Xbox

Microsoft, Xbox

Banjo-Kazoomie [Xbox – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
14-12-2011
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Banjo-Kazoomie was a prototype for the original Xbox which was started at Rare Ltd. in 2004. Players were able to construct their karts out of different parts, therefore after it was cancelled the concept may have evolved into Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which was released on Xbox 360 four years later.

Brendan Gunn about this project:

“I’ve always wanted to do a racing game. I got to spend two weeks working on a prototype racing game for the Xbox. It was codenamed ‘Banjo-Kazoomie’, and it was a kind of kart racer, but you constructed the karts out of different parts, so I guess it was kind of a precursor to ‘Nuts & Bolts’. But for those two weeks I was doing the driving mechanics for it”

Special thanks to DKVine and RareMinion.com!

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GameCube, Microsoft, Nintendo, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Tomb Raider Legend Beta [PS2 / PSP / PS3 / XBOX / XBOX 360 / PC / WII]

Gh0stBlade
20-11-2011
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Overview: Tomb Raider Legend is the first game developed by Crystal Dynamics. Crystal Dynamics worked along side with Toby Gard (the original Tomb Raider designer). They wanted to reboot the game after the failure of Tomb Raider Angel Of Darkness. Development of this game started in 2004 just after Eidos transferred the Tomb Raider development rights to Crystal Dynamics.

There are trailers from around the E3 2005 time which show various different levels which were not present or drastically changed for the final release. Around this stage of development it is confirmed that most of the areas were just for proof of concept and used for testing for example, Lara’s Beach House. There were weapons which were cut from the final release: Smoke Grenades, Rocket Launcher, Revolver.

Early Alpha Stage – Date, May 2005
Platform: PS2

This is the build which was shown at E3 2005.

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Alpha Stage – Date, August 2005
Platform: PS2

This is the build which was shown at GC 2005.

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Editors:
1. Gh0stblade

Change log:
Gh0stblade – Added PSP info and cleanup with dates 14/01/2013
Gh0stblade – Updated basics of post, removed all old info and updated 20/03/2013 

Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Underground [PS2 XBOX – Cancelled]

monokoma
07-11-2011
No Comments

Underground is a cancelled action / open world game that was in development by Volition for the Playstation 2 / Xbox. The game was set in england and players would have took control of a thief, free to explore the city and to decide what and how to steal. Undergound was in development for about a year, but after the release of GTA 3, Volition though that their project’s quality was not up to the expectation that gamers had from an open world game and decided to stop working on it.

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Microsoft, Xbox

Grabbed by The Ghoulies [Beta – Xbox]

monokoma
24-09-2011
2 Comments

Grabbed by The Ghoulies is an action game that was developed by Rare and released for the original Xbox in 2003. As we can read on Wikipedia, before any details of the game were publicised, it was widely considered that Grabbed by the Ghoulies would be the subtitle to the next Conker the Squirrel game, after Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The game was originally intended to be a much larger in scope open-world platformer but due to the Microsoft buyout in 2002 and time constraints a simpler design and concept was adopted.

Grabbed by The Ghoulies was initially going to be released on the Nintendo GameCube and in the final Xbox game you can unlock a trailer from E3 2001, that should show the project when it was still on the Nintendo console (you can find it below). Thanks to Rareware Archives we can see many concept arts and beta screens, that show early designes of the characters, unused enemies and other interesting differences. As we can read in their description for the Grabbed by The Ghoulies beta 2001 video:

A lot has certainly changed from the game we’re familiar with, as the video includes a few cut enemies mucking about, early working models for the Zombie Ghoulies and Coopers girlfriend Amber and a surprise from Gweneth, the sneering Ghouly at the end, who was ultimately cut as well.

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