Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, designed by Michel Ancel, developed by Ubisoft and released in late 2003. In early development the game was referred to as “Project BG&E” and only later the complete title was revealed to the press. In these beta screens and video, we can see some major differences in the character design of the main protagonist (Jade) and in some screens there are even a couple of enemies and rooms that seem to have been removed from the final game.
Announced shortly after the release of the Nintendo 64, with the more familiar name of “Turrican 64“, Thornado was meant to be the first 3D game in the Turrican series, but with a different name because of some copyright problems. From the first N64 concept, which development was confirmed several times by Factor 5 in different interviews, there are not many informations, apart from the rumor that it was going to be even more inspired by the exploration-structure of Metroid. Like several other N64 titles, Thornado 64 was soon cancelled and its development started again for the new Nintendo console, at the time still known as the”Project Dolphin“.
At the Space World 2000 Thornado was finally presented in a real time demo-video at closed doors for few gaming journalists. In that video, the hero of the game was trying to escape from an explosion, running on a huge bridge while the cars and the street itself were flying in the air. Unfortunately this video was never released and neither has any screenshots from the game: only some concept arts were saved to preserve the existence of this cancelled project.
Few details on the game are available: as announced for the 64-bit version, Thornado should have been inspired by Metroid, combining a third person shooter action with exploration, two playable characters (a man and a woman), the return of the “hookshoot” and futuristic setting from the classic Turrican. As noted by Ross Sillifant, Thornado WAS planned to be a GameCube LAUNCH title after N64 version was cancelled, see ‘whatever happened to Turrican?’ Arcade Mags Timewarp July 1998 feature.
Is still unknown why Thornado was never released, but maybe the various Star Wars projects that Factor 5 developed for the GameCube were one of the reasons. F5 were too busy to work on those profitable Star Wars games, to think about finishing Thornado.
An interesting note: in a level of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3 (Defenders of Ralltiir) for the GameCube, Factor 5 have added a small tribute to Thornado. Infact the great bridge in this mission is the same bridge that was modeled for the Thornado Tech Demo! Below you can see some screenshots of the Ralltiir bridge, so we can have a vague idea about the Space World 2000 Thornado video.
When Retro Studios started to work on their GameCube projects (as NFL Football, Raven Blade and Car Combat), one of the first concepts created in 1999 / 2000 was the one for this game, at that time simply know as “Action Adventure”. The player would have impersonate 3 females protagonists in an action game set in a alien / sci-fi world. When Nintendo came to Retro Studios to check for their progresses, most of their games were in a development hell, with few things done and lot of disorganization. Nintendo decided to cut most of Retro Studios’s projects to have them to concentrate on the development of Metroid Prime: Action Adventure was then cancelled and never seen again.
Probably there was not even a playable beta for Action Adventure (it was still unclear if it would have a third-person or a first-person view) and it seems that only few concept arts and some early tech demos (that you can see below) were made before it’s cancellation. Even if assets from Action Adventure were never re-used for Metroid Prime, the experience to design a similar concept was probably of some help for the successive work on Samu’s first-person adventure.
An interesting article on this project can be find at IGN
Stage Debut was a game planned to be published and developed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Gamecube video game console. The game was intended for a 2004 release, but was indefinitely delayed, probably due to the cancellation of its sister peripheral for the Game Boy Advance, the GameEye.
Stage Debut was designed similarly to a game titled Mario Artist: Talent Studio developed for the Nintendo 64’s Nintendo 64DD peripheral. The player would take a picture of their face using the Game Boy Advance’s Game Eye peripheral (which was planned to be, in short, a spiritual successor to the Game Boy Camera). Then, by linking the GameEye to the Gamecube system via the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable, the player would be able to insert the image onto a 3D model within the game’s virtual world.
Stage Debut was widely assumed as either a canceled project or a project in development hell after no progress in development was announced on the title by Nintendo for quite some time. However, in a 2008 interview with Shigeru Miyamoto by the popular gaming news site IGN, an official answer was made. Not only did he cite Stage Debut as an inspiration for the Wii’s Mii Channel function, he also said that “In my mind, it’s still alive.” While this does not deny the cancellation of the project, it does not confirm it will never come to pass.
It seems that Tomdachi Collection, a new game for the DS will have some modes that were originally planned for Stage Debut.
Thanks to Matt Gander & sba sb3002 for some of these images and to Sdas for the contribution!
Picassio was a stealth / thief game that was in development at Promethean Designs, in which the player would have had to steal artworks to “win” a bet with another thief. The project had a long development cycle: it started as a Dreamcast game, then it was postponed and passed through PS2 and GameCube. In all that time the only playable build that was made was a very basic one, and is the one that you can see in the video below: basically the character creeping about and some very basic AI. Most of the gameplay ideas did not get implemented at all. It seems that they started the game with a man protagonist in mind, but in later screens we can see a woman as the main character, so it could have been changed to appeal more to the young public.
The project got radically changed halfway through development when the company boss saw the then newly released Shenmue and basically decided to copy it. Picassio then turned into a half adventure, half stealth type game but didn’t get any further than some character/level designs before getting canned. The company fell into severe financial difficulty and employees weren’t being paid for months. Subsequently they all left to work elsewhere and Promethean Designs went bust.
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