Action Adventure

B.C. (Lionhead Studios) [XBOX – Cancelled]

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BC was going to be an action-adventure video game in development for Microsoft’s Xbox video game system by Intrepid Computer Entertainment, a satellite of Lionhead Studios. It was cancelled in 2004, having been in development for some time; why is not known though it has been alleged that it was “overly ambitious“. Set in a Harryhausen-esque prehistoric time period, BC featured the player having to advance their tribe in a world inhabited by dinosaurs and other anachronistic creatures. From what is known, the player would assume the role of a tribal chief who is responsible for the welfare of his people. It is up to the player/chief to spur his people’s technological development and lead his tribe of cavemen to a Valley free of predatory dinosaurs and savage ape-man where they can evolve in peace. Part of that means that the player/chief would assign various duties to his tribesmen. However, it would also have been possible to play as any member of the tribe.

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Early images at E3 showed extreme clarity and self shading but early reviews called the artificial intelligence the most impressive thing. According Gamespot.com’s information on the game, the game would have had a foodchain, like Peter Jackson’s King Kong (video game), in which each thing would have been subject to being eaten by something higher on the foodchain. In addition the dinosaurs and other creatures would have been intelligent, interacting with each other acting independently of player. It would have been possible to affect the videogame world as a whole, leading some people to comment on the driving certain species to extinction.

Other things would have included capturing and training certain animals to use against tribal enemies. Animals known to exist in the world would have been Tyrannosaurs, Velociraptors, Pachycephelosaurs, Sabre-Tooth Tigers, Apatosaurs (or Brontosaurs as the game would have focused on anachronisms) dodos, ape-men, and others. As part of the exaggeration, the game, in addition to anachronims in dinosaur ages, would have featured dinosaurs as larger than they really were. In one preview, Molyneux was quoted as saying that the Rex seen in screenshots was a child, a third the size of its parent. the game was also planned to be very bloody. Gamespot quoted Molyneux as saying that the dinosaurs will spill “swimming pools full of blood” when killed.

At the moment, the game has been cancelled, fans believing that it was too ambitious to be made; indeed, even while the game was still in production, Molyneux said that he was unsure when he could release it due to “the ambitious nature of the gameplay and the high standards the people developing it are pushing for.” According to one article, as of May, 2002, “[the demo build] was roughly 50 percent complete“. Its cancellation was announced in late 2004 with Molyneux saying “The decision to suspend work on any games project is always a very difficult one, particularly when it is a title with the potential of BC.” However, fans hope that Molyneux will live up to his suggestion that the game might be revived at a later date. [info from Wikipedia]

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Oddworld: The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot [XBOX – Cancelled]

The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot is a cancelled action adventure game that was meant to be the last chapter in the Oddworld series. An April 2005 issue of Game Informer revealed a character named Fangus, a buff-looking character who serves as a type of shepherd on Oddworld, watching over a flock of particularly demonic-looking sheep. While OWI did not confirm the game (many suspected it as an April Fool’s joke), the article briefly outlined the plot: Fangus is a shepherd who dutifully wards off predators, until one day, invaders arrive. Fangus is then forced to rise to the occasion, assuming the role of savior of all Oddworldian nations.

Meanwhile, rabies slowly begins to turn him mad, and he must make haste in thwarting the invaders’ plans before his mind is completely lost. A Mature rating (by the ESRB) was expected due to dark tones and themes throughout the game, and Majesco was expected to publish the game for the Xbox. – [info from Wikipedia]

As we can read at the Oddworld Library:

The July edition of Game Informer is out, containing an interview with Lorne Lanning talking about the cancelled game The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot. The article includes several images of concept art by Silvio Aebischer and Raymond Swanland, only some of which have been available on TOGG.

You can find more info about the project at the Oddworld Library!

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Devil May Cry [PS2 – Beta]

Devil May Cry began its development life as a Resident Evil 4 title for PS2, after the completion of Resident Evil 2, under the direction of Hideki Kamiya and “Team Little Devil”. Early research and development work included a trip to Spain, to examine various castles as a basis for the game’s environments. However, in prototype status, the game proved to be a radical departure from the established Resident Evil formula and the survival horror genre in general. Rather than abandon the project entirely, the premise was changed and the game eventually became Devil May Cry. Some of the major gameplay elements were partially inspired by a bug found in Onimusha: Warlords. During a test-play, Kamiya discovered that enemies could be kept in the air by slashing them repeatedly, which lead to the inclusion of juggles by gunfire and sword strikes in Devil May Cry.

According to Kamiya, Devil May Cry was designed from the ground up around Dante’s acrobatics and combat abilities. The decision was made late in the development process to change the game to a more mission-based advancement, instead of the more open-ended structure of the Resident Evil games. [Info from Wikipedia]

In an interview with Kamiya from 1UP, we can read more about the Resident Evil / Devil May Cry evolution (it seems that he mixed up RE3 and Re4.. or was DMC in development already after RE2?):

Devil May Cry originally started out as Resident Evil 3, but it turned into DMC because it was so different, and we lost a year of development time. So I thought maybe I was screwing things up and that Capcom wanted to fire me, which would explain why I couldn’t do DMC2, because the news came as such a surprise to me.

The video contains an early version of the game with some noticeable differences. The textures for the background, the enemies and Dante are way less-detailed from the final game. Also instead of Phantom (the giant spider boss that is in the final game), in this footage there is an eagle-like creature.

Thanks to destructor1890 for the contribution!

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Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee [PS2 – Cancelled]

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Munch’s Oddysee was originally intended to be exclusive for the PlayStation 2, however this version was cancelled to make the game exclusively for the Xbox, taking advantage of increased graphical capabilities. However, there were many different features that didn’t make it into the final version of the game. The differences are listed below:

  • Sligs were originally able to climb ladders.
  • Abe was able to hide in the shadows like in the previous games.
  • Sligs smoked cigarettes.
  • There was a giant hamster wheel on which the Mudokons ran to power the machines in the facility.
  • Sligs were able to beat up Mudokon workers like in the previous games.
  • Abe could toss Sligs out of the window, smashing the glass, and making the Slig fall to his death from a great height.
  • The Recycler was to have an LCD screen chart for how much meat and fat there was in the chopped up character and to also show how much of it was useful.
  • Mudokon natives could grow trees by chanting.
  • Mudokon workers wielded chain-saws for chopping down trees.
  • Flying helicopters, probably similar to the Flying Sligs.
  • A scene of a few Mudokons struggling to walk in the wind. In the same video it then showed a scene with an army of marching Sligs. The marching scene was kept in the game, but as a poor quality movie. The sligs are also marching the opposite way, which can be noted in one of the levels.
  • A flying helicopter dropped a SoulStorm Brew vending machine which lands on a Mudokon. The vending machine then fired SoulStorm Brew cans at another Mudokon that knocked him out. The last can landed into the Mudokon’s mouth, forcing him to drink it.
  • Creatures called Meetles were meant to appear in this game.

[info from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Jurassic Park Survival [Cancelled – PS2 XBOX PC]

Jurassic Park: Survival (also known as Jurassic Park III: The Videogame, Jurassic Park 3: The Videogame) is a cancelled third-person action adventure developed by Savage Entertainment that would have been published by Universal Interactive and Konami. It would have been released for PS2, Xbox and PC but it was cancelled before its expected release in the summer of 2002.

Inspired by the events in the Jurassic Park III motion picture, Jurassic Park: Survival puts players in control of a research team that’s charged with investigating a remote dinosaur inhabited island. Unbeknownst to the game’s lead character David Vaughn, however, an armed security team is smuggling dinosaur DNA off the island and have attracted the attention of its enormous lizards as a diversion. From here, it’s up to gamers to battle both the terrorists and the dinosaurs in a Resident Evil-style adventure that boasts more than 12 huge environments and a multitude of hungry creatures.

Thanks to News for the contribution!

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