Beta + Cancelled Others Video Games - Page 125 of 174

Gex is a 2D platformer game, developed and published by Crystal Dynamics in march 1995 for the Panasonic 3DO and later for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation. Thanks to Gexthegecko we found out that in the final game it’s possible to reach an unused shooting level: it involves taking a certain route in Planet X (check the videos below). There’s also a test levels that include unused sprites from the 3DO version.

Beyond this, there are loads of concept artworks to unlock in the special ending (after the credits roll). It seems that the original plot never involved television and in the early prototype Gex was set in our world instead of its very own fantasy oriented one. There’s also an article with one of the game’s developers, which exposes even more pre-production goodness:

The game was about Gecko X, a Hollywood stuntman (stunt Gecko). The studio he worked for was in financial trouble and helping it fail were the enemies Karl Chameleon and his henchmen like Guido Gila. Each level would be themed around a Hollywood action movie genre. For example the Western. The level intro would show stock footage of old Hollywood western movies (for some reason marketing thought this was the greatest idea ever) and then the level would have Gex going through it doing “stunts”. The better he did the more money the ‘Movie’ made and therefore the better the studio did. One level was designed using that theme and it was just awful. […]

They wanted a 32bit game that would be the next Sonic but they were not willing to put the resources into it that would be required to do it. They had come from a 16 bit world and still thought they only needed a 16bit size team. […]

By June we had decided to get rid of Mode 2 and make each world have only one art set so for example the Horror world dropped the Haunted House art set and became just the graveyard. Done by that time were the graveyard art set, cartoon and sci-fi and almost no enemies. It was around that time that Silicon Knights (creators of Legacy of Kain) were asked to do some enemies for Gex. They cranked out about 26 enemies in about 1 month. Also Steve Suhy was hired and was asked to do many of the enemies.[…]

Since it was now June and the project was not even 50% finished, the company decided to cut the sci-fi levels since none had been done and since they didn’t like the art. That brought the game down to five worlds and they hoped would get the game done by Sept in time for Christmas. […]

Evan had programmed a shooter for his Senior project at Stanford (he was finishing his degree at Stanford and working on this nightmare project and competing in National gymnastics) and we decided to stick that shooter in the game as a bonus. […]

Gex 4 was in early development for the PS2, but it was soon cancelled and only few artworks remain to preserve its existence.

Thanks to Gexthegecko for the contribution!

Videos:

Others, PC / MAC, Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Tarantula [PSX Saturn PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

22-05-2010

6 Comments

Tarantula is a cancelled action game that was in development by Scavenger (Team Mescal) in 1996 / 1997 for the Playstation, Saturn and PC. The concept of the game was somehow similar to the released Spider (PSX) and Deadly Creatures (Wii), in which the player would had take the role of a spider to explore natural areas and human houses, fighting against other insects and animals.

As noted at Sega Collection, Tarantula was shown at E3 1996, along with other Scavenger’s games that seem to have been vanished too: Angel, Aqua, Into The Shadow, Mudkicker and Spearhead. Sadly the studio was closed down in 1997 / 1998 for economic problems.

As we can read at MobyGames:

Scavenger, Inc., with offices in Boston, California, Denmark, England, Sweden, was a short-lived interactive entertainment company specializing in the development of video games […] The President of the company in 1996 was Daniel Small. In April of that year, Scavenger and GT Interactive Software Corp. entered into a publishing agreement for several titles.
Problems occurred between the two companies concerning GT Interactive’s failure to pay according to contract, and a lawsuit resulted. Debt forced Scavenger to close its doors in approximately 1997. Even though Scavenger was awarded $1.9 million in the Supreme Court settlement (Feb. 2000), it was not enough to resurrect the company.

Thanks to Celine and Rod_Wod for the contribution!

Images:

Arcade, Others

Rip Squad [Arcade – Cancelled]

monokoma

19-05-2010

No Comments

Rip Squad is a cancelled driving shooter / action game that was in development from 1999 to 2001 by Midway for the Arcades. It was going to be a war-themed game, inspired by Call of Duty and a TV show called “Rat Patrol”. The gameplay featured 360° of on-screen movement, a mounted .50 cal rifle inside the cabinet and a seat with a shaker beneath it, to simulate the motion of the jeep driving over different types of terrain.

As we can read on Arcade Heroes:

Back in 2001, Midway made a decision to dump their long standing coin-op division in favor of focusing developments on console gaming. When that decision came down, there were still some arcade games floating around in the development cycle, which were subsequently canceled and were lost to the knowledge of the public.

Thanks to kieranmay for the contribution!

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Videos:

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

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) [PS2 XBOX PC – Beta]

monokoma

15-05-2010

4 Comments

Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy in the US), is an adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and released for the Playstation 2, Xbox and PC in September 2005. The game evolved a lot during its development and from the early screens we notice various beta differences. The character models, some scenes and locations were changed in the final version. If you have finished the game and notice more specific differences in the gallery below, please let us know!

Thanks to Megalol and Anonymous for the contribution! More info on the game can be found at Omikron Game Blog

More beta differences were noticed by John Doom:

image 4: Tyler isn’t wearing a cap
image 5: armchairs aren’t zebrine in the retail
image 6: Lukas meets Markus in the square’s center in the retail.
image 7: Lukas and the local are different
image 9: the victim is different
image11: Markus seems… darker? o.o He has a slightly different look.
image13: the local insists with a palette of red, green and yellow rather than in the retial
image19: Tyler wears a slightly different cap in the retail.
image23: the policeman wears a different uniform
image24: the tap is out of order but there’s no sign in the retail.
image26: the bathroom has a different paint and there is also a glass in the retail
image27: it is the concept of Jeffrey.
image28: Lukas
image29: Probably Kate or Carla, but she is different from both
image32: he’s probably an early model of the victim
image35: she should be Kate because i remember that she dressed that blue dress
image36: it seems that Bogart is missing (or he could be hidden behind a bin and he’s impossible to see from this angle)

Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

Images:

Videos:

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox 360

Splinter Cell: Conviction [X360 PC – Beta]

monokoma

08-05-2010

4 Comments

Splinter Cell: Conviction is a stealth / action game developed by Ubisoft Montreal, released in April, 2010 for the Xbox 360 and PC. The project was originally announced on May, 2007 when Ubisoft released a trailer for the game. It depicted a more rugged-looking Sam with long hair and a fully-grown beard. He had the ability to blend in with the environment, interact with tables and chairs and engage in hand-to-hand combat with enemies.

The game was due for release in November, 2007. However, it missed its initial launch date and on May, 2008 Xbox World 360 magazine reported that Splinter Cell: Conviction was “officially on hold” and that the game had been taken “back to the drawing board.” While Ubisoft never confirmed this, they announced that the game had been pushed back to the 2009-10 fiscal year.

The game resurfaced at E3 2009 with a completely new visual style and a more casual-looking Sam. The developers confirmed that the “new” Conviction had been in development since early 2008, commenting that “the gameplay has evolved a lot” and “the visual direction is simply much better.” [Info from Wikipedia]

We can say that the original Splinter Cell Conviction was cancelled, as the final game and gameplay look very different from what was shown in 2007.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

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