YouTube is amazing. Take away all the videos about cats sliding into boxes, cats falling off things, and cats (sorry if you were expecting an activity, this one's just cats), and you've got a legitimate historical archive of a cultural phenomenon. I'm talking about video games.

The following slides contain the earliest footage of some absolute classics, often looking very different. It's a bit like looking at celebrities before they were famous, and laughing at their awful dress sense. But then wishing you could at least try their clothes on. Sorry, that analogy got weird fast. What I mean is: you'll likely wish you could play the prototypes. Er... You'll find the videos underneath the text in each slide, so give them a watch. It's fascinating stuff...

Back in 2009, Markus 'Notch' Persson posted this video of a little something he was working on, saying that he would do more 'if he had the time'. Well, good job he didn't decide to take up birdwatching in the interim, because that little bit more work on an intriguing idea has spawned what threatens to be the biggest game of all time.

The demo here doesn't draw in the world very well, only features stone blocks (and stone blocks with grass on) and... well, that's about it. Love it.

New Super Mario Bros became one of the original DS' biggest hits, appearing at or near the top of the all-formats charts for months. At one point, it looked like it might be there FOR EVER. But have you seen this footage of the tech demo version? In it, you can clearly see the massive powered-up version of Mario smashing through blocks and collecting swathes of coins before jumping on tiny Bowser's head. Should have stayed in yer castle, mate.

This tech demo was never released, but it's clearly a work-in-progress version of New Super Mario Bros. Pretty damn awesome, if you ask me.

Well this is a bit special. In the movie Hackers, a young Angelina Jolie plays an arcade version of Wipeout. Yes, Wipeout that helped catapult PSone to 'iconic' status. The game shown in the film is (of course) pre-rendered CG, as realtime 3D of that quality was still a little while off. But it is Wipeout. A very early render of what the gameplay would be like.

This video? Better even than a clip from the movie - this is actually the original render, complete with an announcer offering instructions to the player. It's awesome. And amazing to see that while it was damn ambitious, having to pull the nose up in a valley on the track was a feature that made it into the final game. Wonderful.

Super Mario 64 was clearly going to make a big impression on the gaming world even before it was released. This footage from Gamesmaster (back when it was a TV show, as opposed to an awesome mag), shows an in-development version of the game, complete with different HUD and level layout.

Oh, and Mario sounds like Michael Jackson.

But the earliest footage is probably this round-up video from Spaceworld 1995:

Super Mario 64 gets credited with being the first true-3D platformer, but Tomb Raider was being developed at the same time. This 1995 video is a mega-early, pre-alpha, version of Tomb Raider (one which is likely to have been shown to Eidos executives as a proof-of-concept) and it's amazing to watch.

It's running at less than 50% speed. Lara still has her ponytail (glitching around everywhere, which is likely why it was removed) and is sporting Matrix-style sunglasses. Despite all the strangeness, there's no denying the quality of that hand-animated movement. That's art in motion.

We know that the original . But the earliest glimpses of Sonic the Hedgehog on Genesis/Mega Drive were thought to be the likes of those in Wayne's World. No more! The pilot episode of Nick Arcade was found recently and uploaded to the internet. And lo-and-behold, it's got a mega-early version of Sonic in it. Oh. Em. Gee.

It's familiar enough, until the most '90s kid the world has ever known happens across the wrecking ball from the first boss battle... only it's rolling around the stage. It doesn't hurt when you touch it, instead allowing Sonic to stand on its surface. Sure, the iOS version of Sonic also lets you play with these things, but it was thought that nobody had ever seen the original in-level rolling ball in action outside Sega until this video appeared.

Wanna see John Romero playing a pre-release version of Doom? Course you do! This video was shot in November, 1993, at id's offices. The version of Doom contains plenty of elements not found in the final version of the game, even to the extent that the sound effects are from the SNES version of Wolfenstein 3D as the real ones hadn't been finished yet.

The whole video is a fascinating insight into 1993 gaming culture (just look at them cooing over the Genesis version of Aladdin at the start!), but you can skip to 9:35 to see Doom in action, complete with early Deathmatch action. It's amusing today to hear people reacting to a rocket launcher blast for the first time, but this was bleeding-edge technology in 1993.

BioShock was shown quite a few times before anyone actually got to play it. But the strange thing is that the quality of the final game seems slightly pared down compared to the pre-release versions. Case in point: this gameplay video, narrated by Ken Levine himself.

In it, you'll see some very slick-looking environments, plus different behaviour from the Big Daddy and Little Sisters (including the latter apparently drinking fresh blood to get her fix of Adam). There is also footage of the teleportation plasmid doing the rounds, again looking significantly different to the final game, which you can see .

We all know Shenmue as being one of Dreamcast's brightest stars, but the game was originally intended to be released on Sega Saturn. If you finish Shenmue on Dreamcast, you are treated to this video of the Saturn version in development.

Even though the screen is covered in debugging readouts and the frame-rate is sketchy at best, it's amazing to see scenes from Shenmue 2 already in action on the 32-bit hardware. I personally adore this sort of thing. Makes you wonder what other mind-blowing prototypes exist in the vaults of the big-name devs.

This VHS tape from an early edition of Sega Saturn Magazine is full of early looks at classic games. There's a comprehensive look at the beta version of Sega Rally Championship (complete with rotating background sky) that appeared on the 'Bootleg Demo' that came with early Saturns. But it's Virtua Fighter 2 that's the most exciting.

In this 40% complete port to the Saturn, there are movement demos where two characters are on-screen, showing off their skills but not hitting each other. Then there's an early version of Shun Di going through his demo routine, and Lion Rafale acting out his attract mode moves without an opponent. The characters don't have shadows, victory taunt cameras aren't in... but even at this early stage, it was running beautifully. Oh, by the way, there may be a few seconds of the previous game in this clip. And the next one. Sorry about that.

OK, so perhaps this one isn't as well known as the others, but the game in this ultra-blurry pre-release VHS promo is very different. Look at the first screen of the game in the VHS compared to the final version (inset). The final game and the level design is almost completely different.

There are other games in that tape, most notably Sonic 2's beta, but we've covered that so many times in the past I'm going to give it a rest. Hooray!

I have to admit, I absolutely LOVE looking at old screenshots and videos of games. In fact, if you like this article, maybe we could do a screenshot version too? That would be awesome. Until then, tell everyone which games you wish you could see early stuff from. Or games you have. We can geek out together.

And if you're looking for more, check out .

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion marked the start of a new era of gaming in more ways than one. It brought many into then-new-gen gaming, sold people on the Xbox 360, and notoriously set the bar for insulting DLC. Oblivion’s Horse Armor is a famously poor example of downloadable content, charging players $2.50 / £1.70 for some extra equine protection that did absolutely nothing besides make your four-legged ride glimmer in the sunlight. It quickly becoming a cautionary tale in how not to handle DLC- but that 2006 offense to gamer's wallets seems quaint when compared to some of the downloadable mistakes that followed.

Despite consumer backlash, publishers always seem a little too willing to test the limits of how much they can charge for additional content. And consumers have always been ready to let them know where that limit is. Read on to see some of the most ludicrous ‘enhancements’ gaming has seen in the recent past...

You won’t hear me complaining about Asura’s Wrath’s on-disc content. It’s an entertainingly excessive quest for revenge fueled by one man’s unending rage, all told in a clever episodic structure influenced by anime. It’s a great story, so you think I’d be hyped for more episodes being offered as paid DLC. However, the excitement recedes when you realize you’re paying $7 / £4.69 for the actual ending to the game.

Spoiler warning: The campaign ends with Asura discovering who’s really responsible for all the horrible things that happened to him. At first it seems like setup for a sequel, but Asura’s final battle with his nemesis and any actual sense of closure or resolution are all available for purchase in Episode Pack: Part 4. Perhaps worse than ransoming off the finale is the fact that the main campaign’s hard-to-unlock secret ending acts as nothing more than a preview of said DLC pack. That’s like finishing the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a link to a website where you can buy the last two chapters.

Tiger Woods is famous for two things - extramarital affairs and no-nonsense golf. You’ll find a good deal of the latter in his sim-heavy sports games, featuring as many real-world courses as fans can get their hands on. And those fans are fine with working to unlock extras - but not if the game constantly reminds you that you could just pay $5 to get it right now, as is the case with Tiger Woods 13.

Even if you buy the full game, 14 of its courses can’t be touched unless you spend currency, either in-game or real cash. But the hard-earned in-game gold only unlocks one 18-hole round at a time, and if you want to fully unlock said courses it takes an ungodly amount of effort and skill to complete the necessary challenges. Concurrently, as you’re slaving away on the green, the game is quick to remind you that it could all be skipped with a little extra cash. If this seems like EA execs chose to follow the poor example of freemium Facebook and iPhone apps, that’s because, well, .

WWE is sports entertainment, which is PR speak for pro wrestling. That said, the recent WWE games are certainly acting like sports games, with annual releases and cover athlete photoshoots, and they have an unfortunately similar approach to DLC. Beyond the expected season pass, the last two WWE entries include a paid-for bonus called the Accelerator. That may sound like it makes wrestlers move at triple speed, but it’s a bit sidious than that.

WWE games have hundreds of unlockables, including dozens of playable superstars, and you normally get them by completing the single-player mode’s numerous objectives. It can take a long, long time - especially when facing the nigh-unbeatable John Cena - but for $2 / £1.59 you can save yourself all those hours with the Accelerator, which unlocks it all instantaneously. It’s arguably a low price, though it feels a bit more devious than consumer-friendly, especially when “unlock everything” codes were free in older games. The Accelerator is a necessity for gamers with limited time on their hands, working like a tax for anyone that want every possible exhibition match-up immediately.

The Saboteur tries its best to make something fun out of the extremely depressing idea of freeing occupied France during the second World War. Killing Nazis as an Irish racecar driver certainly sounds like a hoot, as does the idea of the leading man hiding out in a Parisian burlesque house. It’s the setting to some risque scenes, along with one of gaming’s most ridiculous concepts: DLC nipples.

See, the ladies of the Belle de Nuit strip club are fittingly underdressed for their profession, but their nipples are usually covered by pasties. If (for some reason) you wanted to go the extra mile and see absolutely everything above the digital waistline, that’ll cost you an extra $3. You have to give EA credit for finding a new avenue to collect a few extra dollars via a player’s libido. The Saboteur’s servers have since been shut off, and the topless DLC has vanished as a result, so count yourself lucky(and a little ashamed) if you were able to get into this exclusive club before then.

BioWare makes massive RPGs and is also known for selling extra story missions of varying spaces and sizes. Dragon Age: Origins was one of BioWare’s earliest games to normalize this DLC practice, which is fine if that story content is optional (looking at you Mass Effect: The Arrival). However, I’d say it gets obnoxious when an NPC villager becomes a walking billboard for additional content.

As you walk around Redcliffe Village, you’ll spot a number of characters with a highlighted objective over their head. Talking to them will further your quest, but one unnamed man starts giving you all the details on a certain quest, then ends with a plea to start the quest by purchasing it with real money. Much like a play would be ruined by an actor stopping mid scene to beg the audience for spare change, this type of DLC destroys the immersion instantly. Would it have been such a crime to simply put that in a menu instead, or was that not aggressive enough for the corporate suits?

This iOS game may seem like a trifle, but it actually represents the current low point in Final Fantasy’s long history. The simple touch interface appears inoffensive, but just beneath the surface are some of the cruelest microtransactions imaginable. Not only are you faced with waiting hours to revive your team or paying Square Enix money to bring them back immediately, but DLC characters are insultingly locked behind a random lottery.

Standard Operating Procedure for DLC: Game X offers to unlock character Y for price Z, which you either pay or don’t. If you’re playing All The Bravest and want to add Final Fantasy 7 star Cloud Strife to the game, you can pay $1 and maybe unlock him as a randomly pulled character from the 35 unlockable possibilities. If you’re particularly unlucky and get every character but Cloud, you’ll spend more than $34 before you can play as the spiky-haired icon. Having to gamble to unlock characters that would’ve been freely unlockable a decade ago is pretty obscene, even by mobile game standards.

Sonic Adventure was celebrated when it hit the West in 1999, only to be widely judged as overrated when an upgraded version came to the GameCube in 2003. Because one re-release simply wasn’t enough, gamers would get a whole new chance to reexamine Sonic’s Dreamcast premiere when Sega ported the game to PS3 and 360 in 2010. Unfortunately, it costs you some extra green to get the complete version of this HD remake.

For about half of the game’s $5 asking price, you can buy Sonic Adventure’s DX Upgrade, which unlocks all the extra missions and modes that were in the GameCube edition. Of course, that DX version update isn’t all that complete, because the GC release came with several unlockable Game Gear games, none of which are included with the DLC. And really, why would Sega give away those games today when they can just sell them in a separate collection?

As an American child growing up the 1980s, television instilled in me a near-endless love for Transformers, be they toys, cartoons, or games (but I draw the line at Michael Bay films). War For Cybertron is a loving throwback to the Transformers of my youth, crafting a surprisingly serious tale of Autobots waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. You could even reskin the robots to look like their classic ‘80s characters, but only if you bought your game from a specific retailer (or waited for an unspecified amount of time).

As I , you had to buy WFC from specific retailers to unlock classic designs of the likes of Jazz and Demolisher, or you paid a crazy price for those codes on sites like eBay. Short of buying the game multiple times at different outlets, there was no other way for die hard fans to play as some of the most beloved Transformers - at least, not at first. Months later, and without warning, Activision made all those skins available in a couple of $5 DLC packs, which must have felt real nice for all the folks that paid $200 for them mere weeks earlier. Maybe next time you can give your biggest fans some advance notice before they spend a small fortune just to play as Shockwave?

Just kidding! But if you recall any DLC that you found unforgivable, tell me all about it in the comments. I promise, there are no hidden fees to do that.

Hungry for more rip offs? Check out .

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion marked the start of a new era of gaming in more ways than one. It brought many into then-new-gen gaming, sold people on the Xbox 360, and notoriously set the bar for insulting DLC. Oblivion’s Horse Armor is a famously poor example of downloadable content, charging players $2.50 / £1.70 for some extra equine protection that did absolutely nothing besides make your four-legged ride glimmer in the sunlight. It quickly becoming a cautionary tale in how not to handle DLC- but that 2006 offense to gamer's wallets seems quaint when compared to some of the downloadable mistakes that followed.

Despite consumer backlash, publishers always seem a little too willing to test the limits of how much they can charge for additional content. And consumers have always been ready to let them know where that limit is. Read on to see some of the most ludicrous ‘enhancements’ gaming has seen in the recent past...

You won’t hear me complaining about Asura’s Wrath’s on-disc content. It’s an entertainingly excessive quest for revenge fueled by one man’s unending rage, all told in a clever episodic structure influenced by anime. It’s a great story, so you think I’d be hyped for more episodes being offered as paid DLC. However, the excitement recedes when you realize you’re paying $7 / £4.69 for the actual ending to the game.

Spoiler warning: The campaign ends with Asura discovering who’s really responsible for all the horrible things that happened to him. At first it seems like setup for a sequel, but Asura’s final battle with his nemesis and any actual sense of closure or resolution are all available for purchase in Episode Pack: Part 4. Perhaps worse than ransoming off the finale is the fact that the main campaign’s hard-to-unlock secret ending acts as nothing more than a preview of said DLC pack. That’s like finishing the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a link to a website where you can buy the last two chapters.

Tiger Woods is famous for two things - extramarital affairs and no-nonsense golf. You’ll find a good deal of the latter in his sim-heavy sports games, featuring as many real-world courses as fans can get their hands on. And those fans are fine with working to unlock extras - but not if the game constantly reminds you that you could just pay $5 to get it right now, as is the case with Tiger Woods 13.

Even if you buy the full game, 14 of its courses can’t be touched unless you spend currency, either in-game or real cash. But the hard-earned in-game gold only unlocks one 18-hole round at a time, and if you want to fully unlock said courses it takes an ungodly amount of effort and skill to complete the necessary challenges. Concurrently, as you’re slaving away on the green, the game is quick to remind you that it could all be skipped with a little extra cash. If this seems like EA execs chose to follow the poor example of freemium Facebook and iPhone apps, that’s because, well, .

WWE is sports entertainment, which is PR speak for pro wrestling. That said, the recent WWE games are certainly acting like sports games, with annual releases and cover athlete photoshoots, and they have an unfortunately similar approach to DLC. Beyond the expected season pass, the last two WWE entries include a paid-for bonus called the Accelerator. That may sound like it makes wrestlers move at triple speed, but it’s a bit sidious than that.

WWE games have hundreds of unlockables, including dozens of playable superstars, and you normally get them by completing the single-player mode’s numerous objectives. It can take a long, long time - especially when facing the nigh-unbeatable John Cena - but for $2 / £1.59 you can save yourself all those hours with the Accelerator, which unlocks it all instantaneously. It’s arguably a low price, though it feels a bit more devious than consumer-friendly, especially when “unlock everything” codes were free in older games. The Accelerator is a necessity for gamers with limited time on their hands, working like a tax for anyone that want every possible exhibition match-up immediately.

The Saboteur tries its best to make something fun out of the extremely depressing idea of freeing occupied France during the second World War. Killing Nazis as an Irish racecar driver certainly sounds like a hoot, as does the idea of the leading man hiding out in a Parisian burlesque house. It’s the setting to some risque scenes, along with one of gaming’s most ridiculous concepts: DLC nipples.

See, the ladies of the Belle de Nuit strip club are fittingly underdressed for their profession, but their nipples are usually covered by pasties. If (for some reason) you wanted to go the extra mile and see absolutely everything above the digital waistline, that’ll cost you an extra $3. You have to give EA credit for finding a new avenue to collect a few extra dollars via a player’s libido. The Saboteur’s servers have since been shut off, and the topless DLC has vanished as a result, so count yourself lucky(and a little ashamed) if you were able to get into this exclusive club before then.

BioWare makes massive RPGs and is also known for selling extra story missions of varying spaces and sizes. Dragon Age: Origins was one of BioWare’s earliest games to normalize this DLC practice, which is fine if that story content is optional (looking at you Mass Effect: The Arrival). However, I’d say it gets obnoxious when an NPC villager becomes a walking billboard for additional content.

As you walk around Redcliffe Village, you’ll spot a number of characters with a highlighted objective over their head. Talking to them will further your quest, but one unnamed man starts giving you all the details on a certain quest, then ends with a plea to start the quest by purchasing it with real money. Much like a play would be ruined by an actor stopping mid scene to beg the audience for spare change, this type of DLC destroys the immersion instantly. Would it have been such a crime to simply put that in a menu instead, or was that not aggressive enough for the corporate suits?

This iOS game may seem like a trifle, but it actually represents the current low point in Final Fantasy’s long history. The simple touch interface appears inoffensive, but just beneath the surface are some of the cruelest microtransactions imaginable. Not only are you faced with waiting hours to revive your team or paying Square Enix money to bring them back immediately, but DLC characters are insultingly locked behind a random lottery.

Standard Operating Procedure for DLC: Game X offers to unlock character Y for price Z, which you either pay or don’t. If you’re playing All The Bravest and want to add Final Fantasy 7 star Cloud Strife to the game, you can pay $1 and maybe unlock him as a randomly pulled character from the 35 unlockable possibilities. If you’re particularly unlucky and get every character but Cloud, you’ll spend more than $34 before you can play as the spiky-haired icon. Having to gamble to unlock characters that would’ve been freely unlockable a decade ago is pretty obscene, even by mobile game standards.

Sonic Adventure was celebrated when it hit the West in 1999, only to be widely judged as overrated when an upgraded version came to the GameCube in 2003. Because one re-release simply wasn’t enough, gamers would get a whole new chance to reexamine Sonic’s Dreamcast premiere when Sega ported the game to PS3 and 360 in 2010. Unfortunately, it costs you some extra green to get the complete version of this HD remake.

For about half of the game’s $5 asking price, you can buy Sonic Adventure’s DX Upgrade, which unlocks all the extra missions and modes that were in the GameCube edition. Of course, that DX version update isn’t all that complete, because the GC release came with several unlockable Game Gear games, none of which are included with the DLC. And really, why would Sega give away those games today when they can just sell them in a separate collection?

As an American child growing up the 1980s, television instilled in me a near-endless love for Transformers, be they toys, cartoons, or games (but I draw the line at Michael Bay films). War For Cybertron is a loving throwback to the Transformers of my youth, crafting a surprisingly serious tale of Autobots waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. You could even reskin the robots to look like their classic ‘80s characters, but only if you bought your game from a specific retailer (or waited for an unspecified amount of time).

As I , you had to buy WFC from specific retailers to unlock classic designs of the likes of Jazz and Demolisher, or you paid a crazy price for those codes on sites like eBay. Short of buying the game multiple times at different outlets, there was no other way for die hard fans to play as some of the most beloved Transformers - at least, not at first. Months later, and without warning, Activision made all those skins available in a couple of $5 DLC packs, which must have felt real nice for all the folks that paid $200 for them mere weeks earlier. Maybe next time you can give your biggest fans some advance notice before they spend a small fortune just to play as Shockwave?

Just kidding! But if you recall any DLC that you found unforgivable, tell me all about it in the comments. I promise, there are no hidden fees to do that.

Hungry for more rip offs? Check out .