Heavy Machinery is a cancelled racing / car combat game that was in development by Scavenger for the Sega 32X. The project started as a game called Nitro Wreaks, that was meant to be published for the Mega Drive / Genesis, but after some time the team decided to move it to the 32X. As we can read at the 32X Memorial Site:
According to a magazine preview of a nearly complete test version, the game was to consist of nine missions through many types of locales, weather, and road conditions. Enemy vehicles would attack you and attempt to block your path, while helicopters and planes fired on you from above. Your mission was to destroy as many enemies as possible with your weaponry, as well as make it to the next checkpoint within the required time. Hazards and power-ups littered your path, creating an obstacle course that was said to really effect the gameplay.
Even if it was almost finished, Heavy Machinery was never released, probably because of the failure of the 32X add-on.
Battletech: Gray Death Legion is a cancelled mech game that was in development for the Saturn and Sega Mega CD at Absolute Entertainment in 1995, before the closure of the company. The project was based on a fictional mercenary company that exists within the fictional BattleTech Universe and probably the gameplay was going to be similar to other mech games, with mission-based levels and first person shooter view.
It’s currently unknown if the Saturn version was similar to the Sega Mega CD one or if they were 2 different games. A playable beta demo of the Sega Mega CD version was leaked somehow and it’s available at Good Deal Games. As we can read from the description:
The Gray Death Legion is a mercenary regiment within the Battletech universe. This game demo does not have audio, but is very playable and a blast at that! The game plays very similar to the excellent AH-3 Thunderstrike. Battletech: Gray Death Legion makes use of the Sega CD’s scaling and rotation hardware to create an impressive 3D environment with a smooth frame rate. Features a very long 3D animated Battletech intro that is also very impressive.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution (scan from GamePro #79)!
In December 2008 GDRI has created a topic in the Lost Levels forum linking to a japanese blog, that had posted some scans with cancelled Sega Mega CD games. One of these unreleased games is Ookami Hei (Wolf Soldier – Ranpin) an action game that was in development by SIMS. As Dais suggests in the same topic, it seems that the working title of the game was “Ranpin” as also noted by Gamengai:
Ranpin: A side-scrolling action game by Sims, which was to be compatible with the Fighting Pad 6B. Had a setting like that of Dennin Aleste (a mechanical, medievil Japan) and featured the same character designer as Devil Buster.
Darkside (sometimes written as Dark Ride or Darkride) was one of many titles being devloped by Rocket Science Games before being cancelled. It was to be a psychodellic tunnel-based game with bizarre graphics, and was briefly previewed in the December 1994 issue of Games World: The Magazine, which stated that ‘the team behind the game are perfecting the smooth scrolling of the ride… before the gameplay’.
Rocket Science Games themselves are probably more interesting than the games they made- funded by Sega Enterprises and promising more than they could deliver on, they mostly made Sega-CD and PC-based FMV based titles such as Cadillacs & Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm and Obsidian. However, their titles never sold well, and Sega themselves cancelled half of the company’s titles around 1994/95 to keep costs down- it seems Dark Side / Dark Ride was one of the victims of this. They eventually went out of business in 1997.
The preview in Games world: The Magazine states that the game was being developed for the 3DO, although almost all other RSG games were being developed for either the Sega CD or the PC- whether this is a mistake on the magazine’s part is unknown.
In a short article published in French magazine CD Consoles issue #4 we can read that “Darkside” was in development for the Saturn and the game would have took the player into an imaginary world, to explore it aboard a cart on rails (as in a rollercoaster). Could this have been an on-rails shooter? We are not sure.
As written in an article in Wired 2.11 (page 108), Rocket Science decided to cancel this project because it was too similar to other games of its time:
The trend toward more literate games means that some projects well along the Rocket Science pipeline have had to be scrapped. “We saw some things at the Consumer Electronics Show very similar to our Rocket Boy and DarkRide, so we’ve put those on hold,” says Caldwell. “But we still have Wing Nuts, a World War I dogfight game, in the works.”
If you have some more info on this game, please let us know!
Thanks to Celine for the scan! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
Shadow of Atlantis (also known as Nautilus) is a point and click adventure game that was originally in development for the Sega CD and after many delays, it was ported to the 32X, but in the end it was never released. The project was based on characters and situations from Jules Verne’s classic novels, 20000 Leagues under the Sea and Mysterious Island. Shadow of Atlantis was designed and produced by Eric Quakenbush, a game designer that worked with Sega on many other games, as the cancelled Virtua Hamster. There were even some plans to port Shadow of the Atlantis to the Saturn, but as we can read at Sega16, “Sega eventually scrapped the concept altoghter sometime in 1997”.
Also, in ActionPackedVideo‘s Youtube Channel we can see some more videos from the project. As we can read in one of the descriptions:
This was the result of a skunk-works project that I put together with the Sega Multimedia Lab staff that were idle after we shipped Jurassic Park Sega-CD game. The demo got the game a green light and I was promoted to the producer group but it never shipped. Eventually the salary for all those idle workers was billed to my project so you are looking at about $70,000 worth of demo!
Eric Quakenbush designed and produced this CD adventure game which featured live action sequences as well as many intriguing puzzles.
Unfortunately Sega discontinued the Sega CD platform before production could be completed.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution and to Mekanaizer for the video!
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