at some point, there was another sketch showing Lara in a minecart but the image has been deleted, and in the interview the guy (Adrian from Core) mentioned the document only represented a quarter of the game.




Have some beta TR2 screens too

 

I have to agreed with you, Tomb Raider Angle Of Darkness beta was a major difference to final build, i seen alot of stuff on youtube. I also remember that cover back in the day too cost me quite abit money to just to read Tomb Raider 2 review.

 

Wonder if these are really images from the Jaguar version.
Probably not.