Crusader is a series of action-oriented computer games developed by Origin Systems and published by Electronic Arts. The series consists of two titles: Crusader: No Remorse, released in 1995, and Crusader: No Regret, released in 1996. [Info from Wikipedia] In 2006 a tech demo for a new / remake Crusader (called Crusader: No Pity) for the PSP was created by Outsider Development and pitched to EA, but the company was not interested in funding development. As we can read in an article by The Gaming Liberty:
“they had a functional version which I found quite impressive, but they didn’t have any luck convincing EA to let them finish and release it.”
Thanks to Denis Murphy for the contribution! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
Final Fantasy XIII is an RPG developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2009 / 2010. First appearing at E3 2006, FF13 runs on the Crystal Tools engine, a seventh generation multiplatform game engine built by Square Enix for its games.
Toriyama, director of FFXIII, commented a bit on the differences between the PS2 and PS3 versions of the game. FFXIII was originally in development for the PS2, but underwent a platform change following May 2005.
There is apparently very little shared between the two versions. The graphical elements that were prepared for the PS2 couldn’t be used, explained Toriyama. “The areas that we kept are the Fabula Nova Crystallis world, the pieces of the mythology related to FFXIII, and the character details. On the other hand, the battle and gameplay systems were restarted from scratch when production moved to the PS3.”
The development staff also underwent some changes. “During development for the PS2, the staff was centered on the Final Fantasy X-2 team. However, in an effort to work with the new PS3 hardware, many new staff members are now taking part.”
As reported by Siliconera and Kotaku, according to art director Isamu Kamikokuryou, many additional areas that were functioning in an unreleased build, from Team Nora’s secret base, to Lightning’s home and even a zoo, were cut from the game owing to concerns about the game’s length and volume. Kamikokuryou additionally remarked that the volume of content cut was, in itself, enough to make another game. [Info from Wikipedia]
Zero7 noticed some beta differences in the early screens released (preserved in the gallery below):
Mock up HUD, completely changed in the final
Fang at one hour in? You cannot meet her so soon in the final
Snow had a slightly different coat
The black-haired girl has a different outfit
If you can notice more differences in the early screens and videos, please let us know!
Thanks to Robert Seddon, Zero7 and Anonymous for the contributions!
Big Guns (Exodus) is a cancelled shooter / action game that was in development by Neversoft Entertainment in 1996 / 1997. They were able to create a good-looking playable tech demo for this project that was shown to Shiny Entertainment on June 1996 to demonstrate their 3D engine in hopes that Shiny would hire them to develop the MDK Playstation port.
As we can read at the Playstation Museum, a coop mode was also available:
Exodus features a fast and furious two player cooperative play. Two player mode does not suffer from any slowdown as a result of the superior 3D engine. What makes Exodus stand out is that both players can combine their mechs into one larger mech. In transformation mode, player one would control the bottom half of the mech including walking and firing at enemies while player two would control the upper half which allows for 360 degree swivel as well as firing upon enemies.
Shiny was impressed with their technology and Neversoft started to work on the MDK conversion (that used the Big Guns engine), while the Big Guns concept was sold to Sony Computer Entertainment America.
Big Gus was meant to be published by SCEA in 1998, but 1997 was a tumultuous year for Neversoft. The MDK conversion took far longer than expected, and Big Guns, renamed Exodus, went through numerous design changes at the behest of Sony. Somehow Exodus was changed from a mech shooter to an action adventure featuring a cat-girl (sadly, we don’t have any image from this version of the game). The project was doomed and it was eventually cancelled in November 1997.
Neversoft shrunk to just twelve employees. The company then spent the next few months shopping around their technology, meeting with numerous companies and looking for work.
In January 1998, just as Neversoft was about to run out of money, they had a fortunate meeting with Activision who were looking for someone to re-develop Apocalypse, a failed internal project featuring the voice of Bruce Willis. The technology developed for Big Guns turned out to be ideal for the project, Activision wase impressed and Neversoft began work on Apocalypse.
In the end Big Guns / Exodus was never released, but at least its 3D engine was used for 2 other games: MDK and Apocalypse.
The Fallen is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development in 1995 / 1996 by Sensory Deception and it would have been published by Psygnosis for the original Playstation and PC. Sadly just few screenshots were found by Celine in CD Consoles magazine issue #19 and Edge magazine issue #33.
Below you can read the story / setting of the game, as announced at E3 1996:
The Lords are the law enforcers of the future, maintaining their own brand of vicious law and order in cities across the U.S. The Fallen are their prey, the drop-outs from society who fall foul of The System and want to find their own way without rules. When the two meet, only chaos can follow.
Play Lord or Fallen in this huge and minutely detailed strategic adventure which takes you from coast to coast across America and offers so many real-life options, you’ll think you’re there. And with bribery, corruption, gambling and violence all on the agenda, there might not be the place you want to be.
Some of the promised features:
Unique characterisation system introduces realistic characters capable of complex interaction.
Fully textured real-time 3D graphics.
Non-linear structure allows the player to dictate the action strategy.
Huge array of fully interactive vehicles, weapons and special objects.
Combat includes hand-to-hand fighting, vehicle ramming and use of futuristic weapons.
Multi-player options (PC version)
Even if we don’t know much about the project, from this description it seems that the gameplay could have been somehow similar to a futuristic Grand Theft Auto. The Fallen was cancelled for unknown reasons, maybe because it was too ambitious for 1996.
If you know someone who worked on this game and can share some more info or media, please let us know!
Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
Sorcery is a cancelled fighting game that was in development for the original Playstation in 1997 / 1998 by Sony Interactive Studios America, later renamed to 989 Studios (Sony’s San Diego team). Players would have been able to choose between many fantasy characters that used fighting moves and spells to battle their opponents.
The first concept of Sorcery was much different from the playable prototype, as originally 989 Studios wanted to develop an ambitious multiplayer RPG, with a big overworld, quests and huge cast of characters. Because of the limitations of the PSX hardware and for economic reasons, Sony ordered the team to scale down the project to an arena fighting game (which was seen as more profitable / less risky).
As their own project was killed and because 989 Studios had no experience with fighting games, Sorcery went through various development issues that lead to its final cancellation after 2 years of work.
The original concept would have worked great in today’s on-line environment. The scope, which started out as a split screen, was to run around a large world, setting magical traps, using magic to detect and find your opponent, then finally tracking him down and combating him, kept getting whittled down further and further until it devolved into a magical arena fighting game, where opponents would stand across from each other in very small (fits on a single screen) arenas and dispatch each other with spells and counter spells.
Thanks to Stone and baphomet for the contributions! Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
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