New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

32X / Mega CD, Sega

European Racers [Mega Drive / Genesis Sega Mega CD – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
01-10-2011
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Revell-Monogram had announced the release of European Racers, the first title in its revolutionary new Power Modeler software line for June 1994. The Sega CD version of European Racers was planned for released later in the year and was to be published by Dreamers Guild.

The driving simulation game can be played with any of the four super-hot European racers (Porsche 911 Slant Nose, the turbo- charged Bugatti EB110, the Italdesign Nazca M121, and the Lamborghini Countach) and begins with a challenging, exciting and realistic race through the back roads of Europe, dodging obstacles and sometimes outrunning the police to arrive at one of four tracks: the Zurich Switchback, the Sicilian Jackknife, the Barcelona Corkscrew or the Stuttgart Screamer. If gamers make it to the track on time, before running out of gas or incurring too much damage to their car, they then face-off against five on-screen competitors, in an action-packed, five- lap race.

Randomly selected video segments appear throughout the game, featuring a policeman, a knowledgeable pit crew member, a sportscaster, a smart-alecky custodian, a gas-station attendant and an admiring beauty queen, to add excitement and unparalleled realism.

Gamers can modify their car, before and during the race, to change its performance in response to randomly generated weather and road conditions. Modifications include switching between automatic and manual transmission, and selecting from five wing or spoiler settings and three tire options. Gamers must also determine how much fuel to start the race with and whether or not to refuel to avoid running out and ending the game.

To make the game as realistic as possible, technical specifications for each car have been built into the game to simulate the actual performance of each of the European sports cars.

Article by myfishbone

Nintendo, Nintendo DS

Gauntlet [DS – Cancelled]

monokoma
27-09-2011
9 Comments

Gauntlet DS is the cancelled chapter of the popular hack and slash series, that was in development at Backbone Entertainment and it would have been published by Eidos Interactive / Midway Games. The game should have been released in October 2008, but after its initial announcement, the project vanished from their release list. There’s not any official statement, but it’s possible that Gauntlet DS was canned for economic reasons.

The bankruptcy of Midway Games, owners of the Gauntlet license, could be one of the reasons behind the game’s death. The game would have had local wireless and online four-player mode, 40 maps, and voice chat capabilities. We really hope that in the future a playable version of this game could be leaked and preserved, it looked like an awesome coop-game!

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GameCube, Nintendo

Marionette [GameCube – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
24-09-2011
3 Comments

Marionette is a mysterious cancelled project that was in development for the Gamecube. At E3 2001, Nintendo accidentaly announced on its online release list three mysterious titles: Super Mario Sunshine, Mario 128, and Marionette. This list was pulled shortly after it was published, but the curiosity of gamers piqued.

Later, during an interview with IGN, Shigeru Miyamoto spoke out on these games in a roundtable (August, 2001)

“And as for Marionette, it is still under development. It is not a Mario game, but an actual Marionette game utilizing a puppet. I am hoping to make something both complicated and simple at the same time [with this game], which is kind of a contradiction. But already we are experimenting. And once again, sometime in the future we may be able to show you something on it.”

The game was toyed around with in concept stages (on both N64 and GameCube), but it was never actually developed in full form. As we can read in another IGN article:

“Marionette is probably more suited for something like the Wii,” said Miyamoto. “However, that type of game is difficult. Just looking at it, it seems to be fun, but then you get the feeling of, ‘Well, what do I do now?’.” Miyamoto feels that in order to make such a game last, you have to give it, among other things, a strong story.

Nintendo Dream noted that the title would be perfect for the Wii, as manipulating a marionette would be enjoyable with the Wii remote. The magazine also pointed out that the Japanese spelling of the name breaks down perfectly to “Mario” and “Net,” suggesting network features. Still, Miyamoto had some partially disappointing news. “We’re not working on it any more. However, we’d like to release something like it with the right timing, so we’re preserving it in the form of its story elements. When Marionette was being planned, we were trying to use the N64 controller in interesting ways. However, if we now use the Wii remote controller, it seems that those types of interesting elements would appear more naturally.”

Sadly, Nintendo never released any images or other media from this cancelled project.

Thanks to Mr. Game for the contribution!

Microsoft, Xbox

Grabbed by The Ghoulies [Beta – Xbox]

monokoma
24-09-2011
2 Comments

Grabbed by The Ghoulies is an action game that was developed by Rare and released for the original Xbox in 2003. As we can read on Wikipedia, before any details of the game were publicised, it was widely considered that Grabbed by the Ghoulies would be the subtitle to the next Conker the Squirrel game, after Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The game was originally intended to be a much larger in scope open-world platformer but due to the Microsoft buyout in 2002 and time constraints a simpler design and concept was adopted.

Grabbed by The Ghoulies was initially going to be released on the Nintendo GameCube and in the final Xbox game you can unlock a trailer from E3 2001, that should show the project when it was still on the Nintendo console (you can find it below). Thanks to Rareware Archives we can see many concept arts and beta screens, that show early designes of the characters, unused enemies and other interesting differences. As we can read in their description for the Grabbed by The Ghoulies beta 2001 video:

A lot has certainly changed from the game we’re familiar with, as the video includes a few cut enemies mucking about, early working models for the Zombie Ghoulies and Coopers girlfriend Amber and a surprise from Gweneth, the sneering Ghouly at the end, who was ultimately cut as well.

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