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Beat ’em up

Hell On Wheels is a prototype for an action game / beat ’em up that was in development by Skylab Entertainment in 2003 / 2004. Even if the name and the settings could make you to relate this game to Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels, this one was a different project, not related to the LucasArts series. The Skylab Entertainment studio was launched in March 2003 and it was based in Austin, Texas: it included original team members from Ritual Entertainment and Gathering of Developers. Hell On Wheels was their first original project, but it seems that they never found a publisher interested in it and in the end Skylab closed in down in 2005 without any released game.

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Dreamcast, Sega

Rent A Hero No. 1 [Dreamcast – Beta]

monokoma

01-04-2010

No Comments

Rent A Hero No. 1 is an action game / beat ’em up with RPG elements, developed by Sega and published for the Dreamcast in 2000, with an Xbox port in 2003. When the game was first announced in 1999, it did not look like the final version: the city layout was completely changed, the HUD and the MAP were different. From a video of the Rent-A-Hero No. 1 presentation at the V-jump Festival 99, shared by Carnivol from his YT channel, the combat seemed almost turn based or “on-rails”, while in the final game they play like in a classic action beat ’em up with free movements.

It’s possible that this 1999 version was still an early beta, but it’s interesting to notice how much the city was evolved from it’s initial form.

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Videos (Beta @ 0:53):

For comparison, here’s a video from the final Xbox version:

Jaguar, Others

Conan [Jaguar – Cancelled]

monokoma

12-03-2010

8 Comments

Conan is a cancelled beat ’em up similar to Golden Axe that was in development by Arcade Zone for the Atari Jaguar. The french studio was closed down after Sony decided to not publish their latest Super Nintendo game, as the original Playstation arrived in Europe. Without another publisher they had to give up on releasing Nightmare Busters SNES and Arcade Zone had to shut down. Conan Jaguar vanished with their closure and it’s unknown how much of the game was finished before the cancellation.

At 1Up Games can read an interview with former Arcade Zone’s developers, in which they mention this unreleased beat ’em up:

Lyes Belaidouni: We even made an attempt on the Atari Jaguar, the stillborn console for which we developed (without bragging) the most beautiful beat’em up with huge sprites and monumental backgrounds ! But this, alas, no one has seen it…

Celine was able to find some screenshots of the game in magazines CD Consoles #2, #5 and GF #95

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Microsoft, Xbox 360

2 Finger Heroes (Natal) [X360 – Cancelled]

yota

16-02-2010

No Comments

2 Finger Heroes is a canceled beat ’em up made by Arkedo studios that was supposed to be played with the Natal, the Xbox 360 “play without a joypad” add-on. From the concept arts, we can see that the characters were controlled using the fingers o with some basic gestures, like folding your arms.

An interesting project, which like the other Arkedo games also displayed an original graphic style (as seen in the concept arts below) and a twisted story.

Unfortunately in the end the game got shelved because of development issues. As we can read on NeoGAF:

“One of the designs flaws of this, apart from the fact that it demanded some very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system, is that it would have been HELL to localize. Yup, what can be understood as the victory sign in France, could be a terrible insult in the UK, for instance. And we are not even talking about Italian. Oh, the possibilities..”

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Unseen News

Denjin Makai [SNES – Not Cancelled?]

monokoma

05-02-2010

4 Comments

Denjin Makai is a series of beat ’em up developed by Banpresto and released for the Arcade from 1993 to 1995. A Super Famicom / Super Nintendo version was planned too, but it seems that it was never released. It’s currently unknown if the SNES Denjin Makai was going to be a new game or a port of the first chapter already released in arcades.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! (Scans from Super Power magazine issues #20 and #22)

Update: Celine later found out that this game was indeed released in japan under a different name: Ghost Chaser Densei.

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