New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Mario vs. Donkey Kong [GBA – Beta / Unused]

monokoma
13-03-2010
No Comments

Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a Game Boy Advance spiritual sequel to the first Donkey Kong game for Game Boy, developed by NTS in 2004. The game concept revolves around a combination of platform and puzzle elements, challenging Mario to find keys, reach a locked door, and rescue mini-Marios. [Info from Wikipedia]

Upaluppa and Kiiro found many unused stuff and beta levels still hidden in the final game’s code, as a a prototype version of the MvsDK e-card levels, Mini Marios trapped inside crystal balls as keys, some unused coins / stars and a working level editor. It’s possible that the Level Editor evolved from the unreleased Donkey Kong Plus.

Also, an unused Bomb-Ombs behavior. As wrote by upaluppa:

they start running around scared, just like Shy-Guys do, when Mario is equipped with the hammer! You’ll never see them running normally, because none of the levels with Bob-Ombs includes hammers…

Thanks to Hiccup for the contributions!

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Videos: Read more

GameCube, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Crushed Baseball 2004 [PS2/GC – Cancelled]

monokoma
13-03-2010
No Comments

Crushed Baseball 2004 is a cancelled Baseball game that was in development by Amaze Entertainment for the Playstation 2 and GameCube, that would have been published by Bam! Entertainment. It was meant to be an over-the-top arcade game (similar to Sega Soccer Slam), featuring crazy characters (you can see a human-shark in the screens below) with superhuman abilities. As we can read from a GameSpot preview:

Special powers, known as mojo abilities in the game, will include pitches that slice through the hitter’s bat like a buzz saw, batters hitting the ball so that it lodges itself in the ground and can’t be picked up, and fielders using suction gloves to ensure that they don’t miss a catch.

Many of the mojo abilities in the game will have to be earned during matches played in one of the game’s fully interactive ballparks. For example, at the Karate Dojo stadium, players who hit a gong with the ball will be rewarded with a new ability, as will players who manage to smash a stained-glass window in the centerfield wall of one of the other stadiums.

Originally announced in october 2002, Crushed Baseball was scheduled for release in March 2003, but it was later cancelled probably because of the publisher’s economic problems. In 2004 BAM! Entertainment was delisted from NASDAQ and continuing financial troubles made it impossible for them to publish any new games.

A GameBoy Advanced version of Crushed Baseball was developed by Griptonite Games and published in September 2004 by Summitsoft Entertainment.

Thanks to Les Betterley for his help in preserving some more screens from this lost game!

Images:

Jaguar, Others

Conan [Jaguar – Cancelled]

monokoma
12-03-2010
8 Comments

Conan is a cancelled beat ’em up similar to Golden Axe that was in development by Arcade Zone for the Atari Jaguar. The french studio was closed down after Sony decided to not publish their latest Super Nintendo game, as the original Playstation arrived in Europe. Without another publisher they had to give up on releasing Nightmare Busters SNES and Arcade Zone had to shut down. Conan Jaguar vanished with their closure and it’s unknown how much of the game was finished before the cancellation.

At 1Up Games can read an interview with former Arcade Zone’s developers, in which they mention this unreleased beat ’em up:

Lyes Belaidouni: We even made an attempt on the Atari Jaguar, the stillborn console for which we developed (without bragging) the most beautiful beat’em up with huge sprites and monumental backgrounds ! But this, alas, no one has seen it…

Celine was able to find some screenshots of the game in magazines CD Consoles #2, #5 and GF #95

Images:

Leaked, Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox

Land of the Dead (Day of the Zombie) [PC XBOX – Beta]

monokoma
10-03-2010
3 Comments

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green is a FPS based on the George Romero zombie horror movie Land of the Dead, that was developed by Brainbox Games (now Digital Extremes) and published in 2005 by Groove Games, for PC and the original XBOX. As we can read on Mobygames, the project was originally developed as a singleplayer PC game called “Day of the Zombie”, which had a 4 months development cycle and was ready for October 2004 release.

Day of the Zombie was shown to Universal Studios around the time the movie Land of the Dead was being filmed in Toronto, Canada (where Groove Games is headquartered) – this is how the license was secured. The game was ported to Xbox, multiplayer functionality was added and environments were added to tie the game to the movie.

In April 2009, a Youtube user posted a video from Day Of The Zombie, with a link to download a playable beta of the game. This leaked version is very similar to Land of the Dead, but it’s currently unknown if it’s really the original Day of The Zombie project or just a mod of the released game.

Thanks to Alex for the contribution!

Videos:

Mega Drive / Genesis, Sega

Madness: House of Fun [GEN/MD – Cancelled]

monokoma
09-03-2010
6 Comments

Madness: House of Fun is a cancelled platform game based around the Ska music group with the same name, that was in development by Gremlin Graphics for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. The project was a “remake” of the original Gremlin’s Amiga title “Harlequin”, with new graphic, characters and Madness’ music. As Robert Hazelby (webmaster of Madness Information Service Online, a fan site of the group) wrote on the Total Madness mailing list:

I’m not sure if the band were actually going to be featured in the game as Gremlin devised some strange character (who’s name escapes me at the moment) who the player would control. In the background, it was planned that some awful 6 channel Yamaha sound-chip induced ditties would be playing away.

Unfortunately the bottom dropped out of the console market and Gremlin decided to can the Madness computer game and so it was never released. Ex MML subscriber Jacco Van’t Reit (did I spell that correctly) did offer his services with regards to helping to produce the game after he had worked on previous projects for the Gremlin team but this unfortunately didn’t happen.

Track down an Amiga and a copy of Harlequin to see how your Madness game would have played.

Thanks to Celine and Rod_Wod we were able to preserve many screens of Madness: House of Fun, that were found in some old magazines (as Mean Machine #17, Mega Force #17).

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