Beta + Cancelled Action Video Games

RoboCop, also known as RoboCop: The Future of Law Enforcement, is a cancelled side-scroller action game published by Titus Interactive and developed by Planet Interactive Development in 2002, exclusively for the GBA. It was based on the eponymous movie franchise.

Everything began in June 1999, when IGN revealed that Titus had acquired the licence in order to make a game:

Titus is on one hell of a license acquisition. Superman, Top Gun… and now put RoboCop on that list. That’s right, Titus now has the rights to bring the robotic cop of New Detroit to consoles. Currently, Titus will not announce officially which consoles its RoboCop game will be brought to, but the license includes all systems (…)

The Game Boy Advance version was first mentionned in July 2001 as we can read on French website Jeuxvideo.com:

While we recently announced the return of Alex Murphy for an adaptation of the famous film RoboCop on PS2, Virgin Interactive and Titus do not seem decided to make a one-shot but on the contrary, it is a real licence exploitation that we should attend. The title not only planned on PS2, it should also land on GBC and GBA. The games in question could be released by the end of the year (…)

Further details were again shared by Jeuxvideo.com in May 2002:

Titus has just announced the adaptation of the arcade game RoboCop on GBA in a title named RoboCop: The Future of Law Enforcement scheduled for October 2002. As you can imagine, it will be based on the famous science fiction film and on this occasion the players will get into the armor of police officer Murphy. On the gameplay side, we are told it will be a side-scrolling shoot’em up which should have no less than 7 levels and 14 sub-levels with 25 different types of enemies to face.

However, the game totally vanished after this announcement, was never mentionned again and, of course, wasn’t released in October 2002. No details to this day were shared about why it was canceled, but speculation can be made. Alongside this GBA version, it is worth mentionning that the other games planned for various systems had a lot of trouble. The GBC version was released somewhere in the end of 2001, only in Western Europe, and was met with negative reception.

The First-Person Shooter version went into a much more troubled development, it was first announced in 1999 when the licence was bought by Titus with apparently the implication of Xatrix Entertainment for the design:

Currently, Titus will not announce officially which consoles its RoboCop game will be brought to, but the license includes all systems, including PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, and Nintendo 64.
We have heard, however, that Xatrix, the developers of the upcoming PC first-person shooter Kingpin, will be handling the game’s design. What type of game will it be? A first person shooter, of course.
Don’t expect the game to be released until late 2000.

But the development dragged on and on, it was re-announced in April 2001, this time developed internally at Titus, and, first, only planned for the PS2 before also being developed for the Xbox and the GameCube. Then, Titus decided to cancel PS2 and GameCube versions and only focused on the Xbox. It is possible that the GBA version was dropped as well during this time of the development. After missing several scheduled dates, the game was released on Xbox somewhere in the second half of the 2003 year and was negatively panned by the critics. Oddly enough, the PS2 version was eventually released around 2003-2004 only in Europe, and the GameCube one released exclusively in Japan in 2004.

Another speculation about the cancellation of the GBA version was that its developer, Planet Interactive Development, disappeared somewhere in 2002-2003.

The whole source code of the game was finally leaked in January 2022.

After years of silence, the license returned briefly in 2014 with an adaptation of the reboot on iOS. It is finally for this year that the cybercop of Detroit should return in the world of video game with RoboCop: Rogue City, developed by Teyon and planned for September 2023.

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Playstation, Sony

Superman: The New Adventures [Playstation – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

05-08-2023

4 Comments

Superman: The New Adventures, also simply known as Superman, is a cancelled action game published by Titus Interactive and developed by BlueSky Software from 1998 to 2000, for the Playstation. It was based on the animated TV show Superman: The Animated Series, itself based on the DC Comics‘ character Superman.

Initially, the game was supposed to be a port of the infamous Nintendo 64 game. However, over the years, it is known that the development of Superman 64 was plagued by constraints between Titus Interactive and the game’s licensors DC Comics and Warner Bros. For those unfamiliar with this story, you can read everything here.

Thus, BlueSky Software made the decision to recreate the game from scratch for the Playstation version, ultimately making a totally different game instead of adaptating the work done by Titus.

According to Playstation Museum, the game was rebooted around 1999, apparently due to the Columbine shooting:

After about a year of development, Superman was again re-designed. In April of 1999, the Columbine shooting happened and was a big blow to the industry as the media were using video games as a contributing factor for the shootings. Scuttlebutt has it that Titus suddenly changed the game from fighting Lex Luthor’s henchman to fighting robots. Supposedly the developer was not allowed to have shootings of human beings anymore or realistic looking weapons in the game. This changed a lot of what the gameplay was going to be into a more switch pulling, puzzle based game which was very different from the animated show and the N64 version.

Set to be released for June 2000, the title was ultimately canceled when the licence had expired preventing Titus to secure it again:

Unfortunately the license from Warner Brothers had expired. Essentially, Superman continued to be developed with no assistance from DC comics or Warner Brothers. The plan was to surprise everybody with a finished product. After almost 2 years of development, Superman reached a milestone: it received approval for release from Sony (…) but by the time the game was completed, Titus was unable to secure the license. Superman for the PlayStation was officially laid to rest.

For its part, Eric Caen, founder and CEO of Titus Interactive, simply explained for Playboy Magazine:

“Sales were large, so we didn’t lose money on Nintendo 64 or Game Boy,” Caen said. “But Warner Bros. and Sony blocked the PSX version, and that was a heartbreaker. It was 90% completed and we had a half million units in back order.”

In December 2020, a complete build of the game was released on the web.

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Leaked, Mega Drive / Genesis, Nintendo, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Fireteam Rogue [SNES/MegaDrive, Genesis – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

22-07-2023

3 Comments

Fireteam Rogue is a canceled sci-fi action-adventure game published and developed by Accolade Inc. from 1993 to 1995 for the Super NES and the Genesis/Megadrive. The project was very ambitious for its time, as Accolade planned to launch alongside the game a comic book serie, with also discussion for action figure toys and a TV show.

Next information that will follow are from SNESCentral which was one of the first website to share many details as possible about this title. With a budget of 2,000,000 US $, this project was plagued by mismanagement that ultimately led to its cancellation:

Fireteam Rogue’s cancellation is probably due to having too much ambition. The people marketing the game claimed it would have 100 hours of gameplay, and that the characters would be larger than in most other action games. Personality conflicts and poor management due to this goal seem to have taken their toll, as stated by Russell Borogove (Bornschlegel):
“The project had a lot of problems in development. We spent a lot more time developing ridiculous data compression schemes to fit all the levels into the game, when we should have cut a couple of enemies and a handful of levels in order to get it done. There were also some personality conflicts that culminated with the producer of the project quitting when we were at beta. Shortly after that, the head of product development at Accolade asked us if we thought we should continue the project or not. It was unclear to me how much more work it was going to take to finish it and if the game was going to be good enough to compete in the market by the time we actually got it out, and I advised that we should shut it down. I don’t remember what the others said.”
The late Betty Cunningham on her website claims the game was complete. And it may well have been close to being finished. By the sounds of things, as development dragged on, it was increasingly clear it would not have been released. As artist Scott Ruggels recalls:
“Both of the game projects (Fireteam Rogue and the unreleased Genesis game, Cybernauts: The Next Breed) were helmed by John Skeel. I don’t know what happened to him after Accolade, but after the 2 million dollar budget for the game was spent, with about 750,000 spent on promotional materials, including a 6 foot tall roll of plastic with a life sized image of the main character computer generated within, and the prototype, that was, in all honesty, not very much fun to play, the game was cancelled, along with a lot of others soon after the new management took over, (…)”
The media give differing times for the ultimate cancellation. Gamepro, in its April 1995 issue states it was cancelled, coinciding with Warner Music Group buying a share in the company. Nintendo Power kept it in its upcoming releases section until the August 1995 issue. Ultimately, a long development cycle can never be good for a game.

Two different prototypes exist and their source codes are both available on the web. The first prototype is apparently in early alpha and might be dated from 1994. It was leaked somewhere around 2006-2007 and is pretty incomplete and glitchy. A much later prototype was acquired in 2010 by Evan G., founder and owner of SNESCentral and is dated from 1995, although it is not clear from which month:

This later prototype of Fireteam Rogue was acquired by me in June 2010. The seller worked at a company called IMN Control. They were looking into publishing games to package with their controllers, and I guess by April 1995 (the letter that came with the prototype was dated April 6, 1995), Accolade was hoping to get another company to publish the game. The seller said that he did not feel the game would be complete in a reasonable amount of time to bother investing.
In addition to the prototype, there were some marketing materials and a three page FAQ. The FAQ explains the different levels, characters and goal of the game. There is a date of December 12, 1994 on the header of the FAQ. The package included a poster/information sheet that probably was used at the 1995 Winter CES. The poster has an expected March 1995 release date. The prototype itself came on four chips, with a date of “1/16” on it, which I assume means January 16, 1995. I guess that despite the fact that the prototype was sent in April 1995, either development had ceased, or they did not feel like burning a newer copy.

This prototype appeared to be more complete and less glitchy with the addition of Mode 7 levels and a password feature.

On his own article, Evan G. concluded:

Fireteam Rogue is definitely a game that had promise. It had an intriguing plot, excellent character artwork and a promising gameplay system. The Shadowblade level in particular shows the scope of what the levels may have entailed. The shooter levels play quite well and compare favourably with many similarly styled shooters for the SNES.
That being said, the two alpha ROM images available show a game that is not close to completion. Though I was told development may have extended all the way to 1996, the evidence seems to indicate that it was leading towards demise in early 1995. In particular, the statement in Gamepro in April 1995 and the fact that they were trying to find another company to publish the game show that its fate was decided by then. If the later alpha that I have is what was shown at the 1995 Winter CES (which I assume, considering the date on the prototype, and the included CES-style advertisement sheet), it would have had an underwhelming response. For instance, despite the impressive size and animation frames of the character sprites, the animation was not smooth, and led to unresponsive controls. The level designs are poor, and lack the key items to proceed through the stages. The graphics themselves don’t look bad, though they have a limited palette. The promised linking of the levels into a single story was not finished in the game.
The lesson of Fireteam Rogue is that focusing on hype and story before the creation of solid level design and gameplay can sink a game. The back-story of Fireteam Rogue rivals most contemporary RPGs, and the initial gameplay ideas could have rivalled Super Metroid. Instead, a development cycle mired by poor management and delays made this just another footnote in the history of the 16-bit era.

In October 1996, Accolade Inc. released a DOS game called Eradicator in which three different characters are playable. Those characters shares many similarities with the 4 main characters of Fireteam Rogue.

Thanks to Evan G. from SNESCentral!

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Playstation, Sony

Marvel 2099 : One Nation Under Doom [PC, PSX – Cancelled]

monokoma

03-06-2023

2 Comments

Marvel 2099: One Nation Under Doom is a cancelled 2D sidescroller action game that was in development by Saffire for the original Playstation and the PC. The project would have been published by Mindscape in 1996, but the company decided to stop publishing some of their console titles and One Nation Under Doom was one of them. After Marvel 2099 was canned, Saffire started to develop Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. and Rampage World Tour for the Nintendo 64. It was based on the imprint of the same name.

As we can read on Wikipedia, by May 1996 CD-ROM and VHS video demos of Marvel 2099 were being shipped to game magazines for pre-release reviews, along with a one-page color brochure. The first public demo was shown at the E3 1996 show, and featured a playable single level of the Punisher 2099 fighting SHIELD troops, and also opening menus and some cut scenes. Electronic Gaming Monthly had two quarter-page previews of the game, showing grainy shots of actual gameplay, and a group shot of the player characters. At the 1996 San Diego Comicon, the Mindscape booth handed out brochures, and raffled off One Nation Under Doom pins, shirts, and posters. Some attendees were even allowed to play the demo at the booth, although no copies of the demo were distributed.

Years after its cancellation, Executive Producer Mark Flitman shared some details about the game in an interview:

D.2099: How did Mindscape first become involved with producing/developing a game based on Marvel’s 2099 characters?
M.F.: Prior to working at Mindscape, I was a Producer at Acclaim Entertainment in New York. At Acclaim, I was responsible for multiple titles including all the Marvel titles. I developed a great relationship with Marvel so when I went to Mindscape I kept in touch with them. I knew that Acclaim had a contract with Marvel that tied up every Marvel property for video games. In those days, they didn’t separate the characters into individual properties. I really wanted to work on another Marvel title and asked if they had anything that was not included in the Acclaim contract. Their first response was no, but then they found Marvel 2099. They told me it was available and sent me some of the comic books to check it out. I could not believe my luck! A Marvel property that included dozens of Marvel characters, it was in the future and the characters looked different, but it was full of recognizable Marvel characters (some looked ever cooler in the future!) and the main villain, Dr. Doom was awesome.
I convinced Mindscape that this was too good to pass up and I worked with Marvel and Mindscape management to negotiate a deal. The deal was more than reasonable and included the rights to do the game on PC CD-ROM, Playstation, Sega Saturn and 3DO.
D.2099: Do you recall at what stage the game was at when it was cancelled? 50% done? More? Less?
M.F.: Less than 50%
D.2099: Do you think….had the game been finished…that it would have been a good game?
M.F.: Absolutely!! We knew from the start that there was concern that the game was a side-scroller, but so was Mario! With our development schedule and budget we decided it was the best use of our time and talent to create characters and animation that looked better than any other comic book title, but it was too much of an undertaking to do all the characters in a fully free 3D environment. We wanted the character art to blow you away, so instead of doing a less than stellar job in a 3D environment, we decided to do a superior job in a 2D environment. We did plan to have some levels moving vertically and not horizontally. We also wanted to make sure that there were “branches” in the game play where the player had to choose which path to go down. This would allow replay-ability because you could complete the game without going everywhere. AND we were creating some incredible cinematic sequences to introduce characters or as visual rewards for completing levels. One cinematic sequence that was completed was Hulk 2099 coming down a ladder into an underground sewer system and running through a large pipe towards the player.

We can only hope that one of these playable demos could be found and shared with the community in the future.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution and Daniel for the video!

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Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Time0 (ZootFly) [X360/PS3 – Cancelled]

monokoma

22-12-2022

10 Comments

Time0 is a canceled action game developed by ZootFly for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 platforms, alongside potentially a Nintendo Wii version, from 2006 to 2008.

As we coul read on old ZootFly’s website, Time0 followed the adventure of Zed Condor, an urban explorer and Violet Munro, an investigative reporter who got trapped deep in the shadow world of a parallel New York. The city itself is a giant war machine threatening to wipe out our world. They have three days to stop it.

“Time0 is a daring and upbeat action adventure about two diehard New York City urban explorers. They discover an entrance to a parallel world in which an army of enslaved people is building replicas of cities in order to launch a Trojan horse invasion on Earth and other worlds.”
“There’s the exploration spirit of unknown worlds, the audacity of the greatest movie adventures, and the roughness of gritty urban TV series.”

Time0 had a pretty messy development story, as the creation of this game came from the ashes of another canceled project from ZootFly, a title based on the Ghostbusters license. According to Bostjan Troha, founder and president of ZootFly, for Gamespot, this game was in development from May to July 2006 before being postponed because of IP issues:

“Over the weekend, Ghostbusters fans were aflutter with some videos that appeared on YouTube. The clips showed footage of a game based on the 1984 sci-fi comedy film. But instead of featuring fish-out-of-water geeks awkwardly shooting from their proton packs, the videos showed Gears of War-style gameplay, massive destruction, and a gritty New York cityscape.
The videos were posted by the game’s developer, Slovenia-based ZootFly, who later admitted that the Xbox 360 game was merely a prototype and that intellectual-property issues momentarily sidelined its development.
Bostjan: “The development started in May 2006 and was put on the back burner in July 2006, at which point we shifted the focus to Time0, a Ghostbusters-inspired game. The engine is based off of a common code base we have at ZootFly. After our previous titles were released it was upgraded to next-gen to run a prototype of World War III, a game where the US and Europe duke it out. The Ghostbusters footage was running on an intermediate build of the engine that now powers Time0 which is a third-person action game for the Xbox 360, PS3, and hopefully for the Wii. It is in part based on a true story about two urban explorers that disappeared in New York City in August 2006, while exploring a Harlem basement rumored to house an ancient portal into the parallel world. We started prototyping in summer last year. The development of a 20-minute vertical slice of Time0 started in late October 2006. Right now it’s hard to tell when it’s gonna be complete. Currently, we are actively looking for a worldwide publishing deal for Time0.”

Early 2007, ZootFly posted three teaser videos about Time0. After that, the game disappeared from the radar during an entire year before Gematsu revealed in May 2008 that the title was still in development and that the developer was trying to negotiate with publishers:

“We’re still talking to… how shall I put it… two of the top four publishers about publishing Time0,” said Troha. “The 20th Century Fox title will be announced by Brash Entertainment sometime in summer. Unfortunately that’s all I am allowed to disclose.”

Unfortunately, Time0 was never mentioned again thereafter. A few years later, a new video showing gameplay was uploaded in addition to new screenshots, unclear as to whether this was a new attempt to revive the project or if it was an old prototype before it’s cancellation. We notice that the appearance of the protagonist has been totally changed, as Chentzilla pointed out in the comments, it borrowed a lot from the main character of the game Mistmare, which was developed by people who would later found ZootFly.

After developing Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death, ZootFly was acquired in 2013 by the company Interblock, specialized in casino games.

Thanks to Chentzilla for the contribution!

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