Angel Studios

Red Dead Revolver [Beta – PS2, XBOX]

Red Dead Revolver is a western third-person shooter published by Rockstar Games and developed by Angel Studios, a team that is now known as Rockstar San Diego. The game was released in May 2004, for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but its development begun 3 years before (2001 / 2002) and the project was originally meant to be published by Capcom.

In 2002, Angel Studios were acquired by Take Two Interactive and Rockstar Games purchased the rights of the title and expanded on it. The original version of Red Dead Revolver had a more arcadish and fast gameplay, while the final one had a more “open world realistic” approach. The “Angel Studios Version” was played more like an “on rails” shooter (but with free movements), instead the “Rockastar San Diego Version” is more like an action adventure.

Chek the trailers below for a comparison. If you played the game and can help us to notice more differences, it would be appreciated!

Thanks to BemaniAK for the contribution!

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Beta Videos:

Here’s the final version of the game for comparison:

 

Buggy Boogie [N64 – Proto / Cancelled]

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There are just few informations available about this strange project developed by Angel Studios, that at first appeared to be some sort of car-battle game, but then it became something more similar to Mario Kart, before being cancelled.

Thanks to an interview on GamaSutra we can read some more details from one of the original developers:

“When I was working on the Dream Team [at Angel Studios], they wanted us to do this DNA-based driving game called Buggy Boogie. You had these vehicles that would eat other vehicles and adopt their powers and morph. It was really cool. But they would sign three month contracts, and Miyamoto himself would say that he did not want any documents. He would just say, “Find the fun, and I’ll be back in three months to take a look at what you have.”

We went through about three iterations of that. We busted our hump trying different things, but at the end of it, he kept coming back and saying that it wasn’t there, and it wasn’t fun. We were a new company that didn’t know how to make games. After about six or nine months, he came back and said, “You guys have really worked hard, and we see the progress, but we’re not seeing the product. But another opportunity has come up for a fantasy golf game, so why don’t you guys work on that? In three months, we’ll be back. Show us a golf game.”

Even if Buggy Boogie looked like an interesting project, it seems that Nintendo killed it for a reason or another… really a shame. In the few screens and concept arts remained from the game, we can see some of its development changes.

Thanks a lot to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Video: