Most people would consider Nintendo World Championships (Gold) as the holy grail of gaming. For good reason too, as it is probably the most expensive piece of gaming memorabilia out there; often selling for over £20,000 in those rare instances where it comes on the market. The only item that springs to mind which could fetch more, is if any of the Atari Swordquest treasures ever appeared for sale.
Just like Indiana Jones' father in The Last Crusade, who devoted his life to the search for the holy grail. Well, that's like me with the Grand Theft Auto III Beta. Well, in reality; I've only being looking around for a couple of months now! But still, I'm here to note down those small pieces of information which I've gotten so far.
For people that don't know; Rockstar never released an early beta for public viewing. There are very early screenshots, where the graphics were more cartoonish, there were school buses populating the road; along with many more things that would go on to be changed in the final release. The first trailers and video clips came along after the game had been worked on a little more. Then finally, a demo of the game was playable at E3 in 2001. However, this wasn't a case like Gran Turismo 2000; which was given out at the Playstation Festival 2000 in limited quantities. The beta GTA III was never given out, not even to the press.
In fact, Grand Theft Auto III had a fairly dismal time at E3 2001; as people were more impressed with the look of State of Emergency. Hard to believe that this GTA III is the same game that still generates a big amount of interest today; leading Rockstar to release a 10th Anniversary edition of the game last year. After E3 2001, Rockstar decided to pursue different routes to showcasing their impending releases; never bringing a playable demo to E3 or any other convention again. This is still the case today, as Rockstar decided not to showcase GTA V at E3 this year, much to many fans' surprise.
I briefly spoke to Jeff Gerstmann, former editorial director of GameSpot; who played this GTA III demo at E3 in 2001. Here are his thoughts at the time:
http://uk.gamespot.com/grand-theft-auto-iii/previews/e3-2001-hands-on-grand-theft-auto-3-2762402/
When I asked him for any other information regarding the beta demo at the time, he said:
"People played it at E3, it was never sent out to the media, as far as I know."
Unfortunately, no one really knows what happened to it after the convention. Many fans believe that any beta material is still in the hands of Rockstar. But it's important to note that most beta screenshots and video clips come from a work in progress; a code that's constantly being worked on. To my knowledge, the only instance where a beta version of the game was put onto a disc was for E3 in 2001.
Anyway, my search goes on... Though it should be noted that I have recently purchased a rare Rockstar press kit from E3 in 2001. It's not the demo itself, but it will contain information and possibly some screenshots and video clips from the game as a work in progress.
More to come soon hopefully!
No comments:
Post a Comment