Beta + Cancelled Sony Video Games - Page 110 of 224

As we can read on Wikipedia, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is an action RPG developed and published by Square Enix for the PSP. The game was released in Japan on January 2010 and it is planned to be released in North America and in Europe on September 2010. Development of the game began in June 2005 and was originally intended for the PlayStation 2 with Sora as the prototype protagonist of the game.

Birth by Sleep was developed by Square Enix’s fifth Product Development Division, based in Osaka, the same team behind Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, and uses the same graphical engine as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

The plot was completed for the PS2, but development was halted six months after it began due to development of Re: Chain of Memories. The development team changed the platform to the PlayStation Portable so as to make use of the PSP’s functions such as co-operative and competitive multiplayer gameplay.

In August 2009, new Famitsu scans revealed a revamped User Interface (having been revamped twice before) as well as new worlds after a lack of news for close to a year.

As posted by Granville in our U64 Forum, hidden in the final game’s code there is a very cool secret world that was cut, but that you can still access via hacking! It’s a world based off the classic movie The Jungle Book.

The first area is in the Monkey Temple of the orangutan Louie. The other areas are your basic jungle type areas, although they are all clearly incomplete and lack a lot of their texture work. I’d say the Temple is the only complete area. The only way to access these areas is via hacks, they were never used in the main game and no images were shown in prerelease photos. It’s a pretty interesting find actually. A hack hasn’t been released yet, but i imagine it will soon.

On Youtube we can also see a video of Keytotruth, who managed to hack his/her way into the data and play around in it.

Thanks to Granville for the contribution!

Images:

Videos:

Playstation, Sony

Chrono Cross [PSX – Beta]

monokoma

04-06-2010

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Chrono Cross is a RPG developed and published in 1999 by Squaresoft for the original PlayStation. As we can read on Wikipedia, Square began planning Chrono Cross immediately after the release of Xenogears in 1998. Chrono Trigger’s scenario director Masato Kato had brainstormed ideas for a sequel as early as 1996, following the release of Radical Dreamers.

Developers brainstormed traits and archetypes during the character-creation process, originally planning 64 characters with unique endings that could vary in three different ways per character. As production continued, the length of Cross increased, leading the event team to reduce the number of characters to 45 and scrap most of the alternate endings.

More info about the Chrono Cross beta can be found in the Chrono Compendium:

Before the official release of Chrono Cross, Square Enix marketed a PlayStation release of Chrono Trigger and attached a demo of the game to it and Legend of Mana.[…] This demo has allowed a short look into the late stages of the development of Chrono Cross, offering a few prizes such as a scrapped facial portrait of Kid and missing playable characters.
Serge’s Swallow is tinted green and looks like the Mastermune.
Once the Fort Dragonia sequence is concluded, Serge wakes up in Arni and is instructed to find Leena as usual. Una has no portrait, hampering the suggestion that she was once planned to be a playable character.
The most glaring difference is the presence of a seemingly new character in Pierre’s slot. Since Pierre’s dialogue icon was already in its final state, it’s probable that this was an earlier design for Pierre.
There’s a different Viper Manor Study window.
There’s a different Lucca drawing.
Yasuyuki Honne is the artist of the Chrono series, and made some background art that was never used in the final game.

There’s also an incomplete debug room in the beta demo and some unused characters can be seen in the Chrono Cross artbook.

Also, GlitterBerri translated the Chrono Cross Ultimania interview in which we can read about some ideas that were never used in the final game. You can read the full interview at BerriBlue or in the Chrono Compendium.

Thanks to ace.dark and Megalol for the contributions!

Images:

Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

God of War 2 [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma

03-06-2010

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God of War 2 is an action adventure developed by SCE Studios Santa Monica and published in 2007 by Sony for the PlayStation 2. In the final game it’s possible to unlock a bonus video in which to take a look at some removed levels, as the Colosseum, an Aquaduct, the Rhode’s Marketplace, Atlantis and The Tomb, plus some test / debug levels as the one in the river. An unused move was also found in the game’s code.

Videos:

Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

The Protector [PS3 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

02-06-2010

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In 2006, Eurocom began working with Sony Computer Entertainment on a PlayStation 3 exclusive project titled The Protector. Development progressed far enough that voice recording sessions had already begun by 2007. However, the game was ultimately cancelled in early 2008. Because the project was never officially announced, very little information about its gameplay, story, or overall design has ever been publicly revealed.

Following the cancellation of The Protector, Eurocom continued developing several licensed and original titles between 2008 and 2009, including Quantum of Solace (PlayStation 2 version), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, G-Force, and the Wii-exclusive shooter Dead Space: Extraction, developed in collaboration with Electronic Arts.

Andrew Spinks, who worked on the storyboards and animations for The Protector, kindly shared his artwork and a series of screenshots with us along with some memories of this lost project:

“I was hired as a freelance storyboard artist by Eurocom to storyboard 3 key cutscenes for the demo version of “The Protector”, a planned PS3 Sony exclusive set for release early on in the PS3’s history. I eventually went to work in-house at the Eurocom studios in Derby and remember playing on the demonstration models of the PS3 which we have sent to us. I spent around 3 months working freelance before being hired by the company as a junior animator to animate the cameras in the cutscenes that I had storyboarded, using 3D Max. I completed two sets of storyboards before going to work in Derby and the first set took around 2 and a half months, they were quite detailed and essentially some of my best work at that time. A deadline was set to redraw the majority of the storyboards, I guess before submission to Sony, adding camera movements as a side directional element. I managed to fulfill this task in a short time span and the new storyboards became grittier and more visceral as a result. The parallels between this game, The Protector (2007), and The Last of Us (2009), has never really ever been addressed or hinted at before, but I do feel that Sony might have used some form of inspiration from this cancelled game that we were working on to help develop The Last of Us. I remember working with the design team when possible to make our central character, more beaten and world weary. I remember saying to people, “Make him older, give him lines of distinction, like Humphry Boggart.” And that the character model should always be alert and looking around instead of being static. When I saw the first trailer for The Last of Us, I can’t lie, I saw our game. The parallels are astounding. The central character of Joel is very much who and what we were developing and the Joel and Ellie dynamic was also present in The Protector. In The Protector, you played a hired-gun essentially who’s job was to rescue the American president’s children who had been kidnapped by a guerilla faction after a plane crash. And yes, there was a young girl character amongst those children who very much had a similar age and manner as Ellie.”

Images:

Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Opposite Lock (Wreckin Crew) [PSX Saturn – Beta]

monokoma

01-06-2010

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Update: thanks to GalacticeMage, we found out that Opposite Lock was an early beta version of Wreckin Crew! The graphic style remained the same, but the screenshot in the gallery below is probably from a target render (also the HUD is different). Check the video from the final game for a comparison.

Opposite Lock is a cancelled racing game that was in development by QUICKDRAW DEVELOPMENT / Telstar for the Playstation, Saturn and PC. Celine found a screenshot of this project in PlayMag magazine issue #4: it seems that Opposite Lock was going to be an arcade with colorful graphic and stylized vehicles based on real-life cars (as Chevrolet and Ford). It’s currently unkown why the game was canned.

Here’s the original press release:

Based around a blisteringly fast game engine, Opposite Lock is an arcade style, 3D hot rod racing game that also includes combat and stunt driving aspects. With most driving games nowadays concentrating on showing off the polygon engine rather than presenting a fast and furious racing game, Opposite Lock sets out to redress this balance by putting the FUN back into the genre. Modern racing games tend towards the simulation end of the driving spectrum and ignore the qualities that made Hard Driving, Power Drift and Mario Kart so popular. Opposite Lock offers you the chance to drive a whole host of stylised and customised vehicles from 1957 Chevrolets to Ford pickups, each with their own individual attack moves. There are stunt tracks, cup competitions and head to head modes, not to mention a demolition derby competition and a complete action replay and video editing suite to play back and save your favourite moments.
– Multi-player option that allows up to 32 players on a network.
In-game pickups and upgrades, including weapons, nitros and repair kits.
– Over 100 different road side objects which interact with the players car. Hit a tyre stack and the tyres bounce all over the track!
– Full screen VGA and SVGA modes ensure that you are in the thick of the action at all times.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Video (from the final version):