Long before Burnout arrived and made crashing into cars fun, we had Reflections' Destruction Derby to satisfy our desire for twisted metal (which, ironically, is the name of another '90s game about vehicular carnage).
A notable launch title for the PS1, the first entry in the series would later be ported to the Sega Saturn – but Sega was apparently so displeased with how it ran on its console that it chose not to release it in the US, rendering it a European and Japanese exclusive.
By the time the second Destruction Derby appeared on PS1 in 1997, Sega was even less sure about the chances of the series finding a foothold on Saturn. While development on a port did take place, it was ultimately cancelled.
A prototype of that version has now been released on the internet (thanks, Sega Saturn Shiro), and while it's not as complete as we'd like it to be, it's still a fascinating glimpse into what could have been.
SegaXtreme member VBT posted a thread over the weekend announcing the availability of the prototype, along with a link. The link contains two discs: one is the front end, while the other is a playable circuit.
As spotted by Sega Saturn Shiro, the prototype seems to be the same as the one shown in video footage back in 2011.
The video's description claims that the conversion duties were handled by the UK studio Probe and that work was halted in mid-1997.
Interestingly, a user called Andy Lunn responded to that 2011 video with the following comment:
“I was the programmer on this game for the Saturn conversion and what’s frustrating was that I actually got it 95% complete when it was completely canned. I kick myself for not keeping a gold disc master. I can attest to how hard it was to get working from the PlayStation. Had to do lots of tricks to make it work on the Saturn hardware.”
The prototype shown clearly isn't 95% complete, so it seems that the game actually got to a more polished state than it suggests. According to his personal site, Lunn was also part of the team that ported Die Hard Trilogy to the Saturn.
The gameplay featured on the second disc is buggy and slow, and the cars are missing texture elements, but it's interesting to see this PS1 classic running on Sega's 32-bit hardware. Who knows, perhaps some talented individuals will be able to dig into the code and make things run a little better?
The series would expand to the Nintendo 64 in 1999 (with Looking Glass Studios handling development), and a third game, Destruction Derby Raw, hit PS1 in 2000 (Studio 33 would be behind that one).