New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Crash Bandicoot: Landed (2010) [Cancelled – Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii / DS]

Crash Bandicoot: Landed 2010 is a cancelled game in the Crash Bandicoot series, which wasn’t even officially announced but some info leaked from the people who worked it. These info were soon removed from their websites: Crash 2010 was meant to be a 3d Adventure / Action game in developement by Radical Entertainment. It was cancelled due to layoffs by Activision in February 2010.

Many information were leaked after the cancellation but left unnoticed until August 2010, when they were found by some users in the Crash Mania Forums. There is a short gameplay / cgi footage and also some concept art. Crash Mania members made a petition to make activision continue working on the game but it was unsuccessful, partially due to abuse of the petition (ie. obvious sockpuppetry). A new petition has been started, and has so far not suffered these problems.

Recently, an fx demo was leaked by someone as a demo reel video. The owner of the reel video said that game would not be continued because of Activision. When the fans added the video to Youtube, Activision started removing them but many of these are still available.

Console Game!
Crash Bandicoot 2010 (Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii)
Design and implementation of character locomotion and weapon/combat using proprietary software
Open World Mission Design
Game Systems Design Documentation
Weapons/Tools
Interface
Game Economy
Boss design

Another video with items was found, in which we can see some interesting stuff about the canceled game!

  • Frogzooka [Suck]
  • Boombat [Blow… Away]
  • Glow Top [Stun/Light]
  • Fertilizer Gun [Shoot]
  • Bottle Rocket-Launcher [Ending/Surf]
  • Jet pack
  • Jet ski

Post by MotweraCity

Videos:

DS Footage (Developed by Renegade Kid):

Pictures video for similar visually done game (CTR 2010):

Also Effects Video in this link: http://landinkent.blogspot.com/p/game-fx.html

Cold Fear [Beta – XBOX PS2 PC]

Cold Fear is a 3rd person shooter horror title developed for the PS2, Xbox, and PC. Developed by DarkWorks, published by Ubisoft and released in 2005.

Development:

Cold Fear didn’t start as a horror title, based on information and speculation, darkworks was working on several new projects with several publishing and developing houses. In 2003 when DarkWorks was working with Capcom thier project: Lost Mantis/USS  Antarctica was canned. In 2004 DarkWorks worked with Namco U.S. on a new title. The game was Time Crysis Adventure. However the game, much like Lost Mantis, was canned, but not before Ubisoft stepped in and took over the project. TC: Adventure evolved into the game Cold Fear. There are several Concept Art images that remain of Time Crysis: Adventure. You can view the Concept Art below:

Alpha Stage:

Prior to the games release Cold Fear orignally looked more detailed and gritty. The enviroments showcased in these screenshots are different in the final version – similar but different. The main chracter in this build was not from the USCG (United States Coast Guard) but part of the Navy Seals and was involved in the operation that invaded the russian ship at the begining of the game.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE THE SCREENSHOTS)

 

Tom Hansen Background

In the alpha build, Tom Hansen was a 29 year old captain of the navy seals – he wasn’t part of the USCG (United States Coast Guard). It can be assumed that – much like the final version – the navy seals was wiped out. Making Tom Hansen the last survivor on the russian ship. It’s possible that Tom was the leader of that Navy Seal group.

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Popcorn (Short Fuses) [PSX – Cancelled]

Popcorn is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by Eighth Wonder in 1997 / 1998 for the original Playstation. In the nineties Rare was one of the most prolific developer on Nintendo platforms. So it was quite a shock when in 1997 a small number of employees (game designer Oliver Davies; software engineers Oliver Norton, Steve Patrick, and Jeff Stafford; and two artists, Christopher Gage and Adrian Smith later replaced by Andrew Wood and Jemie Hemming) left the company to form a new studio called Eighth Wonder funded by no other than Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Nintendo main competitor at the time.

The deal had SCEE committed to publishing the new development house’s first three titles, with an option to pick up the next three. The first title in the work by this promising studio was an action/adventure game named Popcorn (also known as Short Fuses) that was similar to a 3D Bomberman clone but with puzzles and exploration elements.

Popcorn featured six world themes, each with three levels and after you beat the boss of each world you could progress to the next one and use the boss as a playable character (more than 10 playable characters including the hidden ones were planned such as a knight or a female ninja). The games was said to sport nice lighting effects, high resolution graphics (512×240) and a consistent framerate at 30 FPS.

At E3 1998 the game displayed under the Sunsoft booth so it is likely that Sunsoft would have been the american publisher. However as often happen with very publicized deals that involve many projects, Eighth Wonder are believed to have experienced a number of internal problems and, by 1999, the studio no longer existed relegating Popcorn into obscurity.

Thanks to Celine for the scan! (Console+ magazine issue 78 and Edge issue 60)

Images:

Bit.Trip Series [WiiWare – Unused Stuff]

Bit.Trip is a series of action / music games that has been released on Wiiware download service for the Nintendo Wii. The series has been started in 2009 and finished in 2011. It was developed by Gaijin Games and published by Aksys Games. Each game revolves around the adventures of a character named “Commander Video”, and features “a crazy mix of 80s aesthetics and modern game design”. (Info from Wikipedia)

Six games have been released for Bit.Trip:

  • Bit.Trip Beat, first one of the series, which introduces a style of pong;
  • Bit.Trip Core, second one of the series, which introduces a style of more peculiar rhythm, similar of Dance Machines;
  • Bit.Trip Void, third one of the series, which introduces a different rhythm;
  • Bit.Trip Runner, fourth one of the series, introduces a new style, with 2D Platformer with rhythm;
  • Bit.Trip Fate, fifth one of the series, introduces a new style of side scroller shooting with rhythm;
  • Bit.Trip Flux, sixty one of the series, Gaijin games have returned the Bit.Trip Beat style.

Some of those games have unused stuff hidden in their code, such as animations and sound effects.

Bit.Trip Beat

There is a different game over screen in the first game of the serie. Later, it’s never have been used:
Video:

Bit.Trip Core

In Bit.Trip Core, there are still sprites for WiiRemote that appears in Bit.Trip Beat, probably the game could be different.

ControllerSideArrow

Bit.Trip Void

There is some testing stuff into the title screen folder. It’s really unknown about it:

BendIndirect BendTest

Bit.Trip Runner

There is a unused idle animation, which probably would be used if the player left controller. Maybe, just discovering this animation, the game could be a lot of different, it could probably a sidescroller which you could move manually, and if stops, it could appear this animation rarely. However, Bit.Trip series have the main goal of rhythm, so they retired the animation and did as automatic sidescroller game (probably).

Video:

Bit.Trip Fate
Originally planned to be a more traditional shooter where CommanderVideo was in a ship and he had free movement around the screen. The game also did not use pointer controls or the “fate line” until a later date.

Bit.Trip Flux
Started off using Breakout style gameplay during the normal course of the levels, but was cut because it simply wasn’t that fun. Bosses also used to be at the beginning of each level, reinforcing the reverse nature of the game, but that upset the pacing right away.

The whole serie:There is a sprite which appear in all the games, into the game files. Probably, it’s only used in Japanese Version:
arclogo
Those sprites only appears on the Japanese version of the game:
ware01_void
Translation: BIT.TRIP VOID’s sytem file is corrupt.
After erasing BIT.TRIP VOID from the Channel Management Screen, please redownload BIT.TRIP VOID from the Wii Shopping Channel.
If you still get the same message afterwards, please contact the Nintendo Service Center.

ware01_core
Translation:
BIT.TRIP CORE’s sytem file is corrupt.
After erasing BIT.TRIP CORE from the Channel Management Screen, please redownload BIT.TRIP CORE from the Wii Shopping Channel.
If you still get the same message afterwards, please contact the Nintendo Service Center.

ware01_runner
Translation: BIT.TRIP RUNNER’s sytem file is corrupt.
After erasing BIT.TRIP RUNNER from the Channel Management Screen, please redownload BIT.TRIP RUNNER from the Wii Shopping Channel.
If you still get the same message afterwards, please contact the Nintendo Service Center.

Thanks to Gabrielwoj and Susumu (translation) for the contributors.