Others

Maximum Gauge [Cancelled – PSX / PC]

Maximum Gauge was an 2D/3D adventure game with a sci-fi theme in development by Big Grub for Playstation 1 and PC and to be published by MGM Interactive. Gregg Tavares , Big Grub developer at the time, described the game as “take Diablo but make it play like Zelda from the Super Nintendo”. Apparently there were direction problems and the game never seen the light of the day.

Scan from PlayMag issue 15.

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Thief: Deadly Shadows [Beta – Xbox / PC]

As we can read in Wikipedia, Thief: Deadly Shadows is a stealth game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive in 2004 for Xbox and PC. After Looking Glass Studios, the developer of the original two titles, went out of business in 2000, many former employees moved to Ion Storm Austin. Here they began developing the long-anticipated third part of the series, Deadly Shadows. It is the last game produced by Ion Storm before its demise in February 2005.

The idea originally was that Thief: Deadly Shadows would let you customise difficulty similarly to in System Shock, with you able to tweak how smart the AI was, what your objectives were and so on. It’s a feature which survived until the last betas, but was suddenly cut out of the final game due to the extra work it created for testers. Instead, Thief: Deadly Shadows only has the usual Easy/Normal/Expert skill settings from the older Thief games.

You can get more detail on the cut, as well as RPS co-founder and comics writer Kieron Gillen’s take on the game, in the Unlimited Hyperbole Podcast. If you have more info, screens or videos with beta differences for Thief 3, please let us know in the comments below!

Thanks to Joe Martin for the contribution! 

The Sims 4 (2014) [Beta – PC/MAC ]

The Sims 4 was officially announced on May 6th 2013, and is in development by Maxis, which will be a first since the 2004 game, The Sims 2. However a few weeks before, several images were leaked that appear to be taken from some sort of in house tech demo. These images were leaked onto SimsVIP and shown off. Judging from the following screenshots, they seem to be real, due to the official boxart posted by EA showing very similar character designs for the faces:

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Although these are thought to be of The Sims 4, it is very possible due to the lower graphics style, a console game for the sims that may be in development. Judging by the city style and design, could it be the rumored, The Urbz 2?

Official Info:

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Revealed by EA and MAXIS on May 6th, 2013, The Sims 4 is in development for Windows and Mac OS. The game will be developed by Maxis and The Sims Studio under supervision by maxis head, Lucy Bradshaw. The game was revealed to have offline and online modes, and will not require internet to play (unlike the recently released Simcity 2013). More information about The Sims 4 can be obtained on the official www.thesims4.com website. 

Commando [Jaguar CD – Cancelled]

Commando is a cancelled FPS that was in development by Microids (also known as MC2-Microïds) in 1994 / 1995 for the Jaguar CD. There are not much more info on the game, and in the end it was canned for unknown reasons. We could speculate that it was never released because of the failure of the Atari console. Celine was able to find a screenshot of Commando in CD Consoles Magazine issue #5.

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Croc: Legend of the gobbos (1997) [Beta / Prototype – PSX / Saturn / PC]

Croc Legend Of The Gobbos was a platformer game released in 1997 by Defunct game developer, Argonaut Games. Using the BRender engine, which was a state of the art engine capable of powering games released between generations (PS1 and PS2 gens), it took full advantage of the consoles it released on and pushed the game engine to its limits.

Recently, a beta and tech demo was uncovered by a few fans of the game on a now defunct forum, “Croc Fan Forums” , and released to a very few people. A newely formed YouTube channel called Video Game Beta Book, posted videos from both builds that leaked a few weeks ago.

These videos show many things that were changed or cut. In the tech demo, croc appears to be voiced by an entirely different voice actor opposed to His voice actor in Croc and Croc 2. Next, many level designs are different, and some levels are even entirely unseen in the final game. The main island also looks severely different.

The tech demo that leaked was dated November 1996, and appears to be a very early alpha of the game engine, that was likely released to internal testers to test physics.  In the Prototype dated March 1997, it features slightly different animations, has cut levels, and even has something not at all in the final game: Results Screen. The results screen is similar to the ending of levels on the Spyro The Dragon Trilogy games released by Insomniac Games from 1998-2000, where it shows your gems you picked up and score.

Additionally, in the tech demo Croc is more lighter than He appears in the March 1997 Proto and the final game.

Videos of the tech demo and prototype can be seen below: