Lemmings 2... Beta!?

[Mr. K]

I was digging through my hard drive trying to find my copy of Lemmings 2, and I pulled out this.  I thought it was the actual game but when I ran it in Dosbox I was greeted with an entirely different experience!  I believe I've got a copy of some prototype or press demo, as it's quite different (and in some places much more awesome) than the game we got!

Let's begin when I first started it:


This, here, is the sound card setup screen.  This is a lot different and prettier than the final (which was a text based all around setup program) and when I chose the Sound Blaster it did not ask for address, IRQ, etc.



The title screen is arranged differently.  Now it consists of two boxes with options in them, and little red orbs.  The final is just a lot of buttons.


I tried out the map.  You can't get to any of the tribes, it just says "not yet available".  And it hovers the text over the cursor, something that doesn't happen in the final.







This is the level select, and it is very strange.  First off, the Circus logo seems to be different, and slightly ugly.  Secondly, the level is new.  Third, and this is really cool, you can scroll left and right on that little thumbnail of the level to get to the other level, as demonstrated.  There are only 2 levels.  Fourth, there's a whole skill that was left out of the final!  It's called the User.  It's apparent use was that Lemmings could only use items in the level (like the cannons, catapults, etc.) if they were Users.  Seems to have been dropped.


And here's the first level.  The HUD at the bottom seems different, and there are a number of operational changes:
1. You can't click anywhere to stop the Fast Forward/Pause/Fan.  This really threw me off when I discovered it, and it's quite annoying.
2. HUD shows 'In', 'Ou', and 'Ti'.  Those are icons in the final, right?


View of the bottom of the level.  L2!


The stacker makes a solid block, sort of like L1's builder.  No block looking things here.


I made that Stacker a Ballooner and it got stuck in the block.  Not even the Fan could save it.  The balloon may have a different color, but I didn't go into the final to check.


It probably isn't, but the Archer's arrows seem to be colored different and also have slightly altered physics.


Just in case, the Attractor may be different.  Can anyone confirm/deny this?




Seriously the best part.  The Nuke!  No more countdown.  I doubleclicked on the nuke button and all of a sudden all my Lemmings inflate then explode!  I laughed my head off.


The finish screen looks horribly unfinished (how ironic is that?) and it also seems to embrace a points system.  Interesting, I got 300 points just for nuking everyone.


Also, the music is slightly different.  Not as in different tunes, but sounding different.  Here's a comparison clip I put together.  First is the beta, second is the final.


And that's it.  That's really weird that I found it in my download archives. This thing is probably already known of, but I posted just in case.  I'll upload this beta soon, but it's late.  What do you think?

[Mindless]

It looks like the Lemmings 2 demo, I recognize the intro screen, scrolling thumbnail, and user skill.

[Mr. K]

Probably is, but it's still quite different from the final.  Hm.

[Chmera]

Whoa. Craziness. I downloaded a copy of DOS L2 off teh internetz(yay being illegal!), and judging by this it seems somewhat halfway between beta and final. Strange.

[ccexplore]

Definitely the Lemmings 2 demo, I have it too.  It was in fact the first thing I found when I tried to look for DOS L2 on the Internet.  (Fortunately, eventually I found the full version on abandonia.com.)

[Mr. K]

I suspected as such.  But, why the heck is it so different?  How early was this released compared to the final?  Why did DMA dump some of the good ideas (especially the level select and nuke  :tongue:)?

[Andi]

Probably the scrolling level select worked for 2 levels or even 3. But a Tribe has 10 (?) Levels which was possibly too much to handle.

edit:// And for countdown: 5 sec is typicall for Lemmings.

edit2:// But wait! I could swear the User is called in my Version "Worker"! Or did I mixed up things? Gotta check this!

[lomay]

I also found this in "Limewire"

[OneWeirdDude]

Whoa. Craziness. I downloaded a copy of DOS L2 off teh internetz(yay being illegal!), and judging by this it seems somewhat halfway between beta and final. Strange.

A "final" version that resembles the "beta" demo?  Where's this?

[Mr. K]

Nice bump. >_>

But while we're at it, more information might help.

[Mr Kiwi]

For some reason, I cannot see the screen shots...

[Mr. K]

Yeah, the URLs still point to the old location of my webspace.

I'll fix them now.