Cut Away [Dreamcast – Cancelled]

Cut Away is a cancelled videogame that was supposedly in development by Classified Games for the Sega Dreamcast. Nothing is known about this project, apart from a poster and few news on IGN.com.

The game was first reported by Anoop Gantayat, with a release date of Fall 1999:

Yes, it’s a poster for a Dreamcast game called Cut Away – a game about which I’ve heard nothing before today. Actually, I’ve never heard of Classified Games at all – pretty odd, since their first DC title is scheduled for a Fall release. Apparently, the company is also working on some Gameboy Color games, including The Mask of Zorro, Burgertime Deluxe Starring the Flinstones, and Magical Drop.

The promise of a photo realistic adventure set in San Francisco and involving terrorists and bombs sounds intriguing, and boy do we love that “Terror so real, you’ll feel the blast” catch phrase, but we hope that Classified Games has plans to at least show us a few screen shots before the game is released. We’ll be back with more information, assuming we can find anything.

Other details were pointed by Matthew Langan:

It turns out that Microsoft is the company behind the title, having formed a small development team called Classified Games to produce it. As a third person adventure, the gameplay will unsurprisingly be similar to both Capcom’s Resident Evil and Pulse’s Undercover. While specifics are still being kept under wraps, it’s clear that the story will take place in San Francisco. Plenty of CG movies are promised, as is an intriguing story to keep you on your feet. Speaking of which, bombs have been planted across the city by terrorists. As the hero, it’s your job to stop them from causing complete and utter chaos, whatever the cost may be!

A release date has yet to be confirmed for Cut Away, but we’ll be sure to keep you fully updated. Keep an eye out for an extensive preview in the upcoming weeks, right here at IGNDC.

Another tidbit was reported on the magazine Dreamcast Monthly (Issue 1), however nothing new was added:

Cut Away on the magazine Dreamcast Monthly Issue 1)

If you try to search about “Classified Games” on the Internet very few informations come up, with the majority of them not even related to the Dreamcast.  Classified Games was also supposed to publish the North American version of Bakuretsu Muteki Bangaioh (later released as Bangai-O by Conspiracy Entertainment), as reported by IGN. There is maybe a connection between Conspiracy Entertainment and Classified Games, if you know more informations about this game or you have worked with Classified Games drop us an e-mail, we are very interested to know more about this project.

Thanks to Chocomarker1 on the Assemblergames Forum for noticing this game!

Images:

cutawayposter

Magazine Scans:

Dreamcast Monthly Issue 1 

Mario Golf: Advance Tour [GBA – Beta / Unused Rooms]

Mario Golf: Advance Tour is an RPG-styled sport game developed by Camelot Software Planning and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. The game is the sequel to the Game Boy Color version of Mario Golf. [Info from Wikipedia]

Robert Seddon has recorded an interesting video about some of the debug rooms and unused areas that can be found in the Mario Golf: Advance Tour game code thanks to the Atrius’s Golden Sun: The Lost Age editor (as both games use the same engine). We can even notice some GBC-alike sprites, probably used as placeholders. The beta” foyer had some different details as you can notice from this comparison:

Beta:

mario-golf-advance-tour-marion-club-debug

Final:

mario-golf-advance-tour-marion-club-final

Video:

 

Castlevania: The Bloodletting [32X – Cancelled]

As we can read from Castlevania Wiki, Castlevania: The Bloodletting is a cancelled Castlevania game that was intended to be released for the Sega 32X add-on for the Sega Genesis console sometime in 1996 or 1997. A single sprite for three characters are all that remain of this game. Through later interviews with Iga, it has been revealed that the game was intended to feature Richter Belmont, Maria Renard, and a rival to Richter.

Although announced for the Sega 32x (including two reported, although currently unrecovered, screenshots), the game soon disappeared from the radar. Sometime thereafter, Symphony of the Night was announced for the PlayStation.

As noted by Celine:

“Konami showed new installments to some major franchises, with Parodius on display, as well as Dracula X for the SNES. There was also Castlevania: The Bloodletting images to look at, a new Castlevania, which was being planned for the 32X. However, the team working on this game was eventually swallowed up by the Symphony of the Night team, and Bloodletting was no more.”

More infos on the game can be found on Castlevania Realm!

Thanks to Kiddo for the contribution!

Images:

casltevania-bloodletting-01 casltevania-bloodletting-02

Also, James found this short ads about Castlevania: The Bloodletting from a 1995 Konami CES brochures, in which the game was promoted as a Playstation / Saturn title.

castlevania the bloodletting cancelled