Action

Spec Ops [PS2 – Cancelled]

Spec Ops is a cancelled third person shooter / action game that was in development at Rockstar Vancouver in 2003 / 2004 for the Playstation 2. The title was going to be published by Take 2 as the previous games in the Spec Ops series, but in the end the project was never released for unknown reasons. As we can read from Take-Two’s Fiscal 2002 Financial Results (also on IGN Ps2):

Rockstar Games will continue to create groundbreaking original content for console video game systems, as well as expand its proprietary intellectual properties, including extensions of its Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Midnight Club, State of Emergency, Spec Ops and Smuggler’s Run brands. Rockstar currently has eleven original projects in production at its five internal development studios.

The Queens of the Stone Age’s singer Josh Homme even confirmed to be writing the soundtrack for the game in an interview with MTV:

“Alain and I are writing the music for a Rockstar game called ‘Spec Ops,’ ” Homme said. “There’s a bunch of versions of new songs. Some of them are mellow, some of them are rock and some of them are, like, hick-hop because we’re a bunch of white guys.”

For Homme, working with Rockstar on the game was a dream come true — kind of. While he doesn’t actually play any video games, he did enjoy the process of writing tunes for the small screen.

After Spec Ops was canned, Rockstar Vancouver started developing Bully.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Ookami Hei (Ranpin) [Sega CD – Cancelled]

In December 2008 GDRI has created a topic in the Lost Levels forum linking to a japanese blog, that had posted some scans with cancelled Sega Mega CD games. One of these unreleased games is Ookami Hei (Wolf Soldier – Ranpin) an action game that was in development by SIMS. As Dais suggests in the same topic, it seems that the working title of the game was “Ranpin” as also noted by Gamengai:

Ranpin: A side-scrolling action game by Sims, which was to be compatible with the Fighting Pad 6B. Had a setting like that of Dennin Aleste (a mechanical, medievil Japan) and featured the same character designer as Devil Buster.

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ranpin-sega-mega-cd

 

Alan Wake [X360 – Beta]

Alan Wake is an action adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment, the Finnish company behind the Max Payne games. It is due for release on Xbox 360 in March 2010 and plans for a Windows release have been shelved indefinitely. Alan Wake was originally announced at E3 2005 and in 5 years of development the team decided to change Alan’s appearance since the first trailer. Let’s see those changes throughout the years:

Alan’s First Design (2005):

2006:

2008:


2009:

 

Batman (SC) [SNES – Cancelled]

In november 2008 Sample_Seller opened an auction on Ebay for a Batman prototype that was in development by Software Creations for the Super Nintendo.

BATMAN super nintendo SAMPLE/DEMO US NTSC version

Very early 2 level demo, no sound… undiscovered batman game!!

Devoloped by SOFTWARE CREATIONS.

Original development sample game direct from Nintendo !!

Rare unreleased/unannounced game !! Only a few were made, unique item for any collector !!

As we can read on Wikipedia, Software Creations were primarily known for their video games based on movie and comic licenses like Marvel Comics, Cutthroat Island, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and original titles Solstice and the sequel Equinox.  Their Batman project was never released for unknown reasons.

As Yakumo as noted, this Batman demo has been on the scene for years, infact since the begining of the Super Magicom, Wildcard, profighter and so on. A rom of the demo was leaked and should be easily findable with google.

You can read more info on this beta at SNES Central!

Thanks to Yakumo and Celine for the contributions!

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La Femme Nikita [DC/PS2 – Cancelled]

La Femme Nikita is a cancelled action game that was in development in 2000 / 2001 at Infogrames Lyon House: the project originally started in 1999 as “Mission Impossible 2”, a sequel to the original Nintendo 64 game. It seems that Infogrames soon decided to stop the development for the N64 and port MI2  to the new-released Dreamcast.

Fabien Lacaf, a professional story boarder, worked on MI2 and created different level environment (for 3D artists) and some parallel action designs  for the missions. The first concept to MI2 was based on levels that would have been completed following the progress of the main protagonists that worked in parallel at the same time.  The player was going to use different characters to complete the missions divided in different parts: in every single part the actions would have affected the next parts of the mission with the following characters.

After some months of work, the studio did not have the “Mission Impossible” license anymore and so they had to change the game into “La Femme Nikita”, based on the film / TV series with the same name. The project was then moved to the Playstation 2 but after 2 years of development, the publisher (Atari) decided to cancel “La Femme Nikita” for economic reasons.

That was the end of “Mission Impossible 2” for the Nintendo 64.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution and to Rodolphe for his help to preserve more images from the project!