This page details one or more prototype versions of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (NES).

The prototype of the NES Terminator 2: Judgment Day is mostly a tech demo of the main engine and levels. There are a lot of unfinished things, and there is only about half of the final code and data.

Publisher Differences

This game was intended to be released by Acclaim Entertainment Ltd., as seen in the copyright screen and a logo displayed during the intro sequence loop. In the final version, it was released by Acclaim's subsidiary, LJN Ltd. The later European version has the Acclaim copyrights, but the logo and all its graphics completely removed.

Prototype	Final

Level Select

Since the proto has no level transition code (except for the second stage), the only way to access any level is a Level Select menu upon pressing Start on the game's title screen. This prototype has seven listed levels.

• Levels 4 ("TARGET RANGE") and 6 ("ESCAPE") cannot be selected, as told by the program itself. Both were never coded and nearly finished, and there is no data and code in this game for these levels except some unused CHR data for sprites of the animated truck, which most probably should be used for Level 6.


• Level 5, "CYBERDYNE", can be selected but can't be played due to a lack of particular data for basic level settings, but mostly because during compilation it didn't fit into the 16K or PRG bank, so it's missing some important parts of the stage data, even if the rest of it still present in the ROM.

Additional Features

This prototype also has a high score table, but only as text, similar to the copyrights and "presented by" screens, with all the names initially listed as "Acclaim". For unknown reasons, the intended final version changed it to "Uncle Bob" and added background graphics, whereas the released final version has this hi-score table disabled and still unfinished.

If you let the game sit for a while it will display a little demo loop, which was removed from the final version.

Unused Developer Logo

The ROM contains some unused portions of the intro script, which intended to be seen at boot-up. These scripts contain the fully-coded animated Software Creations logo, never seen in any other game by this developer. To see it, use Game Genie code XUUVAOVK.

In the released final version all scripts, coding, and CHR graphics were removed completely as well as the publisher's logos. It looks like they just decided to throw out all these logos because of a lack of free ROM space.

Also, these scripts have a different copyright display screen, similar to the released final version.

General Differences

Opening

The title screen was colored differentely, copyright information was added to and the story cutscene had some changes made to it.

Prototype	Final

Sprites

Arnie's sprite was more pale in the prototype. The health bar was redesigned, along with a couple of the enemies from the Truck Stop and Hospital

Truck Stop

The lampposts were removed from the final version.

Flood Channel

The level was pretty much redesigned in the final version

Hospital

The prototype has grafitti on the walls in some rooms, which was removed from the final version, although the graphics are still present there. The elevator was also fully shown in the prototype.