New Sonic 1 Beta scans

That picture looks too real to be a mockup.

Perhaps one pushed the ball to send it into motion, then jumped on top, as it picked up speed? That makes sense- it could go flying off that hill and land on something.

 

The ball looks slightly off the ground. Unless it bounces (or meant to bounce), it looks fake.

Strangly enough, the tree that is behind the ball cuts off. It's barely noticable, but that's what I see. Whether that's just a glitch caused by the ball (if the image is true) or just a coincidence I don't know.

 

No, compare it to the bottoms of the other trees. It's there. And it's too far down to be part of the reflection in the background.

 

Or if the magazine received a proto cart and could show off anything they wanted to, which is always a possibility.

 

<!--quoteo(post=166556:date=Jun 10 2007, 10:53 PM:name=Tweaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweaker @ Jun 10 2007, 10:53 PM) [/quote]So at one point the GHZ ball was programmed in and functional? =O
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I'm guessing that this image is either a mock up or an very early version due to the lack of a life counter
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Or the life counter has been sliced off the bottom of the screenshot.
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That's the more likely case, seeing as some of the screenshots still have the life counter in them.
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I don't think so. While your hypotesis is realistic, I have tried getting there in the final build, and the screen size is identical to that of the scan. Maybe they truly hadn't added the life counter yet?

 

Necromancy is not the best way to waste a trial post, just so you know.

Anyway, and although I don't do this very often...



Notice how the red part of your screenshot is missing in the scan

 

Note that the HUD has been perfectly aligned.

 

I'm gonna wing it, and say that the use for pushing the ball in GHZ is exactly the same as the use for pushing the bloack in MRZ. Not being to land on a switch, but be used to advance through the level. Wall breaking, perhaps?

 

I always assumed that you would push it to a wall, where you couldn't jump high enough.

 

Or maybe the ball could float, and you would need to ride it across a section of water. Highly doubt it, but why not add some fuel to the theory fire.

 

<!--quoteo(post=168728:date=Aug 6 2007, 10:12 PM:name=JcFerggy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JcFerggy @ Aug 6 2007, 10:12 PM) First, you'd Push the Ball, as seen in many Prototype Images (In this case, the ice block)

You'd get on the ball, as seen in proto pics again (Being this as the ice block)



And now, this is what I believe may be a possible purpose of the ball -

I believe The ball would crash into those breakable wall ways, such as the ice block breaking through the Ice Pillars. And again, it may react similar to the Bolt/screw in metropolis in sonic 2, where running on it will make it go faster, like running on a barrel.

Edit: I also Doubt the water theory from the post above, because I believe Scrap Brain 3 and Labrynth Zone were the only levels I saw that actually had water you could go into. I could be wrong.. I havn't played Sonic 1 in a long time.