PC / MAC

Retribution [XBOX 360 / PC – Cancelled]

Retribuition is an early XBOX 360 & PC first person / third person shooter, that was in development in 2005 / 2006 by U-235 Studios. It was planned for the “XBOX 2” even before the final spechs of the console and it would have been created thanks to the “Reality Engine” developed by Artificial Studios. The player would have been able to hire a crew to help in battles, and they would had learned to fight depending on the action they saw, or the training they have been placed in. Also, it would have been possible to buy, hijack, steal or ransack boats, to go aroung the sea or to sell them for cash. Sadly U-235 Studios never found a publisher interested in the project and Retribution was then cancelled.

[spoiler /Click here to read the original Press Release/ /Hide the Press Release/]Retribution uses Artificial Studio’s advanced game engine – Reality. It is a FPS or 3rd person shooter (your choice) with a movie like script. A large variety of photo realistic scenes to explore as you work your way through the game ensure that you never feel the game is repetitive. Featuring open play which enables you to hire and improve your crew members and their abilities, build an arsenal of weapons, acquire a range of equipment, and complete numerous mercenary tasks for cash. Attempt the main storyline missions at your leisure.

Primary Objective- Take retribution on your parents’ murderer.
Sounds – Simple
Difficulty – Hard
Problem – Finding him
Problem – Women…well…one woman
Problem – Your target commands a navy vessel and has a trained army at his disposal

Intense action, coupled with the most intelligent team management seen to date, artistic diversity rarely seen in a computer game, and a script that reads like a movie. Plus the advanced features of the Reality engine which utilises the latest in artistic techniques. At U-235 Studios just having the ability to do something isn’t enough, we set out to fully utilise and exploit every new technique. It’s not good enough to have an advanced physics system, but each object in Retribution is carefully modelled to our ‘game standard’ so interactivity is realistic.

Couple this with a multiplayer element across 11 unique scenes, each very different and so well crafted you’ll forget you’re playing the same game.

Key Features
Scenery: 11 unique land-based scenes, ranging from your tropical beach hideout, a marine corps camp, a drug lords compound, the port area of Miami and more.
Ocean: Realistic water techniques never achieved before in real time in a computer game.
AI: Elaborate and intelligent AI which makes you re-think the way you play computer games – without taking away the joy of beating impossible odds.
Damage System: A unique damage system devised in conjunction with gamers to enable enjoyable game play, visual effects, and a realism level that doesn’t detract from the fun.
Crew Advancement: Once you hire your crew members they begin to advance depending on the action they see, or the training they have been placed in.
Crew Battle Management: Unique battle management techniques to interact with your crew that are sure to become standards once other companies see what we’ve come up with.
Interaction: A detailed level of interaction between characters including realistic cause and effect. The days of ‘3 phrase characters’ are officially over.
Transport: Buy, hijack, steal or ransack boats in the Caribbean. Clean them up and sell them for cash. All attacks on vessels are done in FPS/3rdPS mode, use your brain as well as brawn to make your attacks as clean as possible.
FPS or 3rdPS: Play in first person or 3rd person modes (switch at any time) throughout the game.
Hostages: Take hostages from a battle, be it an attack on a vessel in the Caribbean you have coordinated, or a mercenary task. Manage your hostage negotiations and build up your cash, but be careful not to attract too much attention.
Environment: Realistic day/night cycles and advanced world time system which ties into various elements such as crew advancement, financial management etc.
Time warp: Retribution is played over a large geographical area, however, a unique time warp system ensures you won’t waste time waiting while travelling.
Multi-Player: Death match, team death match, cooperative and team cooperative modes.[/spoiler]

Images:

Video (Reality Engine Tech Demo):

 

The Sims 2 [Beta – PC/MAC]

In 2001 Maxis began development of a successor to The Sims, due to the massive success of the game. The game had 2 development versions. Not many people know, but according to many users on “Mod The Sims” forums, almost all the games development data was lost during a small office server room fire, that resulted in most of the game being developed again from scratch (In addition to this, Maxis also at the time revealed that source codes for many other titles were also lost, such as the console games for example). Many things that were planned were cut due to that reason, such as weather in the base game, and scenarios (an early trailer actually shows that during a storm, the power can go out and you must fix it by pulling a breaker).  Additionally, the beta basements were originally intended, but lost during the re-development.

The graphics in the original version look more like graphics seen in “The Urbz” and “The Sims Bustin Out”, which makes it possible the early version may of been using the same engine as those 2 titles, as they were pretty advanced for being console games.

Although the game went into redevelopment, alot of features from the lost build was restored, such as most of the furniture shown in the images and videos of the lost build, music and sounds. Additionally, Weather features like rain, was present in the lost build, but not in the final build. This feature was later restored in The Sims 2 Seasons.

The game was initially confirmed to release in early 2004. But due to the redevelopment the date was delayed until September 2004, which ea called “Final Touches”.

Images of the beta can be seen here:

In the video below, many things are noted to be different. Music from “The Sims Bustin Out” is present, character voices are completely different, and a few other interesting things are shown. Also, a more in depth create a sim was present, that even allowed you to fully and 3D rotate sims heads.

 

Simcity 3000 [Beta – PC / Mac/ Linux]

In 1997 Maxis announced Simcity 3000 and had a full trailer. The trailer was rendered full in game using the game engine. The trailer was not well received due to fan concerns that the game would be too powerful for then current gen hardware. Maxis later announced that the spring 1998 release would be pushed to Spring 1999. In under a course of 1 year, Maxis redeveloped the game from scratch, which turned out to be the game we got today. The full 3D aspect Maxis wanted for the simcity series finally returned 10 years later in the 2007 game, Simcity Societies.

The video below is the exact trailer shown at E3 1997:

The official reason for the delay and redevelopment was:

Originally, Maxis planned to make SimCity 3000 a full 3D game. Although employees thought the idea was impractical, the management pushed the idea. After a year of development, the game was graphically on par with SimCopterand Streets of SimCity. The game was displayed at the 1997 E3; the experience is still considered an embarrassment and the game was expected to fail at the time.

Later, in 1997, EA acquired Maxis. Luc Barthelet was assigned as general producer to Maxis. He decided that 3D graphics weren’t viable and brought Lucy Bradshaw to lead the project. The 3D graphics were scrapped in favor of sprite-based graphics. Instead of focusing on 3D, they expanded the core gameplay. This version of the game did better at the 1998 E3 and was well-received upon release.

The game that was scrapped would of featured a sim mode and drive mode, which were not present in the final build. However, they were restored in Simcity 4.  The full 3D aspect returned in the 2007 game, Simcity Societies. 

More photos of the scrapped build can be seen below:

Thanks to the Simcity Wiki for the information.  

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.

Images:

  

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!