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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Disney’s Atlantis [PS2 – Prototype]

monokoma
27-11-2009
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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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PSP, Sony

Zero Hour [PSP – Cancelled]

monokoma
26-11-2009
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Zero Hour is a cancelled third person shooter / action game that was in development by Argonaut Games for the PSP.  The project started out as a Playstation 2 game, but when Argonaut got PSP early development-kits, they decided to port Zero Hour to the portable console. A demo for the PSP version was shown at E3 2004, but in late October of the same year, Argonaut fired 100 employees and was put up for sale. Lack of a constant stream of deals with publishers led to cashflow issues and a profit warning earlier in the year. Zero Hour vanished with the closure of the studio.

Thanks to USERDANTE and Tanguy for the contributions!

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Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Lost D Project [XBOX/PS2 – Concept]

monokoma
24-11-2009
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After the development of Cold Fear, Darkworks evaluated many other games concepts to pitch for their new project, but most of them were never realized. There are not many info about all these ideas, but one of their “lost projects” had a nice sci-fi-noir / steam-punk style, as we can see from the few concept arts preserved. The main character seems to have been an “agent with a grey coat, that reminds me of Rick Deckard in Blade Runner. In the dark and steamy city, various demons, psycho-soldiers and huge monsters were going to be the main enemies of the player. It’s currently unknown if this concept was ever developed in a playable form, or it just remained an awesome series of drawings.

Thanks to Joel for the contribution!

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

The Ace Of Spade [PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma
22-11-2009
5 Comments

The Ace of Spade is a cancelled action game that was in development by Ubisoft in 2004, for the Playstation 2. The team created an early playable prototype that was probably used for an internal pitch, but in the end the project was never finished for unknown reasons. The game had a cover/fire system similar to the one used in Namco’s Kill Switch and later in Gear of Wars.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Kaboom: the Mad Bomber returns [SNES – Cancelled]

monokoma
21-11-2009
1 Comment

Kaboom: The Mad Bomber Returns (also know as Kaboom! 2) is a cancelled action game that was in development in 1993 / 1994 by High Voltage Software / Activision (?) for the Super Nintendo. The game was based on the original Kaboom! for the Atari 2006. Gameplay in the original Kaboom! consists of using a paddle controller controller to catch bombs dropped by the “Mad Bomber”, so we can assume that the SNES version was going to be similar.

A prototype of Kaboom SNES was found in 2001 by an user of the Atari Age forum:

It look’s to pretty much to be a “Technology Demo”. Good at best. Very repetetive. There’s some-sort of mad doctor on a flying carpet, throwing down bombs to a kid who runs back ‘n’ forth trying to catch them. Not very impressive and very slow. […] This version look’s as though it was done by High Voltage Software.

Celine was able to find a couple of screens in Game Power (an italian magazine) issue 20, while some other info were found by Zwackery from the Atari Age Forum, in VideoGames magazine (vol. V, no. 11, Nov 1993). As we can read from the VGM article, Kaboom:  The Mad Bomber Returns was shown at the summer CES  1991 in Chicago, along with the cancelled “River Raid: The Mission of No Return” remake.

It seems that “both got killed because the developers couldn’t push the SNES boundaires with either one” as noted by Klove in the Atari Age Forum.

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