Playstation 3 (PS3)

Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

The Crucible: Evil Within (The Box/The Ritualyst) [Cancelled – PS3/Xbox 360]

U64 Staff & Contributors
01-12-2009
No Comments

The Crucible: Evil Within, AKA “The Box” or “The Ritualyst” originally was a Silicon Knights-developed (developer of Eternal Darkness and Too Human) open-world horror pitch for PS3 started in 2004, which was accepted for full production by Sega in March 2005.

“Silicon Knights has a rich history of developing great games that push hardware technology, so we expect this relationship will result in a powerful, new, and highly commercial franchise.”
Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America

In 2006, Sega revealed some game details in an online survey. Until then, the game was internally known as “The Box”. The survey however led to “The Crucible: Evil Within”. Later, however, it was renamed to “The Ritualist” instead.

“An open free-roaming action horror game where the player undertakes a terrorizing journey of suspense, fear, power and discovery, and where every decision has multiple consequences… Uncover an ancient chest with unimaginable power that seduces you into evil, sin and corruption.”

Court documents from Silicon Knights’ legal battle with Epic Games reveal that The Box was initially planned to be finished by February 27th, 2007. It was later amended to extend the delivery date to November 4th, 2008. In August 2008, Sega decided to cancel various external projects, including Aliens RPG: Crucible, Aliens: Colonial Marines (later restarted), Cipher Complex, and The Box. However, Silicon Knights was able to find a new publisher with THQ, which also dropped the project in early 2009. As a kind of compensation, team members of The Box were asked to help on Vigil Games’/THQ’s Darksiders.

Thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

Images: 

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Grand Raid Offroad (Fuel) [X360/PS3/PC – Tech Demo]

monokoma
23-11-2009
1 Comment

Fuel is a racing game developed by Asobi Studio for Playstaion 3 and Xbox 360, published by Codemasters in 2009. The project originally started in 2005 as a different game known as “Grand Raid Offroad”, which was used as a tech demo to build on the final version. We are not sure about the general differences between “Grand Raid Offroad” and “Fuel”, if you played the game and can notice some changes in this early screens, please let us know!

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

Images:

Videos:

 

Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time [PS3 – Beta]

monokoma
20-11-2009
No Comments

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a platform / shooter game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony in october / november 2009. As in other R&C games, to learn more about A Crack in Time’s development and its beta differences the team added a nice bonus to unlock in the form of the “Insomniac Moon” (unlocked after collecting all the Zoni and fighting a secret boss). As we can read from an article at Press the Buttons:

[…] a 3D recreation of the Insomniac offices in the form of a museum that serves as a tribute to and exhibit of all kinds of interesting objects, enemies, levels, and basic design features that did not actually make it into the main game.

[…] From the moment players guide Ratchet into the museum, it’s apparent that something special is going on here. While the area sports a minimalistic design, the real stars are the deleted and unfinished materials. Wander around the place and it’s not long before you’ll stumble on a guided missile weapon that uses flaming birds as ammo. Then there’s a set of crates that pay out special bonuses depending on how Ratchet whacks them with his Omniwrench. Want to have a look at a flying space monster that involved animation too complex to work into the environment in which he was meant to patrol? The museum can offer that.

[…] The best surprise inside the museum is that several of the cut level elements are playable. There’s a hoverboot race that was originally planned for the Agorian Battleplex, and checking out its exhibit space leads to being able to race through the semi-completed environment. There’s also an additional Great Clock platforming puzzle originally meant for Clank and another dropped Battleplex element that involved a procedurally generated obstacle course.

Huge props to Insomniac! If more studios could share this kind of bonus in their games, it would be easier to preserve the cuts and the changes in the development.

A couple of videos of the Insomniac Moon can be found on Youtube, but if someone could be able to record more footage of the area and take some direct-feed screens of all that beta-stuff, it would be nice!

Thanks to Robert Seddon and Bowserenemy for the contributions!

Videos:

 

Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Cops [X360/PS3 – Cancelled]

monokoma
04-11-2009
3 Comments

Cops: The Police Experience is a cancelled action game that was in development at Pyro Studios from 2003 (early concepts and prototype) to 2008, that would have been  published for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. As we can read on Anait Games, in december 2008 the studio laid off 30 employees just before the xmas holiday and the Cops project was officially canned. With the cancellation of Cops, Pyro Studios was then able to concentrated their resources on the “Planet 51” game, based on the the animated film created by Illion Studios and planned to be published by Sega  in winter 2009.

Another rumored cancelled Pyro project was known as “InZero” but it’s currently unknown if the 2 projects were somewhat related.

Images:

Video:

 
Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

Guitar Hero 3 [Beta]

monokoma
01-11-2009
No Comments

Guitar Hero 3 was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision and RedOctane. It is the third main installment in the Guitar Hero series, and the fourth title overall. The game was released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 in October 2007. [Info from Wikipedia]

Dirty Harry noticed that in early videos of the game there are some notable differences:

  • In the final, there is no 1x combo. When no combo is earned the amp is blank, only showing 2x, 3x, and 4x combos.
  • All of the combos are orange. In the final the 2x is orange, the 3x is green and the 4x is pink.
  • The frets at the bottom look more like they do in Guitar Hero II in the beta.
  • The ‘Star Power Ready’ message is much more bland and less exciting than in the final.
  • There is no lightning effect when you get star power.

Thanks to Dirty Harry and Jason for the contribution!

Video: