Action

Jak 3 [Beta – PS2]

Jak 3 is an action game developed by Naughty Dog as the third game in the main Jak and Daxter series, published in 2004 for the PlayStation 2. As we can read on Wikipedia, Jak 3 was first revealed to be in the works by one of Superplay’s writers on January 8, 2004. While browsing the Naughty Dog offices, he saw early work being done with desert environments.

Below you can see a video of a Jak 3 beta dated 24-28 August and about 70% complete, thanks to BamzookiMan130.

  • Most maps lack borders, such as water or walls.
  • Crates are missing from the game.
  • Health bar for vehicles.
  • Different noises for collecting items.
  • Different shooting noises for the desert drones.
  • The Wasteland map is vastly different.
  • NPC’s seem to be missing from Haven City.
  • The KGB Blast Bot seems to rarely take damage.
  • The voicing in the game seems to be unfinished/not started on.
  • The Armor of Mar is unused.
  • The Jak 2 health bar is used, and even though it is used in the trailer, there seems to be no way to check how much Light Eco you have.
  • When Jak changes from the Scatter Gun to the Plasmite RPG, the diagram of the gun doesn’t change.
  • There is no appearance of the Dark Mod for the Blaster in the trailer, hinting that one of more variants of it were unfinished.

Video:
 

Joe & Mac [MegaDrive Genesis – Beta / Cancelled?]

Joe & Mac is a platform game originally released in 1991 for the arcades by Data East. It was later ported for various consoles, as the SNES and Mega Drive / Genesis. Rod_Wod sent us some screens from a version of Joe & Mac for the Mega Drive / Genesis that seems to be different from the released one (a simple port of the Arcade version).

For example the background of this boss from the magazine scan:

Looks different from the one in the final game:

Could those screens in the magazine be from a beta version, or a different / cancelled Joe & Mac? We have not finished the final game, so we are not sure. If you have finished Joe & Mac and recognize those images, please let us know!

Thanks to Rod_Wod for the contribution!

Images:

 

Colosseum: Road To Freedom [Beta / Uncut – PS2]

Colosseum: Road to Freedom (aka Gladiator: Road to Freedom in Japan) is an action game developed by Ertain and published by Koei in 2005 for the Playstation 2. The uncut / beta version is a different enough game that it could be probably be considered the equivalent of a “director’s cut”. Aside from the slave trade mode missing, it’s an overall MUCH more polished and satisfying game to play all around and certainly a LOT less frustrating.

There is actually a “Retry?” option available for boss battles that lets you replay the fight several times if you lose. You do not instantly lose all of your items and half your money if you continue as you do in the release version. It is baffling as to why this feature was removed as it lets you “scout” out the boss and if you lose you will be able to prepare yourself better to fight him/her the next time around.

The uncut / beta version contains a “Gore” option that can be turned on or off. When turned on, body parts can be hacked off during battle and go flying across the screen. Severed heads can be used as handheld weapons, thrown, or kicked across the ground at opponents. Legs get hacked off and enemies fall down in severe pain. It adds a lot of fun and realism to the gameplay, and of course better portrays the brutal nature of what was gladiator combat. Body parts can also be carried out after a fight and sold to the merchant for a very large amount of money, so much in fact that you can buy any armor you could possibly want and the extra money allows you to upgrade your armors exactly how you want them.

I don’t know quite what happened between the two versions, but so many things were changed around and removed for worse in the release version and I feel the game suffered because of it. It almost seems to me as if the game producers / developers had conflicting concepts of how they wanted the game to be, and the release version we know won in the end.

Thanks a lot to DeusFlux for the info and the video!

Videos:
 

Powerslave 2 (Exhumed 2) [Cancelled – Playstation, PC]

Powerslave 2 (AKA Exhumed 2) is a cancelled game that was in  development for playstation and PC, set in ancient Egypt, thousands of years before the original title. At the start of  Powerslave 2, Ra ( the sun god)  disappears causing a permanent solar eclipse on the land. It turns out that he has been abducted by one of his arch-rivals, and its your duty to rescue him and return light to the world. As a young egyptian warrior you must seek out various egyptian gods and attempt to gain their super natural powers, in order to ultimately challenge and defeat Ra’s rival.

Contrary to the first Powerslave (a FPS) the sequel was meant to be a third person action game, even less linear than the first episode. Developed by original creator Lobotomy Software, the game was probably cancelled when the studios was acquired by Crave Entertainment in early 1998.

Images from GameFan 5-10

Images: 

Crash Bandicoot: Landed (2010) [Cancelled – Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii / DS]

Crash Bandicoot: Landed 2010 is a cancelled game in the Crash Bandicoot series, which wasn’t even officially announced but some info leaked from the people who worked it. These info were soon removed from their websites: Crash 2010 was meant to be a 3d Adventure / Action game in developement by Radical Entertainment. It was cancelled due to layoffs by Activision in February 2010.

Many information were leaked after the cancellation but left unnoticed until August 2010, when they were found by some users in the Crash Mania Forums. There is a short gameplay / cgi footage and also some concept art. Crash Mania members made a petition to make activision continue working on the game but it was unsuccessful, partially due to abuse of the petition (ie. obvious sockpuppetry). A new petition has been started, and has so far not suffered these problems.

Recently, an fx demo was leaked by someone as a demo reel video. The owner of the reel video said that game would not be continued because of Activision. When the fans added the video to Youtube, Activision started removing them but many of these are still available.

Console Game!
Crash Bandicoot 2010 (Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii)
Design and implementation of character locomotion and weapon/combat using proprietary software
Open World Mission Design
Game Systems Design Documentation
Weapons/Tools
Interface
Game Economy
Boss design

Another video with items was found, in which we can see some interesting stuff about the canceled game!

  • Frogzooka [Suck]
  • Boombat [Blow… Away]
  • Glow Top [Stun/Light]
  • Fertilizer Gun [Shoot]
  • Bottle Rocket-Launcher [Ending/Surf]
  • Jet pack
  • Jet ski

Post by MotweraCity

Videos:

DS Footage (Developed by Renegade Kid):

Pictures video for similar visually done game (CTR 2010):

Also Effects Video in this link: http://landinkent.blogspot.com/p/game-fx.html