PC / MAC

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox

Mech Arena [PC XBOX – Cancelled]

monokoma
08-04-2010
No Comments

Mech Arena: The First Match (aka Battle Arena III) is a cancelled action / fighting game that was in development in 2002 / 2003 by Made By Kiddies, for PC and the original Xbox. As the title can suggest, the player had to combat against huge mechs in various arenas, to win the competition. In the end Mech Arena was never released, maybe because they did not find a publisher interested in the project.

The main features of the game were:

– Supports Single and Multi play

– Play from 10 different stunning interactive arenas.

– Play 18 challenging Single arena missions.

– Multiplayer action over Internet, modem or LAN. Human opponents deliver new tactical challenges with every engagement with battle records.

– Battle statistics

– Repair, upgrade and organize your player. The weapon and armory inventory is displayed at the garage with money available for the next upgrade.

– Buy new weapons and pilots with resource points gained by winning missions or trade in equipment you no longer need.

– Repair and refit your Mech to your own specifications.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation, Sony

South Park [N64 PSX PC – Beta]

monokoma
05-04-2010
3 Comments

South Park (originally titled South Park: Deeply Impacted during development) is a FPS based on the first few seasons of the popular TV series of the same name. The game is powered by the Turok 2 game engine and was released in 1998 by Acclaim for the PC, Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. Acclaim had announced a sequel to be released sometime in 2000, however this project never surfaced. [Info from Wikipedia]

As noticed by BattleBattleBattle, the game’s plot was initially different from what we got in the final version:

The close proximity of the blasted piece of space debris causes the local turkeys to revolt. It’s now up to you to stop those gobbling overgrown chickens who paint half of their faces blue, trying desparately to infringe on American lifestyle by refusing to get eaten. Oh, and Cartman’s mom was kidnapped by aliens, too. To add insult to injury, Skuzzlebutt’s also out of control, making it imperative that Kyle, Cartman, Stan, and Kenny step in, armed with a host of gadgets ranging from cow launchers to fart dolls.

We never see Skuzzlebutt out of control.

The beta multiplayer had 5 different modes to play with, as “Capture the Flag”, a “Grudge Match” and “Kick the Baby”, but in the end only the classic deathmatch mode was finished. The radar in multiplayer was different too (there was only 1 radar for everyone) and in an early screen we notice a level that could have been removed.

Also, Acclaim originally had planned two different styles of games, with the PlayStation version theoretically appearing in a Lost Viking-style of gameplay instead to be a FPS like the N64 and PC versions. A South Park game for the GameBoy Color was also in development, but never released.

If you can notice more differences in the beta screens, please let us know!

Thanks to BattleBattleBattle, MamaLuigiBarrelRoll and Nat for the contributions!

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Others, PC / MAC

Fallout Tactics 2 [PC – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
26-03-2010
No Comments

Fallout Tactics 2 is a cancelled action RPG developed by Micro Forté in 2001, that was meant to be the sequel to Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.  Pre-production started shortly before the release of the first game, but FT2 was soon canned by Interplay when Fallout Tactics started selling rather poorly.

As we can read in an interview with Gareth Davies (that worked as junior artist and additional design for the project) on No Mutants Allowed:

I’m also pretty disappointed that Tactics 2 never saw the light of day, since it’s a title that would have benefited from the experience and criticisms of the first game. Plus we were very conscious of heeding Fallout canon as best we could, and providing more interesting tactical missions rather than the run and gun focus of the first game.

You can read more info on Fallout Wikia! Sadly only few concept arts remain from this project.

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Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox

Dominion [PC/XBOX – Cancelled]

monokoma
25-03-2010
1 Comment

Dominion  is a cancelled Action RPG that was in development from 2001 to 2003 by Pharaoh Productions for the PC, with a planned Xbox port. The game was meant to be based on the multiplayer mode, with up to 8 players (LAN or Internet) on the Xbox and probably more for the PC version. The game was never released probably because of quality issues and for the lack of a publisher interested in the project.

From the only screens preserved in the gallery below we can speculate that Pharaoh Productions worked on the graphic engine and the game’s world for a long time, but they did never finish to implement a real gameplay system into Dominion. It’s possible that they never started to work on the Xbox version, as the images look to be from the PC build (those little icons would never work on a console port).

In 2004 Pharaoh Productions closed down when their founder, David Allen, resigned from the gaming business.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Others, PC / MAC

Zoiks! (Pandemonium) [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma
23-03-2010
No Comments

Zoiks! (aka Pandemonium) is a cancelled point and click adventure that was in development by Ocean Software’s Tribe team, featuring a cast of classic Hanna Barbera cartoon characters,  including Scooby Doo, Shaggy, Fred Flintstone, Penelope Pitstop, Huckleberry Hound and Snagglepuss.

As we can read from the ECTS 1997 press release, in the game’s story Dick Dastardly used a sound machine to rob the Hanna Barbera world of the sounds that bring it alive. Through cunning detection techniques, Fred Flintstone had to trace the devilish Dastardly and put a stop to his mischief.

Tribe, Ocean’s in-house development team, have successfully combined traditional animation techniques with the latest video and graphic technology to bring the world of Hanna Barbera to life. The beautiful animations in Zoiks! allow for maximum interaction and are works of art in themselves. Add to this a stunning ‘surround sound’ soundtrack and speech recorded by the original cartoon cast and the result is a cartoon experience that you can truly interact with.

Zoiks! uses sound in a way no other game has before. Players learn by trial and error how certain sounds affect certain objects and characters, giving them clues to help them track down Dastardly. This format allows younger players to learn intuitively as they play without patronising more experienced gamers.

The game was meant to be published by Infogrames in 1997, but something went wrong during the development and Zoiks! was never released in the end. A little article on the game was published in Edge issue 32.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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