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Vampire Circus [N64 – Prototype]

Vampire Circus was a Gauntlet-like type of game full of vampires and zombies planned for Nintendo 64 by Zed Two who started working on it in 1996. The game was designed so that you controlled just a single character out of the five in the party, and the others would be under AI control, although you could switch which of the five you were controlling. Each had different skills and abilities, so there was good reason to swap your control between different characters, and it was also possible to lose members of your party to the vampire hoard, so you could only control members of the party that remained alive.

Zed Two got quite far with a playable prototype but when Infogrames took over Ocean, who originally struck a two games deal with the developer (the other one was Wetrix), they forced the team to work with Warner Bros properties they just bought at a great expense. The promising project was thus morphed into the less ambitious Taz Express.

All information and artworks are courtesy of Pickford Bros official website.

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Strider [Cancelled – Xbox 360 / PS3 / PC]

Strider is an action game that was in development for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC by Grin, the same team behind titles such as Terminator Salvation, Wanted and the cancelled Wanted 2 and Final Fantasy Fortress.

Not much it’s known about this unreleased reboot, apart that the project was dropped after the release of Bionic Commando in 2009, probably due to the game’s commercial failure and Grin’s financial difficulties that eventually bankrupted the company. In the gallery below we can see some preliminary concept arts made by Grin Barcelona, the Spanish division of the Swedish software house.

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The Adventures of Tintin [Beta – Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii]

The Adventures of Tintin is an Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii game based off of the 2011 movie of the same name, which itself is based off of the classic book series by Herge. It’s mixed genera game that features side scrolling and 3D sections where you can control the young reporter Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy, or the drunken, but trusty sailor Captain Haddock.

First unveiled during Microsoft’s 2011 E3 conference, the game looked similar to it’s final version. There were still a couple beta differences, namely Tintin wielding a gun during the motorcycle section in the trailer as opposed to the final’s slingshot. This change was most likely done to keep the game’s E-10 rating.

Post by EmmBee

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1906: An Antarctic Odyssey [PS2 – Cancelled]

1906: An Antarctic Odyssey is a cancelled PlayStation 2 game in pre-production at Darkworks during 1999/2000, but it was put on hold when development on Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare started. Some concepts of the game may have been taken over into the later also cancelled USS Antarctica/Lost Mantis.

Eventually, IGN previewed the game:

The scope of 1906 is a vast action adventure voyage as a team of scientists make their way deep into the world’s uncharted South Pole. Elements of the survival horror pioneered by Alone In The Dark will be part of the play, as the explorers will have to brave uncharted worlds and unknowable dangers. What lies in the frozen arctic is a mystery ready to be discovered, and you are part of the team that will heroically take on that task.

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True Crime: Hong Kong (Sleeping Dogs) [Beta – Xbox 360 PS3]

True Crime: Hong Kong is a sandbox action game that was in development by United Front Games and was to be published by Activision. It was going to be the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series, but in February 2011, Activision announced that the game had ceased production along with their Guitar Hero franchise. The game was declared cancelled for being “just not good enough” to compete in the open world genre. Activision didn’t expect it to generate enough profit and stopped development. “True Crime: Hong Kong was playable from start to finish and ‘virtually complete’ in terms of content before Activision canned it,” the developer behind the game told CVG. [Info from Wikipedia] In February 2012, it was announced that True Crime: Hong Kong will go trough some changes and it will be released by Square Enix as a different game, named “Sleeping Dogs”.

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