Following on from the discovery of an early PC demo of X’Treme Roller, we now have a set of five prototypes for the Sony PlayStation (PS1) showing very early test builds of the game before it became X’Treme Roller and the game was likely being pitched around to publishers by Neko.
At one stage, it seems DC Studios were working with Neko with a view to using the engine or to get interest to do a joint project.
The prototypes are dated from the 17th July to the 7th August 2000, with the earlier builds containing a test sea-side route, with ramps, hills and buildings. The main character starts off very slow as they drop onto the course, and then you can kick off to move around.
Later builds see you in a more city-based environment, with hills, lots more buildings and bridges. As with the earlier builds, the map is relatively small, but has some ramps and pipes to jump around on. As its very early days, the camera can sometimes get lost and confused, and you can also fall over without an easy way of getting up again. Glitches all to be expected with builds from this stage of development.
All the builds come with built in features to browse textures, different characters and to move around the map using a controller. If you select a different character, you can go back to the prototype controlling them.
It’s a nice early glimpse at the title before it became X’Treme Roller, and we hope you enjoy exploring them. Please let us know if you spot anything else tucked away!
With thanks to Mark Greenshields for allowing us to preserve these files.
Download
Video
Gallery
