Action Adventure

God of War 2 [PS2 – Beta]

God of War 2 is an action adventure developed by SCE Studios Santa Monica and published in 2007 by Sony for the PlayStation 2. In the final game it’s possible to unlock a bonus video in which to take a look at some removed levels, as the Colosseum, an Aquaduct, the Rhode’s Marketplace, Atlantis and The Tomb, plus some test / debug levels as the one in the river. An unused move was also found in the game’s code.

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Sword of Sia: Lady Sia 2 [GBA – Cancelled]

Sword of Sia: Lady Sia 2 (aka Lady Sia II) is a cancelled action adventure / platform game that was in development in 2002 / 2003 for the Gameboy Advance by RFX Interactive and it would have been published by TDK Mediactive (as was the first game). It seems that Lady Sia 2 was almost complete (it was even rated by ESRB), but in 2003 RFX had to close down and TDK Mediactive was acquired by Take-Two Interactive. Lady Sia 2 vanished with the closure of its development studio and publisher.

The original Lady Sia was released in 2001 and it was one of the first titles published for the new at the time Game Boy Advance. The game was received well by the press and gamers; this cancelled sequel could have improved the formula its predecessor established and it’s a shame that we’ll never be able to enjoy it. We can only hope that a playable prototype will be leaked in the future.

A Lady Sia 3D prototype was also in development for the Playstation 2 and GameCube, but it was canned too.

Thanks to ReyVGM and Celine for the scan (from an old Nintendo Power magazine)! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

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Lady Sia 3D [GC PS2 – Prototype]

Lady Sia 3D is a prototype for an action adventure game that was in development by RFX Interactive in 2002 / 2003, for the GameCube and Playstation 2. The game was meant to be a tridimensional sequel to the original Lady Sia, created by RFX and published in 2001 by TDK Mediactive for the GameBoy Advance.

This Lady Sia 3D prototype never evolved into a full game and it’s possible that the team found it too difficult to translate the fun gameplay of the original GBA version into a 3D world (before this proto they only worked on 2D games for the GBC and GBA). In 2003 RFX closed and TDK Mediactive was acquired by Take-Two Interactive.

Thanks to Holly for the contribution! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

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Big Guns (Exodus) [Playstation – Cancelled]

Big Guns (Exodus) is a cancelled shooter / action game that was in development by Neversoft Entertainment in 1996 / 1997. They were able to create a good-looking playable tech demo for this project that was shown to Shiny Entertainment on June 1996 to demonstrate their 3D engine in hopes that Shiny would hire them to develop the MDK Playstation port.

As we can read at the Playstation Museum, a coop mode was also available:

Exodus features a fast and furious two player cooperative play. Two player mode does not suffer from any slowdown as a result of the superior 3D engine. What makes Exodus stand out is that both players can combine their mechs into one larger mech. In transformation mode, player one would control the bottom half of the mech including walking and firing at enemies while player two would control the upper half which allows for 360 degree swivel as well as firing upon enemies.

Shiny was impressed with their technology and Neversoft started to work on the MDK conversion (that used the Big Guns engine), while the Big Guns concept was sold to Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Big Gus was meant to be published by SCEA in 1998, but 1997 was a tumultuous year for Neversoft. The MDK conversion took far longer than expected, and Big Guns, renamed Exodus, went through numerous design changes at the behest of Sony. Somehow Exodus was changed from a mech shooter to an action adventure featuring a cat-girl (sadly, we don’t have any image from this version of the game). The project was doomed and it was eventually cancelled in November 1997.

Neversoft shrunk to just twelve employees. The company then spent the next few months shopping around their technology, meeting with numerous companies and looking for work.

In January 1998, just as Neversoft was about to run out of money, they had a fortunate meeting with Activision who were looking for someone to re-develop Apocalypse, a failed internal project featuring the voice of Bruce Willis. The technology developed for Big Guns turned out to be ideal for the project, Activision wase impressed and Neversoft began work on Apocalypse.

In the end Big Guns / Exodus was never released, but at least its 3D engine was used for 2 other games: MDK and Apocalypse.

Thanks to Userdante and Father PSX for the contributions! Some info are from Wikipedia and The Playstation Museum.

Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

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The Bard’s Tale [PS2 XBOX PC – Unused Stuff]

The Bard’s Tale is an action adventure developed by InXile Entertainment, and released in 2004 for the Playstation 2, Xbox and PC. DCodes7 found a way to activate the debug menu in the PS2 port. Most of the debug functions are disabled and the only working functions are the level/area select and level load option. Thanks to the debug menu it’s possible to reach three unused yet complete areas that can be played. Some names of removed (?) test maps were also found:

  • TM_Anntest
  • TM_Grass
  • TM_Obtest
  • TM_PatsMap
  • TM_Prop
  • TM_Interior

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