While the preservationists over at Hidden Palace are still working on further updates to Project Deluge, their project that encompasses dumping hundreds of previously unknown video game betas and prototypes, they've taken a short break from it. That doesn't mean they're not still working on bringing fun pieces of gaming history to light, though, as they've released five different prototypes for the Crash Bandicoot series. Ranging from Crash 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash 3: Warped, and Crash Team Racing, these PlayStation 1 prototypes are E3 builds and unfinished versions of each of the games. Hidden Palace has documented the differences between the betas and the final releases, showing off video footage of the builds in action. For example, you can find that the Aug 26th build of Crash 3--dated two months prior to the official release--has a track that went unused, along with various minor relic and text changes. The Crash Team Racing prototype even requires a dongle to be used on actual PS1 consoles, and thankfully Hidden Palace has provided patches that bypass the requirement.

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Source

 

[raxadian]

This is cool I am mostly interested in the different music.

 

[x65943]

I am happy there are people committed to preserving this kind of stuff - given another 10-20 years who knows if these old prototypes would still be around

 

[NumberXIIIEdwin]

It always genuinely fascinates me to see what kind of differences these builds have compared to the final retail versions.

 

[th3joker]

I want to know more about this needed dongle

 

[orangy57]

I wonder if the prototypes for Crash Team Racing still have "penguin yay 1" and "penguin yay 2"
EDIT: it turns out that Penta Penguin wasn't even unlockable in the prototypes without hacking so I'd assume they still didn't put in his voice lines. It's such a strange oversight to make it all the way to release

 

[DarkCoffe64]

Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!
Crash is my effing childhood, now this is some real exciting news!!

 

[kudofan]

It always genuinely fascinates me to see what kind of differences these builds have compared to the final retail versions.

Dad?

 

[MatioMania]

What kind of dongle, Does it go in the Memory Card slot or in the back?

 

[BitMasterPlus]

Hot mama, just keep adding more goodness to the holy grail!

 

[niuus]

What kind of dongle, Does it go in the Memory Card slot or in the back?

Memory Card.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I am happy there are people committed to preserving this kind of stuff - given another 10-20 years who knows if these old prototypes would still be around

In what way do you think they'd disappear? Disk rot or drive failure? They're probably backed up in multiple places. If you mean they'll eventually get pulled from websites, yeah inevitably that will be the case. People need to stop hosting domains for warez and stuff like this in countries that actually care about copyright infringement and stop uploading to storage sites that pull copyrighted content.

 

[NoNAND]

I am happy there are people committed to preserving this kind of stuff - given another 10-20 years who knows if these old prototypes would still be around

I bet they're gonna develop a full game out of them given the hype and anticipation those games have and how large their fanbase is. Who knows.

 

[HideoKojima]

That's a new way of marketing for Crash Bandicoot 4

 

[TomTalker]

This is cool!

 

[CrossOut]

Things like this are great to see years later after the game is said and done.

 

[Vila_]

yes please!

 

[jeffyTheHomebrewer]

What does the CTR Proto say when the dongle is missing?

 

[M7L7NK7]

What does the CTR Proto say when the dongle is missing?

It says