Beta + Cancelled Sega Video Games - Page 32 of 72

La Femme Nikita is a cancelled action game that was in development in 2000 / 2001 at Infogrames Lyon House: the project originally started in 1999 as “Mission Impossible 2”, a sequel to the original Nintendo 64 game. It seems that Infogrames soon decided to stop the development for the N64 and port MI2 to the new-released Dreamcast.

Fabien Lacaf, a professional story boarder, worked on MI2 and created different level environment (for 3D artists) and some parallel action designs for the missions. The first concept to MI2 was based on levels that would have been completed following the progress of the main protagonists that worked in parallel at the same time. The player was going to use different characters to complete the missions divided in different parts: in every single part the actions would have affected the next parts of the mission with the following characters.

After some months of work, the studio did not have the “Mission Impossible” license anymore and so they had to change the game into “La Femme Nikita”, based on the film / TV series with the same name. The project was then moved to the Playstation 2 but after 2 years of development, the publisher (Atari) decided to cancel “La Femme Nikita” for economic reasons.

That was the end of “Mission Impossible 2” for the Nintendo 64.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution and to Rodolphe for his help to preserve more images from the project!

Mega Drive / Genesis, Sega

Keeper of the Gates [G/MD – Cancelled]

monokoma

20-09-2009

5 Comments

Keeper of the Gates is a cancelled action game that was in development for the Genesis / Mega Drive by Razorsoft. This was meant to be a sequel to Stormlord, in which we would have played through 8 levels with hard puzzles and traps to resolve. Also, “six players would have been able to alternately compete in tournament play, to test their adventuring skills”. The project was never finished for unknown reasons.

Celine has found some screens of the Game in EGM 40 & 41, while Ross Sillifant found even more in Sega Force magazine, you can check them all in the gallery below!

Thanks to The Punisher we found out that Keeper Of The Gates was going to be a new game in the Stomlord series or a port of Stormlord 2: Deliverance. The screens from the Genesis / Mega Drive version look exactly like S2:D released for Amiga, as we can see at Hall of Light.

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Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Pandemonium [PSX / Saturn / PC]

Gh0stBlade

09-09-2009

4 Comments

Pandemonium is a 2.5D side scrolling platform game, developed by Toys For Bob and published by Crystal Dynamics, originally for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Celine has found some beta screenshots (20% complete?) of the game in GamePro #83 in which we can notice the early graphic and some possible other differences (sadly i don’t remember the game that well, if you find more changes, please let us know!).

It’s interesting to notice that Pandemonium was released in Japan by Bandai under the title Magical Hoppers, with story, cutscenes and characters completely changed with a more “japanese” style. [Info from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

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Alpha Stage – July 1996
Platform: PSX

This version contains some rather interesting differences. You can switch the characters whilst in-game unlike the final verison which doesn’t allow this. Most of the levels are there but they appear to be incomplete towards the end. The world map/level selection is also incomplete and very basic. The HUD is different from the final game and so are the collectibles which seem to be red gems of some sort.

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August/Early September 1996 Beta Trailer

A trailer which shows footage of an unknown build of the game. My estimate is between August/Early September 1996. There are numerous differences, especially the HUD which has a picture of the character itself. I actually prefer it like this.

32X / Mega CD, M2 / 3DO, Others, Saturn, Sega

Darkside / Dark Ride [Saturn 3DO – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

07-09-2009

1 Comment

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!

Images:

32X / Mega CD, Sega

Shadow of Atlantis [Sega CD / 32X – Cancelled]

monokoma

05-09-2009

4 Comments

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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