Xbox 360

Banjo-Karting [Xbox 360 – Prototype]

Banjo-Karting (also known as The Fast and The Furriest, as it was called in RareReplay’s unlockable video, even if it was the name of an older Rare prototype) was a game prototype for Xbox 360, started by Rare Ltd. just before Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was finished in late 2008. The prototype took advantage of classic Banjo-Kazooie characters and built upon the racing parts of Nuts and Bolts. With Rare’s shift to Kinect projects only, this prototype was cancelled.

One of the cars created specifically for this prototype later made it into the Xbox 360 version of Sonic & Sega Allstar Racing.

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SoulCatcher [Xbox 360 – Prototype]

SoulCatcher is a cancelled game that was in development by Rare LTD for the Xbox 360. The project was meant to be a prototype for a fantasy action adventure game in first person view, that used the Xbox Vision Camera and a customized proto-wand for motion-controls to attack and do magics. At Develop 2011 in Brighton, Rare’s Nick Burton shown a video of this game, but sadly it seems that none recorded it. If you know someone that participated at the event and was able to take some photos / videos of SoulCatcher, please let us know!

 

Cascade [Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

Cascade was an unreleased fantasy Massive Multiplater Online game in production at British software house Rare Ltd. The project started after Perfect Dark Zero by Mark Edmonds and Chris Tilston, it built upon early work from a post-Perfect Dark 64 prototype titled Quest. In 2007, Cascade was cancelled and the team started to work on an unreleased HD port of their N64 classic GoldenEye foy XBLA.

Jeton Grajqevci from Pure Rarity was able to talk to Mark Edmonds about this project:

He [Mark Edmonds] said Quest was a side project as MMOs are a big interest of his. It supposedly went through several variations and names over the years. No finished game ever came from it but it did lead to the networking code that was used in Conker: Live & Reloaded and Perfect Dark Zero. He also gave me a detailed timeline of the MMO:

Quest started around 2000 after Perfect Dark N64 as a mixed fantasy MMO. One name it had for a while was Elements of 3 Powers but it wasn’t related to Kameo (the other team probably took over the name when it was abandoned). Around 2001 Quest was a space shooter for the Gamecube and in 2002 it was converted to the Xbox and shortly thereafter put on hold. After Perfect Dark Zero a fantasy MMO version came back, this time titled Cascade. It was however cancelled in 2007 when the team did GoldenEye 007 for the XBLA instead. As you all know, the latter was finished but never released.

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Deadly Premonition [Beta – PS3 / Xbox 360]

Deadly Premonition (aka Red Seed Profile in Japan) is a survival horror created by Access Games and released in 2010 for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Originally conceived as a PSP adventure game in the vein of “Flower, Sun and Rain”, Deadly Premonition became a next-gen title only in 2005.

Not surprisingly, Sweary65 said in a interview with Destructoid that combat sections were a publisher’s idea added only at the alpha stage of the development cycle. Probably in the earliest builds the player could only hide or escape from enemies. The “useless” garbage containers scattered around which York can use to conceal himself are likely alpha leftovers.

In 2007 a beta version of the game, tentatively called Rainy Woods, was finally showed to the public but, due to the many similarities with the TV series Twin Peaks, notably the dwarf twins and the protagonist, the publisher decided to postpone Deadly Premonition in order to change the appearance of the characters. All the voice acting was completely reworked too. We’ll probably never know how the original story would have unfolded.

York now looks like the main character of a 1970’s exploitation film.

The sheriff wasn’t changed that much.

In the released game “the red room” is located outdoor in the forest.

This pic is strange. It shows beta York without his jacket in the prologue, but in the final version this happens only at the end.

You can also read this topic at Assembler Games for more info and theories about the differences in the beta version of Deadly Premonition!

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