Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was a third person action game developed by 5000 Ft Inc. with the backing of publisher, Encore. It was being made for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC. The game was cancelled in 2004 following a slew of creative disagreements over its direction both internally at 5000 Ft. and between two of the project’s integral parties, Marvel and Sony.
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![Halo [Beta – Xbox PC]](https://www.unseen64.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/halo-1-xbox-beta-u64-670x300.jpg "Halo [Beta – Xbox PC]")
On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Halo would be released for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously. Before this public announcement, game industry journalists under a non-disclosure agreement had previewed the game in a private showing during E3 1999, and were reportedly amazed. Bungie Studios later stated an even earlier development build of the game centered on real-time strategy and was “basically Myth in a sci-fi universe.”
At E3 2000, the first trailer of Halo was well-received. The version shown there differed greatly from the one exhibited previously, marking the first major overhaul in the game’s development. At this point, Halo was a third-person action game, in which a transport starship crashlands on a mysterious ring world that orbits a star. Early versions of Covenant aliens appear in great numbers and loot what they can, and war erupts between them and the humans. Unable to match the technologically advanced alien race, the humans on the ring world resort to guerrilla warfare. This version of the game featured Halo-specific fauna, which were later dropped because of design difficulties and the creatures’ “detract[ion] from the surprise, drama and impact of the Flood.”
In accordance with rumors, Microsoft announced on June 19, 2000 that it had acquired Bungie Studios. Halo became an exclusive game for Microsoft’s Xbox video game console, and Bungie Studios rewrote the game’s engine, heavily altering its presentation and turning it into a first-person shooter. Originally a key element, the game’s online multiplayer component was dropped because Xbox Live was unfinished at the time of Halo’s release. While a playable demonstration of the game at Gamestock 2001 was well-received, critics had mixed reactions to its exhibition at E3 2001. The game was released in North America simultaneously with the Xbox, on November 15, 2001. [info from Wikipedia]
In 2007 the studio recorded a play through of the game and reveled additional quips from its development and differences from the beta version. The Silent Cartographer was once about murdering a Prophet (who do not appear in this game) in order to prevent him from acquiring a map of the ring. The level went through many revisions and its codename was “B-30”. In the scene where the marines are listening to a song original music by Bungie is used, but this was not always the case. Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones was intended for that segment.
Cortana was written with a British accent in mind, hence why says words like “toady”. The trusty A.I. went rouge and attempted to take control of the Halo Array in a discarded script. The Seraph ship was an old concept for a Covenant tank, and the Scarab debutted in this game instead of the sequel.
[Thanks to Randy 355 for some of the images!]
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Halo 2 was officially announced in September 2002 with a cinematic trailer. The trailer was subsequently packaged with later Halo: Combat Evolved DVDs. A real-time gameplay beta video was shown at E3 2003, which was the first actual gameplay seen by the public; it showcased new features such as dual-wielding and improved graphics. Bungie informed the public on development with weekly Halo 2 development updates which started on January 16, 2004 and ended June 25, 2004; the weekly updates became standard on the Bungie website even after the release of Halo 2. With only a year to go until release, Bungie went into the “mother of all crunches” in order to finish the game. The cliffhanger ending of the game was not originally intended, and resulted from the frenzy to ship on time. [Info from Wikipedia]
Thanks to FullMetalMC, Randy 355 & Earthwormjim for the contributions!
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A beta enemy cut from the game called the Flood Juggernaut! Although it is still in the disc it does not have any spawn points and no dying animation. Some people think its a Hunter Flood form but the Hunter can not be turned into a Flood because it is made up a bunch of worms and have no central brain system. Personally, I think its a Flood version of an enemy that was also cut called the Sharquoi. [by FullMetalMC]
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This beta vehicle was called the Mongoose and although it didn’t make it to Halo 2 it has been officionally announced that it will come out in Halo 3. This vehicle’s advantage was its speed and was good at getting to places in a short time but did not have any weapons. [by FullMetalMC]
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Another cut enemy or the Drinol. It is based on an enemy from Bungie’s previous series, Marathon. Since the other Covenant have human nicknames such as Elite for the Sangheili I believe that the Sharqoui and the Drinol are in fact the same enemy. I have come to this conclusion because there are no other beta pictures that prove otherwise. [by FullMetalMC]
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A Jackal Carrier? Whatever it is, it was obviously cut from the game. Also still in the disk but unused. [by FullMetalMC]
From an article at EuroGamer we can read more info on the development of Halo 2:
“The graphics engine that we showed at E3 2003, driving around the Earth city… That entire graphics engine had to be thrown away, because you could never ship a game on the Xbox with it,” Butcher sighs. “Through putting ourselves through hell, we were able to do a five-minute demo of it, but after we came back from E3 we had to admit that this graphics engine was never going to work – it was never going to support the kind of environments that are really important for a Halo game. So we literally scrapped the entire graphics engine and started from scratch.”
“Even that whole environment, the Earth city, was way too big for the engine at the time,” adds Carney. “We ended up cutting out huge parts of geometry from that level, so you never actually saw that.” […]
“We were building stuff that just couldn’t be played, in any engine,” says Butcher. “We built, and detailed, and went a huge way down the path with a whole bunch of environments and levels for the game that just totally didn’t make it. If you look at the level with the Flood, inside the quarantine area – that is the remaining 20 per cent of a gargantuan, sprawling level that was meticulously built and hand-constructed, but that could never, ever have shipped in any engine.” […]
“It was too ambitious. We had a lot of ideas about other games we’d played, and things that we really wanted to try – but when we got in there, we realised that it was going to require a lot more effort to make it as good as our single-player and our standard Slayer and CTF experiences. We had to cut our losses and just ship with what we were all happy with.” […]
“The original plan had you returning to Earth at the end – which you did, at the end of Halo 2, for about three seconds before it abruptly ended,” says Griesemer. “I think if we’d been able to finish that last couple of missions and get you properly back on Earth, a lot of the reaction would have been placated.”
Another removed feature was a sort of “sea monkey fish tank“:
We should have a little fish tank like thing that had little flood tadpoles in it swimming around. We affectionately called them the “flood sea monkeys.” […]
I remember Harold clearly told us we were going to be locked out of the source depot at 6 am. Well Vic is trying to get these things to animate in a cool way keeps making tweak after tweak to them as we’re hurtling toward 6 am. At this point everyone’s slap happy because we’ve been crunching so hard and for so long. Somehow at the last minute that we’re checking in we notice that Vic’s last tweak to the sea monkeys totally breaks their animations and now they were floating around in their tank it a hilariously ridiculous way, but it’s 6 am and Vic is freaking out. […]
In the videos below you can see more about the game’s development and the removed weapons, levels and characters.
More light was shed on Halo 2’s hectic beta development by the extra content in the Halo 3 collector edition. The first iteration of the space station was expansive enough to drive vehicles around it. Master Chief was to tow the Covenants’ bomb using a Warthog and dispose of it. Following this he boarded a Covenant ship (in place of that deleted level is the cutscene where decimates with it an explosion). Miranda Keyes was introduced inside the ship, and the Chief was tasked with destroying it from the inside. He accomplished this by using a Wraith and shooting its power core.
Miranda had a different role in older plots. She distrusted the Master Chief because of her father’s death and did not comprehend the Spartan’s dire concern for the activation of the rings. Arriving from a mission, the Chief stumbled into her making a truce with the Prophets inside a Phantom. The unlikely allies conspired to plant an explosive on the Spartan’s back and detonate it to eliminate him and the Gravemind. The Gravemind appeared more frequently in older builds. Its tendrils emerged from fissures in the levels, occasional attacking and obstructing pathways. To reach the Flood mastermind the player had to go through some caverns.
On the topic of removed campaign segments, a map that went by the codename “Forreruner Tank” was abandoned. The Arbiter was to race the Master Chief to the Activation Index. Bungie’s original plan was to have the player play through three additional stages instead of ending the game with the Chief arriving in Earth’s orbit. The heretic faction was initially compromised of only Hunters. They were fought on a moon adjacent to one of the Halo Arrays.
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Tech demo + Prototype UI & Live
Making Of and team’s comments:
Removed Scenes, Weapons Vehicles and Characters:
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Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox was released in 2004, but it was first shown in 2002, with a trailer that contain many beta elements and differences. In 1999, Team Ninja started work on the “Next-Generation Ninja Gaiden Project”. The first stage of development was to create the game on the Sega NAOMI arcade system board. They then planned to move the project to the Dreamcast console for further development and release, but this was abandoned when Sega announced the end of Dreamcast product line in 2001.
At this point, Tecmo decided to release Ninja Gaiden as a launch title for the Sony PlayStation 2 in the United States. Itagaki, however, had other plans; the Team Ninja Leader was impressed with the software development kits for the Xbox and pushed for his team to develop for the Microsoft console.
In the 2002 beta Ryu’s model / suit is slightly different from the final one. The copter boss was in the train turnstyle area, instead than on the bridge like the final game. In this same area we can see Ruy on the electricity tower, but he cannot go over there in the final. Other scenes, as the one with a ninja that came out from the ceiling of the first level, were never used. Also the graphic of the game was still incomplete, with ugly textures and a lot of aliasing. There are a Green “U” Nimpo in the same screenshot of the “X” item, this Nimpo doesn`t appear i the final version and this “X” neither appear in this level, in the final version, this appear in an alley where you find the windmill shuriken.
There are even some screens with a removed (?) puzzle in wich Ruy has to find an X item (that looks like the Xbox prototype / development hardware) to open a passage. It’s possible that this puzzle was used in some demos or side missions from the Black version, but we dont have any confirmation about it. The X item was reused in Ninja Gaiden 2 as an easter egg and it heals all your magic and health.
Thanks to www.gamerhistory.com for some of these screens!
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TFLO was an MMORPG in development by Level-5 for Microsoft’s Xbox video game console. After a long and troubled development cycle that lasted close to two years, the game was cancelled on June 2nd, 2004. The game was to take place in a massive fantasy setting where up to 3,000 users, each with their own fully customizable character, could adventure around with each other fighting monsters and collecting various items. Often cited as one of the most disappointing project cancellations of recent years, True Fantasy Live Online was highly anticipated almost right from the moment it was announced in 2002, and was touted as one of the premier titles for the Xbox and its Xbox Live online service in Japan.
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Yet despite being “fully playable” and near completion according to Microsoft around the time of its cancellation, the title’s development was littered with complications from the very beginning. One such problem was Level-5’s inexperience with online network coding, and their inability to properly implement voice chat compatibility into the game. It was a feature never before implemented on such a large scale in an MMORPG, however Microsoft was very adamant on its inclusion, as it was a key feature to their Xbox Live service.
Relations between the two companies soon began to spiral out of control as Level-5 struggled to meet the demands required by Microsoft, who in turn grew frustrated at the lack of progress being made on the game. There were also significant disagreements on the direction of the title, with Level-5 aiming to make a more casual based MMORPG, similar to World of Warcraft, and Microsoft demanding a more long-term, Everquest-like title that would draw players in for months to come. After an extremely short and rather underwhelming showing at the Tokyo Game Show in 2003, True Fantasy Live Online was quietly delayed from its initial Fall 2003 release into 2004. From then, little was seen or heard about from the title, and after a surprising absence during the year’s E3 convention, it was officially cancelled by Microsoft on June 2nd.
In the months following, Level-5 President and CEO Akihiro Hino stated in a Japanese interview that the poor relations between his company and Microsoft, partially due to the latter’s inexperience in dealing with Japanese developers, was one of the major reasons behind True Fantasy Live Online’s cancellation. He also heavily implied that the two companies did not part amicably, and it stands to reason that the two companies most likely will never work together again.
[info from Wikipedia]