Thanks to Sttnw we know that “at one point, the Wii version of Activision’s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (developed by Vicarious Visions) was going to feature Link and Samus Aran. However, the deal between the two companies fell through and the characters were cut from the final release”.
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At DICE 2008, Blizzard had some talk about their games and in there, they showed an interesting list with a couple of “new” artworks for some of their cancelled projects. As Kotaku has wrote about:
“The team also revealed a list of the Blizzard games that have been canceled over the course of their 17 years, a list longer than you may think. If you thought Blizzard was only focused on StarCraft, Warcraft and Diablo, think again. While they may have a few lesser known titles like Blackthorne and The Lost Vikings on their resumes, they were at one point working on all of the following
Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage is a video game developed by H2O Interactive and published by THQ. It is one of the few console RPG released for the Nintendo 64. Due to a combination of the poor reviews and even poorer sales, projects for a sequel were dropped. The game has developed somewhat of a cult following, leading some groups to try to remake the game for Wii or DS homebrew with improved graphics and more rigorous bug testing. [Info from Wikipedia]
In the gallery below you can see some screenshots from a target render that was created in the early days of the project, when it was still know as “Nomen Quest“. In these images the graphic was much more detailed and definited than the one in the final game. Some other screens are from a later beta version, with a different HUD.
Thanks to Myron Mason, we found out more beta differences in these early screens:
The beta for Aidyn Chronicles is indeed very different from the finished game. I have the game and I can already noticed the major differences. The characters are either wearing different clothing or have different colored versions in the beta version and the compass and solar/lunar indicator are different as well. Some of the monsters looked different like the Minotaur as well as the cities. For example, in image 5 it shows the observatory in Gwernia castle, the first city you basically start in. It stands next to the shops and is black in the beta version, but in the finished version it is inside of the castle.
Also, it appears that in the beta version you could pick who you wanted to represent the party when walking around outside of battle. And you could also make that character carrie a weapon around with them. In the realeased version, only Alaron (the main character) represented the party and no weapons could be carried around.
Update: Lisa wrote to us for some corrections:
Although I do realise Myron Mason is only claiming he has the retail game and has spotted some differences in the beta pictures it should not be there as non of it is true. The only true part is that clothing is different on a very few characters.
If you played the game and you can notice some more interesting changes, please let us know!
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The first Assassin’s Creed was meant to be a new game in the Prince of Persia series, titled “Prince of Persia: Assassins“. The project was later changed for some reasons, but we can see a trailer of the beta / prototype “Prince of Persia: Assassin’s Creed” below.
Also, a target-render video from 2004:
Thanks a lot to trainer15side for the contribution!
Looking through the Assassin’s Creed beta videos and screens, i found out some differences. Here is what i have noticed:
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1. They go into a first person view that does not put you into,”eagle vision” or what they call intuition in the video. The eagle vision has also had some changes in detecting targets. In the final people are kinda,”color coded”.
2. Weird interface icon appears at 3:25 and 4:14.
3. What she calls,” the key moment of assassination” is different, and quicker. In the final once you’ve assassinated someone you go into a scene and the one you assassinated speaks to Altair. I think the beta is cooler personally.
4. The very end it shows the Animus main screen, which is very much different from the final screen.
5. The entrance to the town,”Acre” is much different, and more vast.
There is also a video shown at e3 06 I believe that shows the crossbow cut from the game. Though, the video is in the final game, unchanged. Here are some screenshots of that:
A closer image of where he keeps his arrows for the crossbow, which is replaced for a throwing knife holder in the final.
His short blade is in the front of his clothing, rather than his back like in the final. The crossbow rests on his back instead.
In others beta-screens we can see better the different entrance to the city of Acre and the old HUD. In the beta Animus Interface, the woman in the backround is probably Lucy Stillman, but she appears to be different looking. In the beta picture she looks to be a brunette, in the final she is blonde. It’s hard to say because she is hard to see though.
This area is not in the final game:
Thanks to Eaglevision for the contribution!
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The images below are from an old E3 Beta demo of Castlevania: SotN that was sold on ebay some time ago. The description said: “This auction is for the Castlevania E3 edition. Only one known to exist in collector’s hands this could be the highlight of many game collections. This disc was an early development version of the title which was released in the us as Castlevania SOTN. Early development titles such as this were run on test consoles by developers and game testors. If you lack the hardware required to play developmental software game do not bid.
The game gives 2 options. Normal and Special. Normal mode starts out at the end of the Bloodlines story but the text is in English while the voices are still in Japanese. I am unsure if this remains throughout the entire game or just for the first cutscene. Special mode starts you off further along with items and relics already as part of your inventory. In either mode dying brings up a different game over screen which instead says “To be continured September 1997″. I have not determined what other differences may exist and leave that all up to the buyer.”
Some more differences were noticed by Torentsu:
This beta demo was leaked online sometime ago and you can download it if you search it on Google. If you play it and find some more interesting differences, let us know!
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