Pac-Man Ghost Zone is a cancelled platform game that was in development in 1996 by Namco Hometek for the original playstation. This would have been the first 3D Pac Man game to be released for home consoles. Ghost Zone was previewed in various old magazines and it seems that it was even shown in some form at E3, but after a while Namco decided to kill the project for quality reasons. As we can read on the Playstation Museum:
We built a playable demo and even though there was some fun gameplay, the game just never felt right. The environments all felt too much the same and it was lacking a sense of grandeur found in other games like the recently released Mario 64. Japan must of felt the same way too – when we flew to Japan and presented it to Namco president Nakamura-San, he was very displeased. As a result, almost the entire team – save 1 designer (myself), 1 programmer (Gil Colgate) and 1 artist (Neil Strudwick) – were fired and we had to start again on what eventually became Pac-Man World.”
Thanks to Celine for the scans! (GamePro #100, Console+ #78, GameInformer #53)
In 1994 / 1995 Core Design was working on a new golf game titled “Tee Off”, planned to be released on the Sega 32X, Playstation and Saturn. Various magazines published 3D models for the characters, taken from an early tech demo, that shown an awesome graphic for its time. As wrote by Yakumo and Segafreak_NL on the Assembler Forum, Tee Off later became Virtual Golf / Tournament Leader and was released in Europe and Japan only for the Saturn. The 3D pre-rendered models were never used in the final game, but the option select font remained the same. You can see a video from the final version on Segagagadomain!
Thrasher: Skate and Destroy is a skateboarding game developed by Z-Axis and released in 1999 for the PlayStation. Pcloadletter noticed various beta differences in some old screens and videos. Different HUD, some tricks do not register (nollie tricks especially), different start screen with 3 characters only and no multiplayer and many more.
A beta demo of Trasher: Skate and Destroy seems to have been leaked online, its a combination of the early build/hud but with the (almost) final menus. All the character photos are here with one selectable at start. You can see a short bio instead of the stats. Also one of the three levels unlocked.
The coolest part I found is the camera control. Pressing L2 + a direction changes views on the fly; up = overhead, right = regular chase, down = far/wide chase and left = first person. Sometimes switching on the fly will crash the demo but its interesting to play in first person at least. I’m not aware of that in the final game at all.
Its weird because many advanced tricks are available but not some of the default basics. L1 is the control for certain grinds (missing) nollie tricks (missing completely), wall rides (these work), and manuals (incomplete). Manuals do not score points or register and have glitchy animations. If you move it cancels out and will in a short time on its own regardless. So far only the nose manual will work on a downslope or landing in a pipe. L1+x is used to switch stance or revert. A difference is a missing hud logo with only a text indicator of “switch”. Also if you hold R1+L1+x you will do a unique trick where the board switches but you hold position. This was removed from final, its kind of cool even if pointless. […]
In the courthouse level itself many textures are different and the lighting seems darker or maybe its the popup. Some logos are not on ramps and there is a missing trash can from final. If you try to exit the gates (different texture from final) the menu type is weird. […]
There is also a text file on both demo and final called OPTIONS.txt. They look like they related to debug but I don’t really know. The only difference from final is the first option for ztuneDebugPrint set to NO. In final it is set to YES. The dates are 7/27/1999 and 10/20/1999. It was released 10/31/1999. I don’t know if that relates directly to the build of the game but 3 months pre-release would be believable with all the differences I noticed already. […]
Comparing the text visible in hex editor has revealed some minor differences. There is no reference to the passwords, secret character Beesuit Guy, or character stats (but all descriptions are present in final form). The memory card functions are incomplete but 1/3rd present. From some general text there appears to be a test level called “gametest” in a missing map area called “Debugville”.
NBA Elite 11 is a cancelled basketball game that was in development by Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, meant to be the first installment in the NBA Elite series, succeeding EA’s NBA Live series. As we can read in Wikipedia, NBA Elite 11 was originally planned to be released on October 2010, but the game was delayed until March 2011 due to “concerns about gameplay polish”. Basically, the game had too many problems, gamers we not happy with the demo and EA decided to cancel it.
The game’s cancellation was officially announced on November 2010 and development of the franchise was moved from EA’s Black Box studio to its Florida-based Tiburon studio. EA has stated that it will instead release free DLC for last year’s NBA Live 10, including roster updates for the 2010–11 NBA season.
EA recently conducted “seasonal layoffs,” though the company says its current restructuring efforts are “relatively small.” Part of this restructuring appears to be moving the NBA Elite series, which it does plan to bring back in the future, from EA Black Box to EA Tiburon.
Analysts estimated that NBA Elite 11’s delay was going to cost EA somewhere in the realm of $60 million with around 1 million in lost sales for this fiscal year, so now those estimated numbers may be straight up losses. NBA Elite 11 was reportedly delayed over quality concerns, which freed up pack-in NBA Jam for a solo release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Sonic Colors or Sonic Colours is a platform game developed by Sonic Team for the Wii. Tehe video below is from the e3 demo of Sonic Colours, there are some minor differences between this and the final.
-The music has much more bass than in the final. -The announcer shouted “POWER UP” whenever a wisp was collected. -The announcer shouts “SPIN” when the yellow wisp is used, while in the final he shouts “DRILL”. -Music doesn’t change when using the green wisp (the laser wisp). -Some of rings and wisp power-ups are in different locations than in the final. -The announcer’s “good, great, awesome, outstanding, amazing!” is different in this version. It was re-recorded for the final.
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