New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Doomsday Rescue [GC/XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

Doomsday Rescue was an action / combat racing game  that was in development at Beyond Games in 2002 and it was going to be published by Midway.  The project was later cancelled as many other Beyond Games titles, probably because of the bankruptcy of the company.

[spoiler /Click here to read the original Midway press release/ /Hide the press release/] LOS ANGELES – May 22, 2002 (E3 Booth # 800, South Hall) – Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY), a leading software industry publisher and developer, announced today that Doomsday Rescue, an all-new combat racing game, is in development and scheduled to ship in 2003 for next-generation systems.

When a deadly asteroid shower hurtles toward earth, the collective governments of the world band together to save the human race by resettling on Mars. In order to ensure the revitalization of human life, key scientists, doctors and politicians from around the globe have been selected for transportation and relocation to Mars. To further guarantee the success of the resettled civilization, a planet-wide relocation lottery was held and a number of lottery-winning civilians have been granted seats on ships to the new settlement. As a hotshot driver for the Doomsday Rescue Corp., you embark on a frantic adrenaline-rush mission to find and deliver these key humans to their waiting transport ships within 24 hours. Doing your job means saving your own life. If you complete your rescue missions, you can resettle on Mars.

“Doomsday Rescue is the only combat racing game set in apocalyptic urban environments where players battle with rioting civilians to save themselves and the human race,” said Helene Sheeler, vice president of marketing, Midway. “With an engaging mix of time-based combat racing and sheer wanton destruction, Doomsday Rescue brings a fast-paced, tension-filled experience to next-generation consoles.”

In your quest to resettle the human race, crash and bash your way through seven free-roaming urban environments and destroy anything and anyone between you and your goal – including hordes of rioting civilians who know they aren’t included in the resettlement. Players must be on high alert as meteorite showers pummel and obliterate urban buildings, cars and civilians, presenting new obstacles and opportunities as the environments dynamically evolve on-the-fly.

To complete your mission and guarantee your own relocation to Mars, you must also defeat the Back Yard Rocket Federation (BYRF), a group of terrorists whose plans to steal your colonists puts the survival of the human race in jeopardy. With a real-time physics engine tuned for pick-up-and-play driving action, players can jump right in the driver’s seat and unleash total carnage from their transport vehicle with an awesome arsenal of weapons including machine guns, lasers, missiles, chain guns, cannons and more. [/spoiler]

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Highlander: The Gathering [PC – Cancelled]

Highlander Online (The Gathering) was a MMORPG that was in development by Kalisto Entertainment in 2001 / 2002, before the company was closed down. It was based on the series of films with the same name, but the project was probably cancelled in early development. A new Highlander game is coming out in 2010 for the PS3 and XBOX 360, but it’s not related to this unreleased MMORPG.

Thanks to Fishinsoup and Pierre-Mony for the contributions!

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Foo [PC – Cancelled]

Foo was an action / stealth game that was in development in 2002 by Idol FX and was going to be published by Singularity Software . As we can read in the original press release:

Set in ancient China, Foo will challenge players to enter palaces and temples in the dead of night, loot them, and escape before the sun rises. Before each game, players will be able to choose a selection of traps to take in with them for hindering the progress of rivals, although every trap component carried will make movement slower and mean less room for hauling treasure. There will be five different characters in the game including a dragon, a tiger, an ape, a panda, and a rat–each with its own unique set of skills and characteristics. The game will also boast a random level generator, ensuring that no two games ever have to be the same.

The game was never finished and it vanished with its developer team.

Thanks to Lord Deathsaur for the contribution!

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Lemmings [Arcade – Prototype]

Lemmings is a puzzle  game developed by DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and published by Psygnosis in 1991, originally for the Commodore Amiga.

The popularity of the game on the Amiga led to its rapid porting to many other platforms, and is considered to be one of the most widely-ported video games of all time. [Info taken from wikipedia]

The Lemmings Arcade prototype was never released in arcades, though a playable version for PC was found and dumped many years after 1991. It seems that they had planned on using a trackball and buttons to control it, though my friend optiK and I have been discussing that it seems to be based more off the genesis build than anything. Still, it feels somewhat incomplete…

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Old Lemmings Into found in the original demo.

This is an original concept art of lemmings made for show Psygnosis how the game was going to look like.

The disk the ORIGINAL demo shown to Psygnosis was on, SAVED when DMA's Dundee office shut down, and donated back to Russell Kay.

The original photo of the old intro.