Parasite (Ar’Kritz the Intruder) [PSX – Cancelled]

Parasite (Ar’Kritz the Intruder) [PSX – Cancelled]

Update: this game was later released and renamed to Ar’Kritz the Intruder for PC only! The Playstation version was never released.

Parasite is a cancelled side-scrolling action adventure that was in development by Virtual Studio (while other sources report that it was created by Sony Interactive or Psygnosis / Sony Studio Liverpool) and it was going to be published in 1996, for the original Playstation and PC. Even if it looked nice and it could have had a fun gameplay (somehow similar to  Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee maybe?), in the end the project was canned for unknown reasons. As we can read in the original press release:

Parasite is a film-noir  thriller with a twist. In it you play an ordinary guy thrown into extraordinary circumstances – possessed by an alien law enforcer, you’re forced to walk the mean streets in search of  undercover extra-terrestrials.  But as the alien slowly mutates your host body, you’d better help him solve this one quickly, before you shape-shift beyond recognition.

Parasite features two quests in one, as you balance your own need for an
antidote with the relentless demands of the alien who’s got an agenda of his own.

Featuring a fully rendered 3D city to explore (with over 300 screens of, this dark adventure game explores an alternate reality where Raymond Chandler meets William Gibson.

There are not much more info on Parasite, but Celine was able to find some more  screens in Game Pro issues 75 and 79.

Images:

Videos (from the released PC version):


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9 thoughts on “Parasite (Ar’Kritz the Intruder) [PSX – Cancelled]

  1. Ross Sillifant

    Game was set for release in 1st quarter of 1996 and Virtual Studio had been working on it for 7 months by time inital preview screens started appearing in UK Press.

    Junior producer Nicolas Meylaendeer might be best source to ask what happened to PS1 version as he’d apparently gone on record to say the hardest part of coding the game was getting accustomed to working with Playstation code and the team had been working very hard at creating a visually brilliant game, with zoom fights on the PS1….

    Virtual Studio had originally planned for your character, Jack’s mutation to take the form of you becoming increasingly immovable as the effects of the Parasite took hold on your body…Sony pointed out however that this would have a knock-on effect on the game, rendering it extremly boring and pretty pointless!.

    Virtual Studio were originally Loriciel, familar to ST/Amiga owners i’m sure…

    They were said to be extremly pround of Parasite and believed it’d stand head and shoulders above similar titles in the UK (Flashback and Rayman) when it hit retail…

    Influences on the plot came from:Alien, The Hidden, The Thing, Lethal Weapon (film wise) and The Hulk, comics wise.

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