Konami

Contra Spirits 64 [N64 – Cancelled]

Contra Spirits 64 is a cancelled shooter / action game in the contra series that was in development by Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka for the Nintendo 64. There are just a few info about this unreleased project as Konami never shown any official screenshot or concept art, but the title was in many list of games to be released for the N64 and the hopes went up for many Nintendo gamers that wanted a new and fun game for their 64bit console. Unfortunatly it seems that as the Nintendo 64 sold poorly in Japan, Konami decided to stop the development of the project and disbanded its team.

As we can read on IGN64:

Contra was planned, but the original team was disbanded and all team members now work on different projects,” said a company spokesperson. [Contra] has pretty much been shelved. […] There is concern over the poor N64 console sales in Japan […]

Contra 64 would have been a sidescrolling 3D game, with some sessions in which the camera would have switched angles or move behind the characters, possible for boss battles. There are some rumors that say that the Contra Spirits 64 concept was resurrected and became Contra: Shattered Soldier for PS2, but as Contra N64 was in development in 1998 and Contra PS2 was announced and released in 2002, it’s hard to say if the 2 project have anything in common.

Below you can see some scans from old magazines that wrote about Contra Spirits 64 (if you have Next Generation Issue 29, Volume 3 May 1997 and can make a bigger scan of their N64 article, please let us know!).

Thanks to Celine and Contrapedia for the contributions!

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Konami Rally [PSX – Cancelled]

Konami Rally is a cancelled racing game planned for the origina playstation. Konami output on MSX platform was legendary, loved franchises as Metal Gear and Parodius moved the first steps on it. At E3 ’99 Konami announced that one of his glorious MSX games, Konami Hyper Rally, was getting new outings on GameBoy Color and Playstation. This racing game however had a different fate compared to Metal Gear Solid, because it vanished after that show.

The GBC rally game was renamed as Cross Country Racing and released in 2000 .

Scan from PlayMag issue 37.

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Silent Hill 3 [Beta / Unused – PS2 / PC]

Silent hill 3 is a third-person survival horror game developed for the PlayStation 2 and PC by Konami and later released in HD on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Here is a list of the following unused beta textures and sounds found on the PC game disk of SH3.

1) Closer monsters have an unused climbing animation.

2) Nurses have an unused animation that shows the nurses attacking upside down from the ceiling.

3) Unused Baby crying sound

4 & 5)  Unused photo: Found only as a texture, it was originally meant to be in Heathers inventory, found in the apartment. In addtion to the unused photo there is some unused text attached to the photo, text only seen when the player examines said item:

“It’s of Dad and me at Christmas. Looking at this makes me want to try even harder. I have to…I can’t lose. They killed my dad and they have to pay for it.”

6) Finally there is an unused level. While only seen in the video below this article, it shows the level to be unfinished. Orignally meant to be part of the Mall?

Source of the quote and additnal information: http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Silent_Hill_3_Secrets_and_Unlockables

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Jackal [Wii – Prototype]

In 2009, images about an undisclosed project for Wii appeared on 3d artist Eric Testroete’ site. The pictures resemble very closely a 3d rendition of Konami old military game Jackal released in 1986 in the arcades. In light of Konami revival of its older franchises on Wii under the Rebirth brand-name ( Contra, Castlevania, Gradius ) a new Jackal could have been in the card. Too bad it seems the project never went further than that working prototype.

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TwinBee Miracle [PSX – Cancelled]

TwinBee Miracle is a cancelled RPG that was in development for the original Playstation. TwinBee Miracle was supposed to be the first “next-gen” iteration of the well-known, at least in Japan, Konami shoot’em up series. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the game apart that is was a 2d turn-based jrpg and that it was scheduled to be released on Psx in 1996 for the 10th year anniversary of TwinBee. A TwinBee RPG got out in japan in 1998, but it was a completely different game.

A video of Twinbee Miracle appeared in a 1995 V-jump tape and Arron was able to get a copy of it and to upload the footage on Youtube!

Thanks to Defunct Games for a bigger scan of  the”Nov 1995 Die Hard Game Fan” magazine and to Youloute for “Consoles+ 49 – December 1995” magazine scan!

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