Acclaim

Sports Immortal [N64 – Cancelled]

Sports Immortal is a cancelled over the top sport / action game that was pitched by Iguana Entertainment / Acclaim as a possible new Nintendo 64 project. A few pages from the design doc were shared on Twitter by its designer Jools Watsham

“Unearthed an old design doc I created 20 years ago! It was an extreme futuristic sports series for the Nintendo 64, called Sports Immortal. Good times!”

“It was never playable, sadly.”

Immortal Hockey came first (for coin-op). I then later incorporated it and expanded on the idea for N64 with Sports Immortal series.”

As we can read on the design doc:

“The aim of the game, score the most points. To do this most effectively, score as many goals as humanly, or non humanly, possible. Points rewarded for goal scoring are far higher than combat points. 1 Goal 10 points, 1 Hit 1 point.

Many scoring techniques and combos are possible to perform within the Immortal world. player can shoot straight for the goal by pressing A button once. Hold A button to build up power shot which can also be sot straight at goal with tremendous power.

Power shots are where the major “hooks” of Immortal Hockey will come into play. Each goal has a power zone surrounding it (like the 3 point zone in basketball). When a player performs a power shot in the power zone by using stick & button combos they will perform crazy, exaggerated twists and rainbow spirals, slamming the puck home in tremendous style & power. Stomp your opponent into the ground. Serious pay-off value like those found in NBA Jam – you’ll just wanna do it again, and again..”

In the end Iguana / Acclaim managers did not greenlight the game and the company worked on other titles such as Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls, Forsaken 64 and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.

Images:

 

Monster Truck Wars [SNES – Cancelled]

Monster Truck Wars is a cancelled racing game that was in development for the Super Nintendo and it would have been published by Acclaim. A GameBoy and Game Gear versions of the game were released in 1994 and 1995, but they were different from the SNES version, that used “Mode 7” graphic similar to F-Zero. While the graphic of the game looked good for a 16 bit console, the project was never released for unknown reasons.

Some screens of the game were  found by Celine in Banzzai magazine issue #23 and Super Power issue #22.

Images: 

Duel [Sega – Tech Demo]

Duel is a CG tech demo created by Acclaim in 1994. According to Mean Machines Sega, the British magazine where the first images of the “game” were published, Duel was planned for the 32x, but it’s unlikely that any real development was even started. 32X’s 3D capabilities were, in fact, very poor, and many titles conceived for the ill-fated add-on were later released for Saturn. However, as long as we know, Duel was not one of them.

Update:
In the video added below we can see how Duel was actually a CGI tech demo aimed to show Acclaim realistic character animation system using Acclaim’s Optical Motion Capture System.
It’s unclear if a game was ever planned out of it, however the technology was later used in some next-gen games (for example Acclaim’s Advance Technology Group is credited for Alien Trilogy’s full motion videos).
It seems the tech demo was the fruit of a deal between Acclaim and Sega (based on what is written on a italian mag scan).

Here is the original article that appeared on Mega machines Sega 20:

Duel 32x unreleased

If you have more info on this tech demo, please let us know!

Images:

Video:
 

Ferrari 360 Challenge [PS2 – Cancelled]

Ferrari 360 Challenge is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Brain in a Jar Games and it would have been published by Acclaim for the Playstation 2. It was one of the first announced PS2 games from Acclaim and it promised an arcade racing engine with two main racing modes, eight different circuits, limited car deformation and two-player split-screen multiplayer. The project was officially cancelled in august 2000, because of high development costs and undisclosed troubles with the Ferrari license.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:
 

Burnout [Beta – PS2, XBOX, GameCube]

Burnout (working title Shiny Red Car) is a racing game developed by Criterion Games and published by Acclaim on the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Xbox in 2001. 11 years later, information regarding Burnout beta cars has been revealed. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but neither was it put out there to the public. Firstly, the vehicles have names tied to them. A slight hint to this is the fact that the Saloon GT has the bolded words “TENRAI” on the back. Nobody understood what this meant (other than it’s just a manufacturer name), but this latest discovery puts all of the theories to rest and finally puts a meaning to all of this.

On top of this, there was officially one cut vehicle from the game. This would be the Fire Engine, most likely to be assumed a Fire truck. No files for this vehicle remain in the game, only references to its name.

To start, here is the list of vehicle names taken directly from the inner-workings of Burnout on the PS2:

  • Frente GL
  • Venom SX
  • Sabre
  • Thunderbolt GT
  • Longbow EXC 300
  • Tenrai VII
  • Grizzly
  • Hudson 418
  • UT500 Jackhammer
  • Fire Engine

One will have to assume which vehicle name is tied to what, but a good way to figure that out is to try and associate each name with each car based on what it is. For example, the UT500 Jackhammer sounds like the Tow Truck, and the Sabre could be the Muscle (which resembles a Dodge Viper).

There were also many cut traffic cars. In the final game, only 8 traffic cars appear in each city, but the full list of traffic cars may come as a surprise to some…here they are!

  • Europe Bus
  • Oriental Bus
  • USA Bus
  • Long cab
  • Cab over
  • Compact
  • Old compact
  • Container
  • Flatbed
  • Minibus
  • Payload
  • Europe police
  • Oriental police
  • USA police
  • Sedan
  • Tanker
  • Europe taxi
  • Oriental taxi
  • USA taxi
  • Van
  • Europe truck
  • Oriental truck
  • USA truck
  • Europe van

You may be thinking:

COP CARS!

It would seem that cop cars were originally planned, but later cut! What a shame!

The above names were actual string names assigned to each model in-game, but the following names are the names used for each model. This could provide an insight into what kind of cars were planned for the game. Since these are model names, they are all capitals, and most likely, abbreviated as much as possible. About 80% of the traffic cars would be cut from the game!

  • MOTORBIKE
  • SCOOTER
  • MODCOMPACT
  • OLDCOMPACT
  • SEDAN
  • EUROTAXI
  • USTAXI
  • ORIENTTAXI
  • EUROPOLICE
  • USPOLICE
  • ORIENTPOLICE
  • BASICPICKUP
  • JACKEDPICKUP
  • THAIPICKUP
  • FARMTRUCK
  • VAN
  • MINIBUS
  • LUTON1
  • LUTON2
  • PEOPLECARRIER
  • USBUS
  • EUROBUS
  • ORIENTBUS
  • WINNEBAGO
  • USNON
  • EURONON
  • ORIENTNON
  • LONGNOSE
  • CABOVER
  • FLATBEDTARP
  • FLATBEDPAYLOAD
  • CONTAINER
  • TANKER

You may be thinking:

MOTORBIKES AND A SCOOTER!

Yes, a motorbike and a scooter. It was going to happen. You heard it here first on Unseen64!

All of the information seen here was found inside of the SLUS_203.07 file that can be found inside of the Burnout [PS2] disc. The information provided above has not be altered in any way, shape, or form, and is guaranteed to be 100% correct based upon the developer.

And to think, it only took 11 years to find this out. It was worth it!

Article by Red