Pac-Man Ghost Zone is a cancelled platform game that was in development in 1996 by Namco Hometek for the original playstation. This would have been the first 3D Pac Man game to be released for home consoles. Ghost Zone was previewed in various old magazines and it seems that it was even shown in some form at E3, but after a while Namco decided to kill the project for quality reasons. As we can read on the Playstation Museum:
We built a playable demo and even though there was some fun gameplay, the game just never felt right. The environments all felt too much the same and it was lacking a sense of grandeur found in other games like the recently released Mario 64. Japan must of felt the same way too – when we flew to Japan and presented it to Namco president Nakamura-San, he was very displeased. As a result, almost the entire team – save 1 designer (myself), 1 programmer (Gil Colgate) and 1 artist (Neil Strudwick) – were fired and we had to start again on what eventually became Pac-Man World.”
Thanks to Celine for the scans! (GamePro #100, Console+ #78, GameInformer #53)
Thrasher: Skate and Destroy is a skateboarding game developed by Z-Axis and released in 1999 for the PlayStation. Pcloadletter noticed various beta differences in some old screens and videos. Different HUD, some tricks do not register (nollie tricks especially), different start screen with 3 characters only and no multiplayer and many more.
A beta demo of Trasher: Skate and Destroy seems to have been leaked online, its a combination of the early build/hud but with the (almost) final menus. All the character photos are here with one selectable at start. You can see a short bio instead of the stats. Also one of the three levels unlocked.
The coolest part I found is the camera control. Pressing L2 + a direction changes views on the fly; up = overhead, right = regular chase, down = far/wide chase and left = first person. Sometimes switching on the fly will crash the demo but its interesting to play in first person at least. I’m not aware of that in the final game at all.
Its weird because many advanced tricks are available but not some of the default basics. L1 is the control for certain grinds (missing) nollie tricks (missing completely), wall rides (these work), and manuals (incomplete). Manuals do not score points or register and have glitchy animations. If you move it cancels out and will in a short time on its own regardless. So far only the nose manual will work on a downslope or landing in a pipe. L1+x is used to switch stance or revert. A difference is a missing hud logo with only a text indicator of “switch”. Also if you hold R1+L1+x you will do a unique trick where the board switches but you hold position. This was removed from final, its kind of cool even if pointless. […]
In the courthouse level itself many textures are different and the lighting seems darker or maybe its the popup. Some logos are not on ramps and there is a missing trash can from final. If you try to exit the gates (different texture from final) the menu type is weird. […]
There is also a text file on both demo and final called OPTIONS.txt. They look like they related to debug but I don’t really know. The only difference from final is the first option for ztuneDebugPrint set to NO. In final it is set to YES. The dates are 7/27/1999 and 10/20/1999. It was released 10/31/1999. I don’t know if that relates directly to the build of the game but 3 months pre-release would be believable with all the differences I noticed already. […]
Comparing the text visible in hex editor has revealed some minor differences. There is no reference to the passwords, secret character Beesuit Guy, or character stats (but all descriptions are present in final form). The memory card functions are incomplete but 1/3rd present. From some general text there appears to be a test level called “gametest” in a missing map area called “Debugville”.
NBA Elite 11 is a cancelled basketball game that was in development by Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, meant to be the first installment in the NBA Elite series, succeeding EA’s NBA Live series. As we can read in Wikipedia, NBA Elite 11 was originally planned to be released on October 2010, but the game was delayed until March 2011 due to “concerns about gameplay polish”. Basically, the game had too many problems, gamers we not happy with the demo and EA decided to cancel it.
The game’s cancellation was officially announced on November 2010 and development of the franchise was moved from EA’s Black Box studio to its Florida-based Tiburon studio. EA has stated that it will instead release free DLC for last year’s NBA Live 10, including roster updates for the 2010–11 NBA season.
EA recently conducted “seasonal layoffs,” though the company says its current restructuring efforts are “relatively small.” Part of this restructuring appears to be moving the NBA Elite series, which it does plan to bring back in the future, from EA Black Box to EA Tiburon.
Analysts estimated that NBA Elite 11’s delay was going to cost EA somewhere in the realm of $60 million with around 1 million in lost sales for this fiscal year, so now those estimated numbers may be straight up losses. NBA Elite 11 was reportedly delayed over quality concerns, which freed up pack-in NBA Jam for a solo release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Gunhead is an action game that was in development by Electronic Arts Vancouver, but very little is known about this project other than a few concept arts that were leaked and posted in gaming forums in december 2009. It seems that Gunhead was an internal pitch at EA that will never see a release, as we can assume from the following quote published on Blue’s News:
On the off chance you were interested in more info on this EA project, the gist of it is that the main character is a guy whose head is a gun. That’s it,” he tells us. “EA has been trying to get this game made for ages now. … It was a pretty lame idea, and we had no real interest in developing it for them. Every so often, I hear it pop up here and there, and it makes me laugh that they are still trying. I really must wonder who’s baby the idea is for it to not have died a well deserved death yet…
The concept arts look really nice, so we can hope that more screens or videos could be preserved in the future.
Dark Guns is a cancelled shooter / action game that was in development from 1997 to 1999 by a SCEA team (989 Studios?) headed by David Jaffe, planned to be released for the Playstation. The original concept was for a run and gun 3rd person shooter, but it soon evolved into a flying-shooter, in which players would had took the role of a UFO, to destroy real-life cities and abduct humans to use them for alien esperiments. A playable beta was created (as we can see from the photo of the disc, revealed by Jaffe) before they decided to stop the works on the project, because of some development and managment issues.
David Jaffe talked about Dark Guns in various interviews, that we can read on Gamespot and Gamasutra:
“I had come off Twisted Metal 2,” Jaffe said. “They gave me a blank check and said, ‘Do whatever you want.’ Anybody who was looking at $2 million–at the time that was a lot of money–to do an overhead shooter…that should have been a red flag. To have a design document that was 300 pages for anything, let alone an overhead shooter, should have been a red flag. And then being told the producer and the designer was the same person and that person was someone who had never produced a game in his life… All three of these things came up during the pitch. A number of people, including myself, should have said, ‘Let’s rethink this.”
“Everything about that game came from negativity, and after four years they pulled the plug,” he continued. “And I’m glad they did. I remember when that game was cancelled I realized, that was a huge opportunity and I blew it. No one gets that opportunity, and I wasted it. So after I did another Twisted Metal game my boss came to me and asked again, ‘What do you want to make next?’ And it was really for me a chance to do it right.”
We can only hope that in the future some Dark Guns screens or videos could be preserved too.
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