Action

I-Ninja 2 [Cancelled – PS2, XBOX, GameCube]

The original I-Ninja is an underrated action game that was developed by Argonaut Games and released for the Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube at the end of 2003. The works on the  sequel were started after a few months, but sadly the studio had some economic problems and they had to closed down in October 2004. I-Ninja 2 was never officially announced: only some concept arts remain as a memento of the project.

From the looks of these arts, it seems that the sequel would have been set in the same setting as the original I-Ninja, with a scenario that mixed ancient Japan and futuristc robots, with even more crazier and hardest levels to play in.

Thanks a lot to Tanguy for the contribution!

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Prowler [PSX – Cancelled]

Prowler (also know as Storm Troop and Prawler) is a cancelled sci-fi action game with mechs, that was in development at Origin Systems (the team behind the Wing Commander series) in 1994. Initially the project was meant to be released for the 3DO, as their Super Wing Commander remake, but with the failure of the console the game was soon moved to the Playstation. As we can read in an interesting article written by Sean Murphy (former Origin Systems designer) on the Wing Commander News website, the project had many problems right from the start:

Team communication was poor. Leadership was iffy. There was almost no dialog between the art staff and the programming staff. I remember one day, months into the project, sitting in a meeting and hearing the programmers drooling about how cool the game was going to be, how “dark…and gritty…and dirty, and oily and all mechanical and functional and stuff!” Clearly they had not gotten the memo about our grand notions of Neo Victorian design…

And some time later – as little as three months, possibly as long as six months – sure enough, EA pulled the plug on Prowler and let most of the team go.

You can read the full article from Sean Murphy in here. Some early concept videos from the game were preserved by the Origin Museum in 2008, and they will be shared with the community sooner or later. For now you can see some concept arts in the gallery below.

Celine was also able to find an in-game screenshot of Prowler, from TopConsoles #4 and CD Consoles #4 magazine (the same screen was in the 2 magazines). Anatoly Shashkin found even more promotional screenshots in July 2018!

Thanks to OMJoe for the contribution!

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Agent [X360/PC – Cancelled]

Agent is a cancelled action adventure that was in development at Ensemble Studios before their closure, probably in the works for the Xbox 360 and PC. The project was revealed in an article about the “last visit” at the studios by Gamasutra, in which they were able to check some of Ensemble’s lost projects. Agent had an art style inspired by Pixar’s The Incredibles and it seems that the gameplay could have been similar to Tomb Raider. On September 9, 2008, it was officially announced that Ensemble would be closing after the release of Halo Wars and Agent vanished forever with them.

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Titanium Angels [PS2/PC – Cancelled]

Titanium Angels is a cancelled action adventure that was in development in 2000 by Mobius Entertainment (now known as Rockstar Leeds). As we can see in the screenshots and the video below (that show a 40% complete build), the player would have used a girl named “Carmen Blake”, a bounty hunter with an armored spider vehicle named Titan. Titanium Angels was cancelled after two years of development when Mobius was purchased by Take-Two Interactive. In april 2004 the studio was officially renamed Rockstar Leeds.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Disney’s Atlantis [PS2 – Prototype]

Atlantis is a prototype for a game based on the Disney film of the same name, that was created by Ubisoft Canada in 2000 / 2001. As we can read on Wikipedia, the movie begins with a reenactment of the sinking of the legendary city of Atlantis, but the main story begins thousands of years later in 1914, when Milo James Thatch, an aspiring young cartographer/linguist/explorer, believes he has found the secret to the location of Atlantis.

While some Atlantis games were released for the GBA, PSX and PC, a PS2 version was never published. It seems that Ubisoft tried to pitch their  demo to Disney, but for some reasons they decided to not give the permission to use the Atlantis license for a Playstation 2 project.

Thanks a lot to Stephane for his help in preserving some screens from the prototype!

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