This guy looks cool, like something that would be a halfway imposing obstacle used in something like the original Megadrive games. It's a shame the badniks are so underplayed in this game, likely because they hadn't figured out any way to mesh good level and obstacle design with the cumbersome ring mechanic.
Bump me do. 14:02 Quality control out of the window at Sega's booth - watch the player get stuck on the loops in Speed Slider. So, which build? Well 1207 doesn't have a morning palette so not that. One would expect the 0111 prototype to be later as it's dated after Winter CES took place. But let's check 1227 | 1229 | 0111 The diagonal flag bits were removed in 0119 so that build's clearly too late. In the 1227 (and 0111) protos, a giant ring is visible from this point. Not in 1229. It's not a foregone conclusion that this build is 1229 (after all it might a build we don't have!) - there's 5 minutes on the clock and 500 points were obtained from somewhere (possibly that giant ring), but yeah... I might have guessed correctly. Oh and if you're an idiot and think this might be from the final game: It really isn't.
If the 1229 build was made to be a source for footage in a CES preview that would explain why it's missing features that the build from two days before had (ie the ring). Incomplete features or stuff they're not ready to reveal getting hidden in a specific build. Longstanding mystery potentially solved?
