Black is a FPS developed by Criterion Games and published in 2006 by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Thanks to a playable demo released before the game was completed, DCodes7 noticed various beta differences, listed in the gallery below. Also, as wrote by Satrialeson the NeoGaf Forum, originally Black had a “challenge mode” where you would run around the levels shooting targets within a set time, but this was removed in the final version.
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Ratchet and Clank was the first game in a series that would become a cash cow for Insomniac Games. The main goal of the game, is to blow up anything that moves, while exploring large levels for hidden items. The series is also known for it’s comical approach, with weapons such as the Morph -o- Ray, which turns enemies into chickens. There were some changes made to the final game however, one of which, involves the farm friendly foul.
In this video, can be seen what appears to be a mashup of different betas. To start with, at 0:22, it’s rather fast, but pause it and you’ll see the beta bolt meter, but in the top left part of the screen. In all Ratchet games, it’s in the top RIGHT. It can be seen there in another part of the video, but also in it’s proper place as well. At 0:49 can be seen a strange weapon icon, a no chickens sign. The HUD is still beta here, and the no chicken sign is too.
Road to Sunday is a cancelled football game that was in development by 989 Sports (the Sony America Sports Studio) in 2004 / 2005 for the Playstation 2. The game had an interesting career mode, in which the player would have been able to follow a deep story mode, in which to learn more about the causes of a misterious murder, to pay back the cash owed to a criminal boss and to win on the football field at the same time.
As we can read in the Gamespot preview, there were many ways to rise more money in the game:
This is where another NAFA–the North American Fighting Association–comes into play. By entering members of your football team into these underground fights, you can hope to earn the cash you owe the boss by the end of the season. Gambling also plays a part in your bottom line, as you’ll be able to play games like Texas Hold ‘Em and Blackjack, or even hit up the local sports bookie and place bets on that particular week’s games.
Sadly the game was officially cancelled in july 2005, when Ron Eagle, public relations manager for SCEA Sports at the time, explained to Gamespot that:
The game has been officially canceled. It basically did not measure up to our first-party quality standards. In the course of development, it was not meeting our standards for where a product should be in its development cycle. It was purely an internal decision.
Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!
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Starsky & Hutch 2 is a cancelled mission-based driving game based on the TV series with the same name, that was in development by Mind’s Eye for the original Xbox and Playstation 2. The project was announced in 2003 when Empire Interactive signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Sony Pictures to publish a sequel to their first Starsky & Hutch game.
As wrote by IGN, Starsky & Hutch 2 was shown behind closed doors at Empire Interactive’s booth during E3 2004, featuring the same drive and shoot gameplay as the original, and an on-rails Virtua Cop-esque mode up to 2 players. In 2005 Mind’s Eye Productions was acquired by Disney Interactive and their Starsky & Hutch 2 project was canned. The few images preserved in the gallery below are probably from a target render and not in-game.
Thanks to Cyrax151 for the contribution!
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Ambrosia Odyssey is a cancelled Action RPG with online multiplayer that was in development for the Playstation 2 in 2003 by Rocket Studio with help from KAI Graphics (for CG movies) and Supersweep (for music), meant to be published by Square Enix. The game had a multiple branching storyline in offline mode, in which you were able to create towns and foster their development to follow different plots, then connect online to share your game world with other players and visit their own towns and stories.
A video of the game was shown at the Tokyo Game Show 2003, but it only has some characters creation footage, blurred combats and a pre-rendered FMV (thanks a lot to CRC for preserving this video!).
An online beta testing was planned for spring 2004 (?), but we are not sure if it really happened before the cancellation. Ambrosia Odyssey was soon removed from Square Enix release list, maybe because of the popularity of their other online game, Final Fantasy XI.
Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!
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