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Action Adventure

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is a third-person adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos. It was released for the PlayStation and PC in 1999 and for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. Soul Reaver entered development alongside Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain in 1997 and focused on puzzle solving instead of Blood Omen 2’s action.

Initially, the game was set to be released October 1998. The secondary release date was then made January 1999. Due to the game still remaining unfinished. It was granted a final delay of approximately 7 months which then, the game went gold in July 1999 and subsequently got released August 1999.

Unfortunately, these delays occurred because the game wasn’t progressing quickly enough in terms of asset creation to fulfill their original vision for Soul Reaver. Several interviews suggested the designers noticed they had an overly designed game thus had no option but to remove certain areas of the game.

Some removed areas are known as:

Under City
“Turel’s Territory”(Must confirm the exact name)
Mountain Retreat

Amy Hennig stated that the development team split the original, much larger plans in two after realizing that they had “over-designed the game”. This decision explains Soul Reaver’s cliffhanger ending and the appearance of originally planned material in later games. Despite the split, Hennig explained that the team left unused components in Soul Reaver’s game engine to avoid unforeseen glitches that might have arisen from their removal. [Infos from Wikipedia] This is why certain reavers are accessible even though they are not actually obtainable on the retail version.

As we can read in this interesting article from The Lost Worlds, many items, weapons and areas were removed / not used in the final game, as the Amplified Force Projectile & Possession abilities, The Amplified Reaver and The Ariel Reaver weapons, Five additional Reaver upgrades and the The Mountain Retreat area. You should check the Lost Worlds article for more informations, it’s really well done!

Thanks to John Doom for the contribution!

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Alpha: July 1998

Alpha: January 1999

Beta: 12th May 1999

Beta: 28th June 1999

Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Space Quest [XBOX PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma

11-06-2009

2 Comments

Space Quest was an action adventure / platform game that was in development in 2003 at Escape Factory for the Playstation 2 and XBOX. The project was cancelled when fundings were cut, probably because they though that the game was not going to be enough profitable to finish it.

Thanks to Hey Hey and to TnS for the contribution!

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Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

The Last Guardian (TRICO) [PS3 – Beta]

monokoma

04-06-2009

1 Comment

The Last Guardian and previously referred to by the working title “Project Trico”, is an upcoming adventure game developed by Team Ico, to be published for the PlayStation 3. Existence of the game was first hinted in a January 2008 job listing on Sony Japan’s corporate website, which depicted a single screenshot of the upcoming third Team Ico title for the PlayStation 3 and advertised open positions for the development team. A video released via the PlayStation Lifestyle blog in May 2009 shows early footage of the game with its working title, Project Trico, reportedly from a proof of concept trailer that had been circulating internally at Sony for over a year. [Info from Wikipedia]

At E3 2009, Sony unveiled the latest version of the same trailer, that is somehow similar to the early one, but with various differences: the boy has a different character design, the details in the scenario are improved and the exterior of the palace that they explore was changed. Thanks to Pikol’s Youtube Channel we can see a nice comparison between the beta trailer and the “final” one!

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GameCube, Nintendo

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes [GameCube – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors

02-06-2009

No Comments

Metroid Prime 2 for the GCN was a bit of a change from the metroid standard, as it featured for the first time, ammo for the beam weapons, and the ability to explore a dark world version of the main world. A bonus disk with a demo of the game on it was released as a gift from nintendo for a limited time, and a pack in bonus with copies of the first Metroid Prime. The demo takes several short cuts, jumping you straight to a mining facility that comes along a little later in the game. However, there are differences outside of that, that can’t quite be chalked up as cut backs for a demo release.

Video 1

3:40 Luminoth Webbing. scan is not in final game
3:53 “Mechanisms” is missing from log directory
3:56 it says that the statue’s motivator unit is broken, and won’t move. inthe final, instead of an eye, it has a dark crystal that when shot with the right beam, DOES move.
4:28 warns of a terminal fall ahead. not in the final game. Also, Luminoth Lore piece is missing from side of wall.

Video 2

2:04 Dark Webbing. scan is not in final game.

Video 3

This cut-scene is not in the final game.

Also, in one room in the final game, you can see a large number of flying enemies, but since you can only see it in morph ball form through normal play, you can’t scan it. However, if you enter the room by other means, such as going through or over walls with a glitch or Action Replay, you can scan it. The scan is as follows (as wrote on Wikitroid):

“Mechanism: Airthorns. Rogue airborne mechanoids. Targets are small and travel in packs for safety. Avoid contact.”
“The Luminoth made the Airthorn to patrol local airspace. The small, speedy machines were a boon to the war effort until their programming failed. Now rogue, they serve the Ing as fiercely as they served their creators.”

More information about unused enemies can be found at The Cutting Room Floor.

There are also enemies that were planned to be in the game at one point, but appear to have not even made it off of the concept art, which can be viewed at the Metroid Database

Retro Studios decided against recycling the features of the first game, and instead used new sound models, weapon effects, and art designs. They also implemented the Screw Attack and wall jumping features seen in previous Metroid games, which were not incorporated in the first Prime due to time constraints. [Infos from Wikipedia]

In some Pre-Release screenshots we can notice that the Hud, Dark Samus colors, the score counter in the Multiplayer mode and the visor hud while in morph ball are different. Also, there are other little changes in the scenarios.

Also, thanks to a model viewer created by Interdpth and Revel8n it’s possible to find various unused models hidden in the game’s code. You can download the Metroid Prime model viewer (mpxviewer) in here. If you are able to find more unused models, please let us know!

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Nintendo, Wii

God: The Game [Wii – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

31-05-2009

No Comments

Before being closed down by THQ, Big Huge Games were working on a simulation / adventure game for the Wii, that was know as “God The Game”. It was going to be a mix between Black & White, Animal Crossing, Little King’s Story and Zelda.. at least from the few informations and concept arts leaked from the project. The game was cancelled in late 2008 when THQ ran into financial difficulties.

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