Action

I-Ninja [PS2/XBOX/GC – Beta & Concept]

I-Ninja is a fun and underrated action game that was developed by Argonaut Games and published in 2003 by Namco (in USA) and Sony (in Europe) for the GameCube, Xbox and Playstation 2. A Game Boy Advance version of the game was announced too, but later cancelled.

ininja-article

As it happened with Orchid (another Argonaut game that was later cancelled), originally I-Ninja had a much more colorful and stylized graphic, but the publisher was worried that it looked too childish, and wanted an edgier, grittier look. As we can see from the early mockup / target renders, the original style of I-Ninja looked a bit like Zelda: The Wind Waker (especially for the islands, the pigs and the scene in which Ninja is sailing a ship) but the 2 games were in development almost at the same time so it was just a coincidence. 

Manhattan Project (Blood Lines) [PSX – Beta]

Manhattan Project is the early working title of Blood Lines, an action / puzzle game developed by Radical Entertainment in 1998, for the original Playstation. In the game the player needs to touch the light sources that are placed in the levels, to change them in his own color. At the end of the time, the player that owns more lights wins the match.

From these early screens we can notice that the characters in the beta version were different and even the light effects are not like the final ones.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Video (from the final version):

 

[Video Article] Kid Icarus Wii

LiamRproductions has recorded a video-article in which he talks about the development of Kid Icarus Wii, a prototype that was in the work at Factor 5. It’s still unknown if the project will ever be finished or not, but it seems that after the closure of the american studios, F5 are still working on some Wii games in Germany . You can check the video article below, thanks to Liam for the video!

 

Faith and a .45 [Cancelled – Xbox 360, PS3]

Faith and a .45 is a cancelled action game that was in development by Deadline Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The story would have follow a couple named Luke and Ruby, two outlaws during the Great Depression. This idea evolved from a tech demo about a “Bonnie & Clyde” couple, inspired from the real-life couple of outlaws, robbers and criminals who, with their gang, travelled the Central United States during the 1930s.

The game was going to follow their lovely escape (Deadline called Faith and a .45 a “gritty, emotional shooter”) and the gameplay should have been similar to a cover-based third-person shooter (as Gears of War or Army of Two) in particular with the dual-character dynamic, with online and offline co-op. [Info from Wikipedia]

Sadly they were not able to find a publisher interested in the project and on May 2009, Deadline Games filed for bankruptcy. Faith and a .45 vanished forever with the closure of the studio.

As noted by NeXuSDK on the NeoGAF forum, Deadline Games had a lot of troubles selling the game concept to publishers:

Initially, Faith and a .45 was set in a post-apocalyptic setting ala Fallout, which publishers didn’t see value… now look at Fallout. Then they changed the theme to something Bonnie & Clyde inspired, set in the era of the great depression and still developers could not see the potential.

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

Thanks a lot to Jonas Springborg, Jan Ditlev and Adam Rishede for the help in preserving their artworks created for this project! Some more images are from  Carsten Brandt’s website. All images are copyrighted Deadline Games.

Images:

Videos:

Søren Lundgaard is the Game Consultant at DADIU. Before this he worked at Deadline Games for 10 years, first as a Lead Programmer, later as a Game Director.

Credits:

Original Idea
Kristine Ploug
Søren Lundgaard

Director
Helle Pagter

Visual Concept Helle Pagter
Felicia Bang

Production Design
Felicia Bang
Tine Lylloff Madsen

Multiple Camera Direction
Sun Hee Engelstoft

Camera
Signe Tora Munk Bencke
Sine Vadstrup Brooker
Martin Køhler Jørgensen

Light
Torben Borup-Madsen

Edit
Linda Nielsen-Mann
Helle Pagter

Sound
Sune Kaarsberg

Set Construction
Ninna Stengade

Technical Support
Schack Lindemann
Peter Posgaard
Lars Holstener

Logo animation
Dennis Nielsen

Images
All images courtesy of Aptocore Aps

Thank you
The National Film School of Denmark
The Computer Game Zone

 

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings [X360/PS3 – Cancelled]

In 2005, LucasArts announced a new Indiana Jones game for next-generation consoles. Originally scheduled for a release in 2007, the game saw constant delays as a result of internal struggles. Due to severe quality issues, it was decided to cancel the project in early 2009. Only externally developed versions for Wii, PS2, DS and PSP saw a release.

When first shown, LucasArts highlighted Indiana Jones as their first game on Xbox 360 and PS3 – with a story written by George Lucas himself. Set in 1939, the player was going to