Nightmare Creatures 3: Angel of Darkness was initially announced for a Spring 2003 release for Sony’s PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft’s Xbox, but the game soon fell into development hell. It began development at Kalisto Entertainment in 2002 and Ubisoft obtained the publishing rights, but Kalisto soon went out of business and Ubisoft assumed development duties. Kalisto’s apparent concept of the game involved a heroine exploring 19th century Prague during the daytime and merging with a raven at nightfall to transform into a beast and battle Adam Crowley’s monsters, but Ubisoft reportedly began designing the game from the ground up when it gained control over the game’s development and it’s unknown whether Kalisto’s original concept remained intact.
Spring 2003 came and went with no news on the title. In 2004, Ubisoft representatives claimed the game had not been cancelled, but the company has remained quiet about Nightmare Creatures 3 ever since.
Extreme Force: Grant City Anti-Crime (A.K.A. Strike Force / First Strike: Grant City Anti-Crime) was a third person shooter set in the Dead To Rights city – a fact that will be of precisely no interest to most people. It was all about law enforcement, covert operations and all that lark, as the title suggests. Fun items such as night vision goggles, grenades and door charges would have been at your disposal as you rid the city of criminals by making them dead. Stealth maneuvers and “run-and-gun combat” were promised. It was in development at Namco for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube but it was later cancelled for unknow reasons.
The original Splinter Cell was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and was released in 2002 for PS2, XBOX and GameCube. In these beta screens we can see a slightly different HUD and many changes in the layout of the level. There are smaller differences from lighting cues, to even full room reconstructions between versions. Even is shown, an Xbox version of what was presumed to be a PlayStation 2 exclusive level, the Nuclear Power Plant mission.
There’s also a comparison from a PS2 trailer that used a beta build of the game for display, as well as a smaller technical run-through showing the differences between the final and demo of the Chinese Embassy Return mission that was given to PlayStation magazines for use of a playable demo and game sites for personal overview. Unfortunately, the particular video had to be comprised of the near full walk-through videos of the demo run on GameSpot, so a more comprehensive comparison cannot be fully realized as of now. If someone else is interested and actually has the Official PlayStation Magazine demo, feel free to contribute a more elaborate hand-on recorded comparison video to Unseen64.net for more various differences.
Thanks to Silenceofthehills for the videos below, chek them to see all the differences in the beta version!
Crank the Weasel is a mature cancelled platform / adventure game that was in development by Midway Games in 2002, for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. The goal of Crank was to create chaos in the game’s world, with lies, cheats and stealing loot from the other characters, to be able to get enough Big-Ticket-Items to fly to Pleasure Island. The game’s look and feel were inspired by 1920’s cartoon art style and authentic big band swing music, but with a humorous / mature twist, similar to Conker’s Bad Fur Day.
In the website of Brian Silva, Co-creator and Lead Designer of Crank the Weasel, we can read many interesting info about the concepts behind the Crank project:
At the beginning of a game, each NPC possesses a preliminary set of “ideal” characteristics, meaning that they will go about their business, acting and functioning in an initially “composed” manner appropriate for their personality type. However, depending upon Weasel’s player-controlled actions (as well as the independent actions of the NPCs), these “ideal” characteristics will soon begin to alter as they are manipulated in a vast variety of ways that can either benefit or work against the player, and often provide surprising results. NPCs, while going about their business, will even change their own behavior to suit their immediate needs even if Weasel does not interact with them, resulting in amusing and varied gameplay. Basically, each playfield would naturally evolve on it’s own, Weasel just happens to throw a huge wrench into the equation.
An example of the weird scenarios that the player would have been able to explore in the game, is the Hell level:
While floating along the River Styx, Weasel can hear the merry tune of Jingle Bells echoing throughout the fiery pits of hell, snow is drifting, trees are decorated, lights are hung, and all the little devils want to wish Weasel a “Merry Christmas!” Gnarled and twisting tree roots wrap and wind from above and all throughout this town of torment. Little demons drive their little demon cars, walk their demon dogs, and mow their demon lawns in front of their little demon houses. Elevators transport a nonstop supply of unrighteous heathens to the hoary underworld to suffer an abundance of dreadful eternities. Weasel will be glad to know that there are hundreds of take out restaurants in hell… unfortunately they’re all Chinese take out, and the only available places of business are either the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Internal Revenue Service, Hellth Food stores, Social Security Departments, jury duty registration, or fabric stores. But on the bright side, there’s plenty of flashy advertising for products and places that these sinners will never have a chance to enjoy.
Sadly Crank the Weasel was officially cancelled in 2003, as we can read at IGN Xbox:
“That game will never come out,” said our source from the innards at Midway. “It just never seemed to take off and all I can tell you is that you’re not going to see it again.”
Kid Ninja is a cancelled platform/action game that was originally meant to be released for the GameCube, Xbox and Playstation 2 in 2003, but the project was later canceled by Asylum Entertainment. A Wii version was later planned too, but it seems that it was never released neither.
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