Beta + Cancelled PC / MAC Video Games - Page 121 of 139

Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll was going to be an ambitious point and click adventure game that was in development by Sensible Software for the PC, from 1994 to 1998. The main character would have been Nigel Staniforth Smythe, a wannabe Rockstar that had to play gigs and deal drugs, to rise money to pay a debt with some thugs.

Initially the project was been signed by Warner International Entertainment and later by GT Software, but for various technical and controversial problems the game had to be cancelled in the end. In an interesting article on EuroGamer, Sensible Software co-founder Jon Hare talks about the game and why it was cancelled:

It was designed as a Leisure Suit Larry-style point-and-click adventure game about the singer Nigel Staniforth Smythe. Nigel had borrowed 2,000 pounds off of some Hell’s Angels to buy himself a beaten-up old van so that he could go touring with his trashy rock band. […]
Drugs were quite a problem for Nigel as he had seven separate drug habits – all of which needed to be supported simultaneously. These drugs were core to the gameplay as speed made the game speed up, heroin made the game slow down, acid made him see things that weren’t there and cocaine made him talk s***, etc. – all great gameplay mechanics. The other little problem for Nigel was that the Hell’s Angels were quite keen on getting their money back. In fact, Nigel only had two weeks left before they lost their patience and came round to his house to kick the s*** out of him – GAME OVER. […]
Various changes happened to the game plot in 1995. At Warner’s behest, we got rid of the pimping angle in the game and also his total reliance on his seven drug habits. His drug-taking had now become recreational rather than dependent. How trendy.
[…] the game was to include 150 characters – all of whom were earmarked for 3D modelling, and this would later become a serious reason for the problems that later ensued – not just for SDR, but for all of the games signed under the new Warner deal. […]
However, the programming side of the game was starting to reveal some serious problems. We had been careless in our selection of lead programmer and now his incompetence was starting to show.[…]
We decided to make some serious changes. Firstly, the game was reduced to a more realistic 24 locations and we slimmed it down to four discs rather than 16. Crucially, we also got rid of our lead programmer and replaced him with a new guy from the Bitmap Brothers. He was good, but we had already lost a year on the programming, and the game was still not at all playable.
The other major change to take place in 1997 was the publisher. Warner had decided to bow out of the games business and sold its publishing arm to GT Interactive. Unfortunately for us, GT Interactive was backed by the people behind Walmart, which is run by the strictest most down-the-line bible belt Americans that you could ever wish to meet. What happened next we should have seen coming from the moment the ink dried on the Warner/GT agreement. Let us just say that an 18+ game about snorting cocaine and shagging girls in cars was not GT’s idea of family value.
GT really started to turn the screw on us by refusing to pay us anything […]
But this was not an easy sell by any stretch of the imagination, even if people did like the little that we could show them. No one could see how this offensive game could find it’s way onto the shelves in the US – this was before GTA, remember.
So, despite the fact that 90 per cent of the script, 80 per cent of the sound and 75 per cent of the art was complete, the programming was still only 50 per cent complete. […]

Jon Hare has also released online the original SnDnRnR soundtrack and it can be downloaded from here. Huge props to Hare for sharing all these informations on his cancelled game!

Thanks a lot to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

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Videos

Others, PC / MAC

World in Conflict [X360/PS3/PC – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors

10-04-2009

No Comments

World in Conflict was developed and released in 2007 by Massive Entertainment. They showed lots of trailers before the final release, and one of them shows some things that are different in the final game:

The first thing that we can notice is that the interface is different: instead of being grayish as in the final version, we see a more reddish interface, some could even call it “futuristic”. The “buy” interface has a function left out in the final game: when you click one of the units, it shows it in 3D in a window in the bottom right corner.

Others, PC / MAC

Quake [PC – Beta / Proto]

yota

06-04-2009

14 Comments

Quake is a famous fps released in 1996. In a preview section of Commander Keen (dated 1/23/90), we can see that originally the game was going to be a 2d role-playing game. Also, when in the mid 90’s they created the quake engine, the early testing was made on some Doom levels.

Also, as we can read on Wikipedia, the earliest information released described Quake as focusing on a Thor-like character who wields a giant hammer, and is able to knock away enemies by throwing the hammer (complete with real-time inverse kinematics). At the start, the levels were supposed to be designed in an Aztec style, but the choice was dropped some months into the project. Early screenshots then showed medieval environments and dragons. The plan was for the game to have more RPG-style elements.

Eventually, the whole id team began to think that the original concept may not have been as wise a choice as they first believed. Thus, the final game was very stripped down from its original intentions, and instead featured gameplay similar to Doom and its sequel, although levels and enemies were closer to medieval RPG style rather than science-fiction.

Before the release of the game or the demo of the game, id software released QTest on February 24, 1996. It was described as a technology demo and was limited to three multiplayer maps. There was no single player support and some of the gameplay and graphics were unfinished or different from their final versions.

As noted by Portend (check the video below):

There are quite a few differences in this deathmatch test release like the map designs and weapon models for instance. When I start moving and going down the stairs you’ll see armour in front of a gate, in the full release of Quake that armour is behind the gate.
After I go through the portal and across the moving platform, then back again… dropping down the lift is the Rocket Launcher (the red model which isn’t the finished version of the weapon). That hall in the final version has an alcove with the rocket launcher in it and straight ahead towards the steps is another alcove with the Quad Damage modifier sitting up top along with some boxes of health, that area as you can see doesn’t exist.

Some more info can be read thanks to old interviews with John Romero:

Quake as it turned out is not what Quake was supposed to be in either that original prototype (TFFJ) or in the original concept of what Quake1 was going to be. The idea completely changed and the only reason we didn’t change the name of the game is because everyone in the world already knew what we were working on.
Nope. Quake was one original idea that got changed 7 months before shipping to something totally different and the name remained because the world already knew what the game was called.
Our dragon was going to be a massive fly-by that traveled along a path outside the level, dropping in for some firebreathing every now and then. Mostly it was gonna be for a cool, huge character event. The Vomitus was going to be something disgusting that vomited small versions of itself that attacked you.

Also Spirit recorded a long session from the Quake beta, you can check it at Quaddicted or Archive.org!

Thanks to Nathan for the contribution!

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Leaked, Others, PC / MAC

Fate [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

05-04-2009

1 Comment

Fate is a game which was in development in 1996 by DogBone Software and was going to be published by Intracorp. The game was being made with the Build Engine, a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman for 3D Realms (used for Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood and Redneck Rampage). Sadly Intracorp went bankrupt before the game could be completed. [Infos from Wikipedia]

A playable demo was released before the cancellation and you can download it from the DOS Museum!

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Video:

Others, PC / MAC

Ultima 8: The Lost Vale [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

03-04-2009

5 Comments

Ultima VIII: Pagan is the eighth part of the computer RPG series Ultima: it was developed by Origin Systems and released in 1994 for the PC. Dominus sent us a couple of links (here and here) in which we can read some informations about the cancelled Ultima 8 expansion, that was called The Lost Vale. It seems that:

The Lost Vale was planned to be an add-on for Ultima 8, but it was never released. Sources seem to suggest that the add-on was fully made and ready for release, but was not released because of Ultima 8’s relatively poor sales […] The Lost Vale would have been accessed from the locked double-doors at Bonecrusher’s cave on the Plateau […] This Vale would apparently offer an additional adventure for the Avatar during his stay in Pagan, featuring the other three Zealan gods and a shield with their symbols, broken in two. […]

We can even read some more infos on PC games That Weren’t. If The Lost Vale was really finished, we can hope that one day it could be leaked and preserved somehow.

Thanks to Dominus for the contribution!

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