Mandrake was an action adventure / RPG game that was in development in 2003 at 7th Sense studios: even if the game was finished, the original publisher went bankrupt and there were some problems with the copyrights so it was never released.
Thanks to Maciej for the contribution!
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Vexx is a game developed by Acclaim for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube and released in 2003. Thanks to the Vexx Fan Club on Deviant Art we found some interesting infos and concept arts from it’s development : “Vexx wasn’t supposed to start like a single hero, it was supposed for the game to be a hero/sidekick thing, just like “Ratchet & Clank” or “Jak & Daxter”; their names were supposed to be “Clip & Mischief” then the previous idea was discarded and give space for the single hero idea, deducing that it was at that moment which appeared the idea of the hero with gloves, seeking for revenge. However, the main character had another name: “Jinx” or “Jinxed”.
Some unused / beta music from the game can be downloaded from here.
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Granville has wrote an interesting topic in the U64 Forum, in which he showed us some misterious textures that seems to have been found by The Spriters Resource in the Megaman Starforce code. In these textures we can recognize various 3D models from the Megaman Battle Network series!
The problem is that there was no 3D MMBN for the DS and MMBN5 DS was just a compilation port of both GBA versions of Battle Network 5. It was pretty much identical to the GBA as it had the same 2D graphics apart from a couple of models. There were a total of 3 3D models in MMBN5 DS- Megaman, Protoman, and Colonel. The Megaman model that was found in MM Starforce could be from BN5, but that’s about it. Hidden in the MMSF code there’s Lan, some kid, a town, Lan’s room, and some net areas all in 3D and can’t be found anywhere in BN5DS.
As Granville has wrote, it could be possible that Capcom used “MMBN5’s engine as a base for Starforce at first. Likely they intended Starforce to be a true Battle Network 7 originally, but then they modded the game so much that it became its own series.” If this is trye, then these Battle Network 3D models could be the only remains from the original Starforce prototype.
You can read more info about these unused models at Mega Rock Blog!
Here are some beta images from MHFsilver, used in promotional videos and articles:
These images show a wide difference between the beta and final version. Some images include their beta version compared to their final version. For more information, you can check the Rockman EXE Zone Forum!
Thanks a lot to Granville, MegaRockReborn, tgarciao and MHFsilver for the contributions and huge props to MegaRockEXE for the find!
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Tower of Goo Unlimited is the original prototype, made some years ago, of World of Goo, a famous indie game for Pc and Wiiware. Even if you can create only a tower in this concept, the basic gameplay and the graphic style are essentially the same as the released version. There is a level called “Tower of Goo” in the final game, but it is much more technically refined.
2dboy has a prototype section about the development of World of Goo.
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Red Steel 2 is the presumed sequel for the famous FPS that was released for the Wii in 2006, a project that was in development at Ubisoft Paris / Montreuil (this studio was also responsible for Red Steel 1) in 2007. It seems that these screens and documents were taken from an early, different concept of the project, some of which are from a set of “fantasy themed levels” (maybe for bonus missions or multiplayer modes).
Development of this Red Steel 2 prototype was stopped in October 2007 when Ubisoft raised concerns about the game’s quality. Since then, Ubisoft Paris started from scratch and a “new” Red Steel 2 is planned for a release in 2009. Ubisoft Montreuil went on with making Rayman Raving Rabbits 2 and TV Party.
Thanks to Hey Hey & SG for their contributions!
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