32X / Mega CD, Sega

Virtua Hamster [Sega 32X – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
07-04-2008
3 Comments

cd_ham

Virtua Hamster is an unreleased racing game that was in development for Sega’s 32x, designed and produced by Eric Quakenbush. The player would have controlled a series of rodents on wheels, to race in 3D mazes, trying to avoid an huge Mechanical Snake. The project was cancelled when Sega discontinued the 32X before production could be completed. Some playable prototypes of the game still exist and they were sold in various auctions on ebay. An early alpha of Virtua Hamster was finally released in August 2009 by SEGASaturno.

The game was  later ported to Saturn but cancelled again when the game was almost complete. Sega still owed payments to the developer of Virtua Hamster, David A. Palmer Productions. David A. Palmer revealed to Unseen64 that “the entire intellectual property of this game and code” was signed over to his company as part of a legal settlement.

As we can read from the original pre-production design document:

High Concept: A maze game in which the player assumes the role of a rocket-powered hamster test pilot who must navigate a gigantic habitrail from hell in order to thwart the plans of an evil scientist and regain his rodent freedom.

Hook: The look and fast paced action of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter combined with an amusing puzzle strategy game and an unlikely group of heroes and enemies.

Setting: The majority of the game takes place in a mad scientists lab facility. The scientist has assembled a truly humongus habitrail-type maze in order to test his rocket powered rodent experiments.

Characters: Player One is a test pilot hamster from a rival lab and was stolen by the mad scientist. Player One’s goal is to retrieve all of the stolen blue-print pieces and escape from the lab. The hamster pilot has to navigate the complicated maze as well as fend off evil rocket riding rodents, a mechanical snake, and the scientists voracious cat.

Thanks to Ryan Jacques and David A. Palmer for the contribution!

You can read more info on Virtual Hamster at Sega 16.

Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any content of any website we have linked to.

Images:

Scan from SEGA Visions - May 1995

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Jaguar, Others

Apeshit [Atari Jaguar – Unreleased]

U64 Staff & Contributors
07-04-2008
6 Comments

When the Mega Drive and SNES markets started to slow down, Ocean decided to commit to the Atari Jaguar with two titles – platformer Apeshit and comic book tie-in Lobo for the Atari Jaguar CD. Apeshit was only a working title, incidentally. The simian staring platformer was being put together by the team behind Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt and was described by Ocean as “a mixture of Mario, Bomberman and Pang”. The colourful backdrops had been hand-drawn by artist Ged Cafferly while up to two players could play cooperatively.

As for Lobo, programmer Bobby Earl claimed to Edge Magazine – scan below – that it was to offer a “very new concept” and that the video sequences would run at 25fps. “We see new machines starting with the Jaguar as a creative challenge rather than a technical challenge,” he then went onto say.

Neither game made it to store shelves, with the mostly likely reason being that the Jaguar failed to perform on both critical and commercial levels.

[Contribute by Matt Gander]

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Others, PC / MAC

Technosaur [PC – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
07-04-2008
1 Comment

TECHNOSAUR was a cancelled computer game development project that started at Jim’s Restaurant late one night, when four game designers from Origin Systems got together to bitch about work over a cheap (and greasy) dinner. Amid ancient, hacking waitresses, soggy blueberry pancakes, and teenage vamps out way past their bedtimes, the idea of a conflict between the most elite military forces of the modern world and a culture of cybernetic, almost alien humans from Earth’s own future began to take form.

Real-time strategy from an overhead vantage, set in a simulated natural environment where rain would fall at random intervals, day would fade to night, fires would spread through fields and forests, and packs of cybernetically augmented velociraptors would shred anything standing in their way…it all sounded like fun. Exciting ideas made even better by an air of subversion.

Over the next 12 months, the project advanced and the team grew. However, things at the parent company “didn’t work out as planned” and the project was eventually cancelled.

[Contribute by Harvey Smith]

Images:

Source: www.planetdeusex.com/witchboy/personalsite/tsaur.htm 

Others, PC Engine / PC FX

Bonk (Jenjin / Genjiin) RPG [PC Engine – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
07-04-2008
5 Comments

[ENG] This entry in the archive does no have a description yet. If you want to add some info about the beta stuff that you can see in these images, just write a comment or send us an email! We’ll add your info in the page. Thanks a lot for your contribute! :)

Also know as Bonk’s Quest / Bonk’s RPC / Bonk IV RPG / Genjiin RPG

Thanks to Ruha and Celine for the contribute! A couple of screens from the PC Engine Software Bible

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Arcade, Others

Chocobo de Battle [Arcade? – Tech Demo / Unreleased]

U64 Staff & Contributors
07-04-2008
3 Comments

Choboco is a chicken-like creature but taller than it, that apeared in many FF in the FF series, such as FFX or X-2. There was a game called Choboco De Battle, developed by official SquareSoft L.A. This was considered a first game that release for Arcade, and a best graphic ever with range of polygon from 8 million to 80 million per second. That because it was used a Sig Onyx 2 workstation. The last time we seen it, is was at Sig 1997, running on a Onyx 2c without a coin-slot, and with a computer CRT screen. The game was cancelled for unknown reason, some rumor said that because they want to focus to the future of home console rather than develop it on a arcade using other technology. Now we wait until someone leak the ROM!

Thanks to tchristian for the description!

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Video: