Playstation 3 (PS3)

Saint Row 2 [X360/PS3/PC – Beta]

Saints Row 2 is a sandbox / action game game developed by Volition Inc and published by THQ for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2008. James Tsai,  SR2’s Lead Designer, in and interview with IGN revealed that some content had to be removed from the game before it was published:

JT: In the early stages of development we had some really crass stuff in the game, the kind of things that put you in that weird place where you’re laughing and squirming uncomfortably with guilt at the same time. One prototype had you driving a truck full of smuggled underage foreign prostitutes across the city while rival pimps rammed into you, knocking the girls out and cutting into your human trafficking profits. Another had you using a high pressure fire hose to wash homeless people off the street and into the gutter. Not exactly Nobel Prize material.

There was a lot of stuff we had in that didn’t register very high on the human decency scale, so we dialed some things back. For instance we changed the gender of the first character you encounter, since beating a female doctor to death with an IV stand wasn’t the impression we wanted to leave with the very first player action in the game. Instead, we have you beat a male doctor to death with an IV stand, to ease you into the killing.

From the early screens we can also notice various beta differences:

  • You can not customize characters in youe crib in the final
  • There was a different looking crib
  • Hideout has a different appearance
  • A pic shows  a cutscene that was removed

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Explodemon [PS3/Wii/PC – Prototype]

Explodemon! is an upcoming 2.5D side scrolling platform game in development by Curve Studios for PlayStation Network, Microsoft Windows and WiiWare. The project is described as “what Treasure would create if they mixed Yoshi’s Island with Half-Life 2”, and is inspired by elements from games as diverse as Street Fighter II, Halo, Super Metroid and Bangai-O.

In the personal blog of Jonathan Biddle, Design Director at Curve Studios, we can read an interesting series of articles about the development of Explodemon!, with images and videos from its early prototypes.  From his blog Jonatahn also released the December 2005 Explodemon proto, that you can download from here. Huge props!

There were always new games concepts bouncing around at Blue, and Jamie had a few, one of which was Exploding Robot 12. Jamie’s concept went something along the lines of humanity’s last hope – a robot that couldn’t stop himself exploding – being sent out to destroy the alien menace that was threatening all of mankind. From what I remember, it wasn’t so much a platform game, as an action puzzler, where you had to navigate sections that you didn’t want to destroy, as well as blow up the enemy spacecraft and whatnot. I always liked the idea, and my recent explosion-based thoughts lead me to wonder if it would translate well to a platform game. I mentioned it to Jamie and he was up for me carrying the idea on. The early builds even had the codename ‘R12’.

For more info on the Explodemondevelopment, check One Bit Beyond!

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For comparison, here’s the trailer from the final game:

 

Darkwatch 2 [Cancelled – Xbox 360 / PS3]

Darkwatch 2 is the cancelled sequel of the 2005 FPS that was developed by High Moon Studios and published for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. Few months after the release of the first game, High Moon started to work on Darkwatch 2, following the same gameplay and scenario of the original title but now with the graphic power of the PS3 and Xbox 360. The project was shown at the GDC 2006 with a beta build as the studio was trying to pitch the game to a new publisher, but it seems that they did not have any luck and Darkwatch 2 was never finished.

Thanks a lot to Dave Wilkins for his artworks!

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Crude Awakening [X360/PS3 – Cancelled]

Crude Awakening (aka The Crib) is a cancelled action / driving game that was in development by Pseudo Interactive in 2007 / 2008, planned to be released for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The project was meant to be a “next gen” Carmageddon with a different graphic approach: the idea behind it was to make it stylized, like Team Fortress 2, with a crazy cast of characters and a weird city to explore.

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As in the original Carmageddon, the player had to race a vehicle against a number of other competitors with a certain amount of time to complete each mission. More time may be gained by collecting bonuses, damaging the competitors’ cars or by running over pedestrians.

The Crude Awakening concept was quite funny (in a gruesome way), there would be different objectives and sometimes the objective was to hit only one type of pedestrian and avoid others. Crude awakening was basically Carmagedon HD including some reworks of old characters.

The game was going to be published and funded by SCI / Eidos (the original Carmageddon publisher, now known as Square Enix Europe), but later they changed their mind and canned the development. As Crude Awakening was a major project for Pseudo Interactive, its cancellation became one of the causes for the studio’s economic problems and the following closure. In april 2008, Pseudo was officially shut down and all their WIP projects vanished with them.

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As we can read in an old article at Gamespot:

However, whatever plans SCi had were subject to change once investors called for a change in upper management. Longtime CEO Jane Cavanagh resigned shortly thereafter, and the following month the new regime announced some drastic changes, including layoffs of 200 workers and the cancellation of more than a dozen games.

Only some artworks, concepts and few screens remain from Crude Awakening, preserved in the gallery below.

Thanks a lot to Roberto Robert, David Wu, Kay Huang, Heidi Klinck, Albert Alejandro, Bronwen Grimes and all the former Pseudo Interactive artists that helped us to preserve info and media from their lost project!

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Pixeljunk Shooter [PS3 – Beta]

Pixeljunk Shooter, is the fourth in a series of games made by Q games for the Sony Playstation 3. Your main goal in the game is to save the scientists that have been sent to investigate a planet, and solve puzzles while doing so.

In a prerelease video, we can see the difference between the unfinished game, and the final release.

To start with, the ship design. You can’t tell to well in the video, but it’s somewhat rounded. In the final version, it looks almost like a yellow fly.

Also, the scientists are colored more yellow in the final version. Here, they’re orange. The final version of the scientists are also more detailed.

Also, the temperature bar is VERY different from the final. The final is more segmented. For that matter, the entire HUD is beta here. There’s no display of how many gems you’ve found, it shows how many lives you have left when in the final there’s no way to tell, and the area that shows the scientists at the bottom right, shows how many are in the current area, and thier current status. Either saved, deceased, or still missing. Also, the  final version of the HUD is sort of a yellow and gold mix, and is designed and arranged slightly differently in the final.

Also to be seen in the video, Are somewhat of a beta version of the bats. They barely look LIKE bats at all in the beta. And also, the doors that bar you from leaving the section you’re in are different in design.

Also beta here, is the “water bomb”. It’s rather large. The final version, is at least HALF the size. This is not to be confused with the sponge however. Water bombs explode with water all over the place upon being dropped. The sponge sucks up water it’s been dropped in, and then releases over time upon being picked up. However, on the subject of the sponge, in the beta, it releases one steady stream of water. in the final, it realeases the water steadily, yes, but in a 5 way spread.

In the beta, the “points” the enemies leave behind are yellow. In the final, they are a deep red orange.

Back to the men in destress again. In the beta, most have a flag. In the final, most don’t. In fact, only 1 per level does. On another note, upon being put under water, the men will begin to swim in the beta. In the final, they just continue to stand there.

And lastly, the enemy life meters are red and white. In the final, they are red with a yellow border. Also, when an enemy dies in the beta, they make the same sound that the standard flying enemies in Pixeljunk Monsters do when they die.

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