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New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

SimMars was a strategy game in development at Maxis around the same time as the release of the wildly popular Maxis game, The Sims. A trailer for the game was included on the SimCity 3000 CD. From the trailer, the premise of the game seemed to be a manned mission to the planet Mars, followed by a terraforming and colonization scenario, typical of the Maxis world-building game style. The game presumed to be an integration of previous Maxis titles presented in 3D, possibly including elements of SimEarth, SimLife, and SimCity.

In The Sims: Vacation, there was an arcade game titled SimMars and it had a detailed description about the game. This may or may not have been the real premise of the game:

“Direct mankind’s first mission to the red planet! Launch rockets and deploy robot probes! Deploy teams to search for alien resources! Establish and run a network of specialized colonies to create a self-sufficient civilization! Provide your colony with food, shelter, and power! Fast, furious, adrenaline-pumping action!”

As of May 12, 2000, Maxis has stated that “SimMars is on hold and we do not have staff at Maxis currently working on the game. With the phenomenal success of The Sims, we’ve decided to move resources to support that franchise as well as other titles that we haven’t even announced yet.”

Some elements of SimMars are used in the upcoming Maxis game Spore. – [Info from Wikipedia]

[Thanks to Solidshake for the contribute!]

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Others, PC / MAC

Sims Ville [PC – Unreleased]

U64 Staff & Contributors

07-04-2008

4 Comments

SimsVille was a cancelled computer game from Maxis that was to be a cross between The Sims and SimCity. It was announced before 2000, but cancelled in September 2001. The game was to offer the user control of a multitude of houses in a neighborhood in a fashion similar to The Sims. The cancellation came as Maxis decided to apply more of its staff to development of The Sims products. Many aspects of the game, such as a communal “downtown” area, were incorporated into the third expansion pack for The Sims, Hot Date. Also, several elements of Simsville, such as obtaining feedback from citizens, were used in Maxis’s next city simulation game, SimCity 4. Also, the fully 3D neighborhood view format was also used in The Sims 2.

The trailer can be seen on the SimCity 3000 Unlimited installation CD as well as The Sims: Livin’ Large expansion pack. – [Info from Wikipedia]

[Thanks to Solidshake for these images!]

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M2 / 3DO, Others

Dragon Ball Z: Cell To Kogeki Da [3DO – Unreleased]

U64 Staff & Contributors

07-04-2008

No Comments

Thanks to Guillaume Pascal that has translated the text in this scan: “You have to know that bandaï just have signed there their second game for the 3DO. After supervised ULTRAMAN on it, they started to work on the port of the Dragon Ball Z arcade game, the goal is simple, you must hit Cell. It’s not your typical fighting game though, it’s a true simulation of Dragon Ball Z, armed with a glove you must hit some buzzers (two according to the picture a left one for the left hand and a right one for the right hand) directly connected on the 3DO.”

Thanks to Gabriel Juan for the scan!

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32X / Mega CD, Sega

Virtua Hamster [Sega 32X – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

07-04-2008

3 Comments

Virtua Hamster is an unreleased racing game that was in development for Sega’s 32x, designed and produced by Eric Quakenbush. The player would have controlled a series of rodents on wheels, to race in 3D mazes, trying to avoid an huge Mechanical Snake. The project was cancelled when Sega discontinued the 32X before production could be completed. Some playable prototypes of the game still exist and they were sold in various auctions on ebay. An early alpha of Virtua Hamster was finally released in August 2009 by SEGASaturno.

The game was later ported to Saturn but cancelled again when the game was almost complete. Sega still owed payments to the developer of Virtua Hamster, David A. Palmer Productions. David A. Palmer revealed to Unseen64 that “the entire intellectual property of this game and code” was signed over to his company as part of a legal settlement.

As we can read from the original pre-production design document:

High Concept: A maze game in which the player assumes the role of a rocket-powered hamster test pilot who must navigate a gigantic habitrail from hell in order to thwart the plans of an evil scientist and regain his rodent freedom.
Hook: The look and fast paced action of Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter combined with an amusing puzzle strategy game and an unlikely group of heroes and enemies.
Setting: The majority of the game takes place in a mad scientists lab facility. The scientist has assembled a truly humongus habitrail-type maze in order to test his rocket powered rodent experiments.
Characters: Player One is a test pilot hamster from a rival lab and was stolen by the mad scientist. Player One’s goal is to retrieve all of the stolen blue-print pieces and escape from the lab. The hamster pilot has to navigate the complicated maze as well as fend off evil rocket riding rodents, a mechanical snake, and the scientists voracious cat.

Thanks to Ryan Jacques and David A. Palmer for the contribution!

You can read more info on Virtual Hamster at Sega 16.

Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any content of any website we have linked to.

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Jaguar, Others

Apeshit [Atari Jaguar – Unreleased]

U64 Staff & Contributors

07-04-2008

6 Comments

When the Mega Drive and SNES markets started to slow down, Ocean decided to commit to the Atari Jaguar with two titles – platformer Apeshit and comic book tie-in Lobo for the Atari Jaguar CD. Apeshit was only a working title, incidentally. The simian staring platformer was being put together by the team behind Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt and was described by Ocean as “a mixture of Mario, Bomberman and Pang”. The colourful backdrops had been hand-drawn by artist Ged Cafferly while up to two players could play cooperatively.

As for Lobo, programmer Bobby Earl claimed to Edge Magazine – scan below – that it was to offer a “very new concept” and that the video sequences would run at 25fps. “We see new machines starting with the Jaguar as a creative challenge rather than a technical challenge,” he then went onto say.

Neither game made it to store shelves, with the mostly likely reason being that the Jaguar failed to perform on both critical and commercial levels.

[Contribute by Matt Gander]

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