Beta + Cancelled Others Video Games - Page 116 of 171

Wipeout is the first in a series of futuristic racing games developed and published by Psygnosis in 1995 for Sony PlayStation and PC, in 1996 for the Sega Saturn. Wipeout was designed in part by The Designers Republic, while the game’s vehicle designs were based on Matrix Marauders, a 3D grid-based strategy game whose concept was developed by Psygnosis employee Jim Bowers. Nick Burcombe, the game’s future designer, was inspired to create a racing game using the same types of vehicles from his experience with Powerdrome, F-Zero and Super Mario Kart. [Info from Wikipedia]

In the gallery below you can see a couple fo screens from a beta version and what is seems a FMV / target render.

Beta:

Final:

In an interview on Grumpy Old Gamers with Andy Satterthwaite we can read some memories from the early days of Wipeout:

As for the “Inspiration” the original game was very much “Mario Kart” to techno music. Nick Burcombe and Jim Bowers had designed the game from those beginnings; and an early concept video was made.

Wipeout Target Render / Concept Video:

Thanks to Rod_Wod and Celine for the scans! Thanks to Ross Sillifant for the interview!

Images:

Others, PC / MAC

SWAT: Urban Justice [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

13-09-2010

1 Comment

SWAT: Urban Justice is a cancelled strategy FPS that would have been the 4th title in the SWAT series of real-time tactical games. Urban Justice was in development by Sierra in 2001 / 2002, but something went wrong, the game was postponed and soon vanished without an explanation. In 2004 Vivendi Universal / Sierra announced a new SWAT project, the official SWAT 4 developed by Irrational Games and published in 2005. As we can read on Gamespot:

According to a carefully parsed statement from a VU spokesperson, work on Urban Justice has been “discontinued” in favor of SWAT 4’s development. However, the same spokesman stressed that SWAT 4 is both a different game and a true sequel, so it will retain the series’ gameplay elements, albeit in a refined form.

In the released SWAT 4, they did leave an ester egg that refers to the unreleased Urban Justice (Info from IMDB):

In the mission “Victory Imports Auto Garage”, there is an arcade game in the waiting room called “SWAT: Urban Justice”. This is a company in-joke; Urban Justice was supposed to be Sierra/Vivendi’s follow up to SWAT 3: Close Quarter Battle (1999), and they began advertising the game as “Coming Soon” in 2002 with a view to releasing later in the year. However, after a spending long time (to the order of years) in development purgatory, Urban Justice was cancelled by Vivendi

Thanks to discworld for the contribution!

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Videos:

Others, PC / MAC

StarCraft 2 [PC – Beta]

monokoma

11-09-2010

1 Comment

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is a RTS developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released on July 2010 for PC and MAC. As we can read on Wikipedia, the project was announced on May 2007 at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea, but the development began in 2003, shortly after Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne was released. According to Rob Pardo and Chris Sigaty, development for StarCraft II was put on hold for a year in 2005 due to the assistance needed for World of Warcraft. On February 2010, StarCraft 2 began closed beta testing, that was expected to last for 3–5 months.

Thanks to the beta, players were able to experience various changes during the development of the game, as posted by ABetaname and Zero7 in our U64 Forum.

Stuff from earlier builds such as cut units were found as leftovers in the beta.

soul hunters aren’t in now
phase cannons aren’t in now
tempests were changed back to carriers
no twilight archons, I believe anyway, I think they’re still normal archons though there is a twilight academy so maybe it’s an evolution/transformation

There has been a lot of other changes over the years that we can find from the Alpha version of the game. Such as the Thor.

“The Thor also originally required an SCV to construct, as opposed to being internally built from a structure. The idea behind this is the Thor was too large to be created from a Factory.” It also had a different (obviously place holder) voice actor. Basically over the years the Thor kept getting smaller and smaller.

It seems that Blizzard planned on having the Corsair from Starcraft Broodwar in StarCraft 2. However only the voice clips exist of him, hidden in the game’s code.

Various beta voice clips of some units were on the old StarCraft 2 website can be listened below, thanks to Starcraft2units‘ Youtube Channel.

More videos that explain some interesting beta changes can be found in PsyStarcraft‘s Youtube Channel:

Leaked, M2 / 3DO, Others

IMSA Racing [M2 – Cancelled]

monokoma

07-09-2010

3 Comments

IMSA World Championship is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Studio 3DO for the unreleased 3DO / Panasonic / Matsushita M2 console. When 3DO sold their M2 hardware to Panasonic, IMSA was slowly postponed and then canned. The game had a great graphic engine for its time and it was one of the best “tech demos” to show the power of the M2. This project could have been lost forever, but on July 26th 2010 NikeX has released a playable beta version of IMSA Racing in the 3DO Zero Forums.

In the 3DOZ Forum we can also read more info about the game from one of its developers:

A while later, I started working on IMSA World Championship racing, which was 3DO’s main internally developed M2 game. The director of the game was Ed Rotberg, an industry veteran who was responsible for such classic arcade games as Battlezone and Star Wars Arcade. The lead programmer was Chuck Sommerville, who wrote the original Snakebyte (you know, that game where you drive a snake around and try not to crash into your own tail) as well as the cult favorite Chip’s Challenge. […]
The physics and driving engine for IMSA were licensed from the company that made the arcade game Hard Drivin’. The graphics engine was something called “Mercury” that an external developer had written and then sold back to 3DO, at which point it became our official graphics engine which we encouraged other developers to use. […]

Also, NikeX wrote a review of the IMSA beta, that you can read in here.

It’s 1996, IMSA game is shown to the people. No pixels, but texture correction. Something you don’t see on Playstation 1 or Sega Saturn. And, in this quality, not on N64. In fact, you’ve never seen so solid, vivid-plastic car models, when the camera comes close: The tires are round and they turn in the correct direction. Constant 30 frames per second, even with 10 cars on the track. My jaw tumbled when I saw the realtime presentation of the cars, tires, gears or rear spoilers. Great illuminating effects, readable words on car and parts. Even in the race itself. In 1996, 97 you would have thought: Am I watching a FMV?

Huge props to NikeX for sharing this lost game with the community! Thanks to Celine for the magazine scans!

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Others, PC / MAC

Star Trek Elite Force 2 [PC – Beta]

monokoma

06-09-2010

No Comments

Star Trek: Elite Force 2 is a FPS developed by Ritual Entertainment and published in 2003 by Activision for PC. As we can read in wikipedia, towards the end of March 2002, rumors were reported that a sequel to Elite Force was in development. The game was the last Star Trek title to be developed under Activision’s supervision, following a dispute with Star Trek licensing holder Viacom.

In the gallery below you can see the first screenshots released for Star Trek: Elite Force 2, with an early engine and incomplete graphic (as a place holder HUD). Check the video below to compare it with the beta screens: if you notice more differences, please let us know!

Thanks to discworld for the contribution!

Images:

Video (from the final version):