Beta + Cancelled Playstation 2 (PS2) Video Games - Page 10 of 87

The Ghostman is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by Kawaii Studio and Widescreen Games (mostly known for Dead to Rights II) around 2004 / 2005, planned to be released for PS2 and Xbox. The project was officially announced by Widescreen on their website, but was soon forgotten by everyone and vanished along with the team when they closed down in 2009 for bankruptcy.

The Ghostman was going to be similar to other ghost-based games, such as Murdered: Soul Suspect and Geist, using your “ghost powers” to resolve puzzles and combat your enemies. As we can read from the official fact-sheet:

“Winter in London. Nicolai Liptsky is killed by a strange mafia and becomes… a ghost. But he refuses to disappear unless he can save his family.
He discovers his new powers like possessing briefly abandoned bodies or moving objects by telekinesis. Now he travels back and forth between the world of the dead and the world of the livings.
Half of the time you will be a ghost (able to fly, to move objects with psychic force but invisible to the living people).
The other half you will briefly come back to life by reincarnating yourself in many different bodies! Of course you will get the skills of the bodies you use.
Key features
> Explore a fascinating universe: the ghost world.
> Use your ghost powers like telekinesis, flying or pass through some walls
> Come back to life and take control of different characters (“Body jacking”)
> Choose the best strategy to live your adventure. Dead or alive: it’s your choice!”

A few screenshots and a trailer for Ghostman are preserved below, to remember its existence.

Thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

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GameCube, Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

G.I. Joe: Operation Ultra [PS2, Xbox, GameCube – Cancelled]

monokoma

16-08-2019

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G.I. Joe: Operation Ultra is a cancelled action game that was planned by Radical Entertainment (mostly known for their The Simpsons: Road Rage, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Crash of the Titans, Prototype series) and Hasbro around 2002, to be developed for Playstation 2, Xbox and GameCube. As you probably assume it was meant to be a tie-in for the popular G.I. Joe franchise, conceived when Hasbro published a new G.I. Joe vs. Cobra toy line around the same time. While the game was never officially announced, in 2018 a former developer shared a few details and some photos from their design document:

“One day I’ll be able to discuss how in 2002, Hasbro and Radical Entertainment secretly concocted a mission-based G.I. Joe video game. Dubbed G.I. Joe: Operation Ultra, the game broke down into sixteen separate missions of 4 acts each. Developed for 6th generation consoles (XBox, PS2, and GameCube), Hasbro went quite far in the design process – to the extent where they assigned mapping for the consoles’ controllers.”

As far as we know, Radical Entertainment did not fully start development on the game and the project was canned before any prototype was made.

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Fall of the Artificer (Psygnosis) [PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma

25-07-2019

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Fall of the Artificer is a cancelled steampunk action adventure that was in development by Psygnosis Camden (later merged with Team Soho to form SCE London Studio) and Sony for their Playstation 2. The project was in development by the same team that previously worked on Kingsley’s Adventure, a fantasy action adventure released in 1999 for the original Playstation. In 2013 a few 3D models were found online and later Push Square asked a former developers more details on this lost game:

“I’m not sure how much I can say about the gameplay […] I’ll try and give an overview. It was a third-person action platformer with puzzle solving elements. It definitely had a steampunk feel to it, but it was also very magic-based.
I had designed a mechanical familiar for one of the main characters and based it on the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch but with legs […] I’d also designed some zombie gardeners as well.
There was a long way to go with the game’s production […] In a meeting showcasing future projects from other companies we noticed that another studio was doing something very similar and was far into production, so we called it a day.”

Thanks to another article on Retro Gamer magazine (June 2018), we know this similar game was Primal by Sony Cambridge studio:

[…] was working on Fall of the Artificer, a big-budget, high-concept, third-person action game. “It was going okay but then we visited our Cambridge studio and saw how they were getting on with Primal. […] We thought, ‘Holy shit, these guys know what they’re doing!’ That got us thinking maybe we should be doing something else.”

Unfortunately at the moment there’s not much more available on Fall of the Artificer. After the project was canned, the team worked on DropShip: United Peace Force and Eyetoy: Play.

Images:

Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Evil Twin 2: The Messenger [Cancelled – PS2]

monokoma

05-07-2019

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The original Evil Twin: Cyprien’s Chronicles was a horror platformer developed by UbiSoft and In Utero originally planned as a Dreamcast project, but then also released on PlayStation 2 and PC in late 2001 / early 2002. Players takes control over a young orphan called Cyprien, who is taken to a nightmarish world and possesses the ability to transform into a “demonic” version of himself.

As told us by Omar Cornut during an interview published in our “Video Games You Will Never Play” book, in 2002 In Utero started working on a sequel to Evil Twin, planned to be released on the Playstation 2:

“Near the end of the company they started designing and prototype what would become Evil Twin 2, with an older character manipulating a stick. After the company closed Diego, Nino and Cedric from In Utero formed their studio Fandango working on a PSP game called Carnival: Theorem One which I think was inspired by those early Evil Twin 2 design. The game unfortunately was not finished.”

This cancelled sequel was also referred to as “The Messenger”. While we were not able to get a confirmation (other former In Utero developers never replied to our emails unfortunately), we can speculate that as the first game received mixed reviews and low sales, they later decided to change their sequel into an original IP, trying to find another publisher.

In the end In Utero closed down soon after and Evil Twin never got a sequel. Only a couple of screenshots from their early Evil Twin 2 prototype are preserved in this page, to remember its existence.

If you know someone who worked on this lost game and could help us to save more, please let us know!

Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Perfect10 [PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma

23-06-2019

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Perfect10 is a cancelled adventure racing game that was in development around 2003 by Rage Games Birmingham. We don’t know much about its gameplay, but we can speculate it could have been similar to Road Trip Adventure (Choro Q HG 2), with a big open world to freely explore while driving around doing quests.

The project was never officially announced by the company and only a few 3D models / concept art were found online, preserved in the gallery below to remember its existence. As we can read on Wikipedia in 2000 Rage began to expand into publishing. However, the costs of publishing and a run of games that did not sell as expected eventually led to the company closing in January 2003 due to bankruptcy.

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