Beat ’em up

Altered Beast [PS2] – Beta

Project Altered Beast (commonly known as Altered Beast) was a remake of the legendary game originally released in arcades and on various consoles. The game underwent numerous changes, many of which remain largely undocumented. Luckily for you, this article on Unseen64 attempts to shed light on some of the changes I noticed from both the E3 2003 and 2004 footage.

The HUD (HP and Energy Bar) went through two distinct designs before the final version. The attack animations for the Werewolf and Luke were noticeably different in the E3 2003 and 2004 footage. Additionally, the design of the Wendigo was different in the E3 2003 footage. It seems that much was reworked between the E3 2003 presentation and the game’s 2005 release. However, without access to earlier builds, it’s impossible to determine exactly what was improved and what remained unchanged.

Fun fact: the game was originally developed by SEGA WoW, as noted in both the E3 2003 and 2004 trailers. However, by the final release, there was no trace of the developer’s name. While the exact details are unclear, it’s possible that SEGA WoW was quietly disbanded, and development was transferred to an internal team within Sega of Japan, working in collaboration with Sega Shanghai.

Below are some videos and images of the differences.

A video documenting the making of the game.

 

Rygar 2 [Xbox-PS2] Cancelled

Rygar: The Legendary Adventure is a fun action adventure on the PS2 released in 2002. The game was well-received among critics, going as far as receiving nominations for various awards. While it did well critically, it sadly failed commercially. Rygar was unable to dethrone competitors like Shinobi and Devil May Cry. While Tecmo was working on a Ninja Gaiden game back then, rumours began to surface about a potential Rygar sequel in the works. The first mention of a Rygar follow-up appeared in an Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine issue and an IGN article in 2004 where journalists reported that Tecmo was gearing up to showcase the next chapter in the Rygar franchise. Game Informer caught up on the news and interviewed Tomonobu Itagaki to obtain more scope on the matter. The aforementioned assured everyone that he would make an announcement regarding Rygar 2, but in the end, he didn’t.

Gamekult reported that Tecmo has renewed the trademark, speculating that the company may indeed release the Rygar follow-up. On the other hand, IGN continued with their investigation, speculating that Rygar 2 may be released in 2005 for the Xbox and the PS2. In the end, nothing happened and the project was silently shelved.

There were attempts to contact Satoshi Kanematsu, Yoshifuru Okamoto and Tomonobu Itagaki to learn more about Rygar 2, but nothing came to fruition.

More details concerning Rygar 2 have been documented in a YouTube video.

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Judge Dredd [Arcade – Cancelled]

 

Judge Dredd is a cancelled Beat ’em up brawler game developed and published by Midway Games on the arcade, around 1992-1993. It featured digitized graphics and was based on the comic book serie of the same name.

The game reached a near-complete state, with 3 stages finished, and 3 bonus stages after each ‘main’ level. Each stage was different in some way, such as the first being a normal scrolling brawler-style stage, the second being closer to a platform game, and the third being a unique concept, where Dredd has to fight off waves of ‘block warriors’, making sure that the two ever-decreasing bars never reach the bottom- if one of them is emptied, the stage is over and has to be repeated. After the final level is beaten, the game ends with a preview for the next level, apparently featuring the character Judge Death from the comics.

Gaming Hell managed to get in touch with Jake Simpson, former programmer on Judge Dredd, and former artist Erik Kinkead. Both shared details about the development of the game and why it was ultimately cancelled:

So, after the success of Terminator 2 – The Arcade Game, Midway were looking for another movie license to make an arcade game out of, and since the Judge Dredd movie had been announced at the time, they decided to grab the license and beat the cinemas to it. Utilising a slightly-better form of digitised graphics than the original Mortal Kombat (pioneered in this game) it was planned for release in 1993. The inspiration came from a different source.

Jake Simpson: The actual premise of the game was it was supposed to be a cross between Mortal Kombat and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – we literally had one in my office to play, the 4 player version…

It’s a scrolling brawler! You should be familiar with what’s gonna go down by this point- just fight through waves of enemies, and beat the boss character at the end of the stage. In fairness, it’s a rather sophisticated one for its time, as each stage is different in some way, be it the controls or the mission objective. It’s definitely a different approach than the norm.

Jake Simpson: We wanted each level to have a different mechanic (although not too different) because at the time, no one else had done that, at least not in a brawler.

The layout is actually recycled from NARC, Williams‘ ultra-violent run-and-gunner.

Jake Simpson: The control panel was used because ‘everyone else said it had worked out well with Narc. This was my first game, so I just let it go. (…) The jumping level with the robots literally went in about a month before test. It was only because Eric had done some renders of robots and we looked at it them and went “What can we do with this?” – Eric and I built that alone very quickly… I’d never even attempted to code a platformer before and had no real idea what I was doing. (…)

Yes, some of the levels were too hard. They were absolutely designed to be quarter suckers. The trouble with games like this – story games – is that most of the time people will only play through once. This isn’t a sports or combat game where you play to test your skills against another player, so you replay. This is a once through kind of game, so we needed to take as many quarters as we could without pissing off the player, so things were definitely harder than they should be for playing for free on Mame.

After the third shooting gallery, the game abruptly ends and you’re greeted by this screen, which promises that “DEATH IS COMING….”. Obviously, the next stage would’ve involved Judge Death somehow, but how?

Jake Simpson: The last level was basically Judge Death in Resyk – he was reanimating corpses that were rolling out on a conveyor belt at the back of the screen and you were shooting them and him – you’d have your gun but it could be knocked out of your hand and you’d be manno e-manno until another one dropped into the level. The Judge Death stuff was about 60-70% done. We had Judge Death leaping around and attacking you, that much I do remember. I don’t remember if he was reanimating corpses though, even though I knew that was the plan.

Also, in case you’re wondering why Death looks so crazy-awesome here, it’s because he was a mannequin, much like Leglock and Goro from Mortal Kombat. Eric Kinkead was particularly impressed with it.

Erik Kinkead: Oh man, that Judge Death model was so awesome. At least, if not as cool as Goro. I would go into either Tim Coman or John Vogel‘s office and look at that thing constantly. Although that close up picture of him… Doesn’t do the model justice.

However, it was never released. Hell, it wasn’t even completed, but was playtested in Chicago. Unfortunately, the locaction test didn’t quite go to plan, so the plug was pulled on the project.

Jake Simpson: We were still relatively early in development to be testing – normally the game doesn’t go out on test till it’s 100% complete and we weren’t – but we were starting to get glimmers of the fact that this wasn’t going to be great and we wanted to know early so we could just put a bullet in it and stop wasting our time, if that was the case.

I think part of the reason we did abandon it was because it *was* such a labor of love, and it just wasn’t living up to our expectations, either in what the game was or how it was doing on test.

We never finished it because we put it out on test and it just didn’t do great numbers… I remember having a bug that crashed the game in the block wars and that totally destroyed our on test numbers. I remember at the time NBA JAM was out, Mortal Kombat was out, and our numbers were no where near theirs, so we all got very demoralized and just gave up. In retrospect we _should_ have finished this – Midway paid for the license and we should have completed it. We probably could have in a month. I remember the meeting where we all sat there and looked at each other and just shrugged and said “What were we thinking?”. We were young and stupid. Enough said.

Both Jake and Eric remember a different level that was cut- a Spy Hunter-esque racing stage using Dredd’s Lawmaster.

Jake Simpson: There was another level we had which got cut – the motorcycle chase. It was a top down thing, where you were on his bike and you had to chase a car on a high ramp over the city. The ramp was damaged so you had to jump sections… We cut it because honestly, it was no challenge. A few jumps, some left and right and that was it. Looked gorgeous though, but all that really nice Mega City At Night imagery took up way too much image space, so we cut it entirely.

Sadly, the Lawmaster chase stage was gutted from the location test version to make space for the Death stage.

Jake Simpson: The code for the Motorcycle was there, but none of the graphics were.

Fortunately, the game was preserved, to an extent- although only four boards were ever made, a version of the game slightly older than the version play-tested was dumped and is available to play in MAME.

Jake Simpson: Only 4 machines were made. I had one, that went to my sisters pub in the UK and was destroyed when that burnt down. One went to Tim Coman, one went to Mark Penacho and I’ve no idea where the last one ended up. I also have no idea how the roms got out into the world – I will say that they weren’t the final ones we put out in the world though.

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Prime [SNES – Cancelled]

Prime is a cancelled beat ’em up game that was developed by Malibu Interactive for the Super Nintendo around 1993-1994. The game was based on the comic of the same name.

Very few information exist about this game as, to this day, no video games magazines featured it on Archive.org, and no reason were given about why it was cancelled. We can speculate that it was the purchase of Malibu Comics by Marvel, of which Malibu Interactive was a subsidiary, that happened in 1994 that caused to shutdown the game company, and thus, cancelling the title in the process.

A first prototype of the game leaked in 2009 containing 5 playable levels and we can read more details about its gameplay here:

As far as gameplay goes, Prime is a pretty standard side-scrolling Beat-‘Em-Up in the mold of Final Fight, which shouldn’t come as a surprise if you were playing video games in 1994.

Malibu Interactive did a pretty good job on that front. Maximum Carnage seems to be the bar they set out to beat, and while you don’t get to whip people around with Spider-Man’s webs, they do give Prime a few neat attacks to keep things interesting — or as interesting as one of video games’ most repetitive genres gets, anyway.

One button makes Prime punch, often with a combo that’s a dead ringer for Cody’s in Final Fight, but powered by ridiculously huge arms instead of ultra-tight acid wash jeans. And while you don’t get to actually fly during any of the fighting levels, you do get a double jump that’s useful in exactly one area. Another button gives you an alternate kick attack that begins with the most awkward wind-up ever and ending with a stiff-leg kick square in the junk, complete with an impact burst exploding out of the bad guy’s crotch.

In addition to the standard chuck-an-enemy-across-the-screen, Prime also gives you the ability to throw them towards the background or foreground. It’s a trick lifted from the later-era TMNT games, but they pull it off pretty well here by adding something that the comics of the era specialized in: explosions.

Explosions are a recurring theme in the game, and you get to most of them by throwing enemies at everything possible just to see what happens. The car in the foreground, the fire hydrant in the background and the windows on the building can all be broken when you toss an enemy at them, usually resulting in an explosion even when it’s a fire hydrant. It’s also pretty nice that the backgrounds have areas (like the windows and the occasional boarded-up door) that are destructible, although owing to the game’s unfinished status, the destruction will occasionally result in a glowing purple square of nothingness.

So at this point, we’ve got guys in tank tops, crotch-kicks and exploding cars, and for the Streets of Rage aficionado, that’s all pretty standard stuff. Prime is also equipped with two special abilities that allow him to deal with these horrors. For one, as seen above, he walks just like WWE chairman Vince McMahon. And for the second, his super attack, which allows him to blow up like a balloon until he explodes.

An almost finished version leaked later on the internet.

The game was eventually released on the Sega CD under the name Ultraverse Prime in 1995.

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Gen13 [PC / PSX / Saturn – Cancelled]

Gen13 is a cancelled action game developed around 1997 for the PC, Playstation and Sega Saturn systems, that was going to be published by Electronic Arts and developed by Gray Matter Inc. It was based on the eponymous comic-book franchise.

As we can read on Playstation Museum, a deal between EA and WildStorm Productions was struck in February 1996 in order to make a series of video game based on this licence. High Score Entertainment was tasked to make design documents for EA:

The license granted EA exclusive rights to develop a series of 2-D and 3-D action-adventure interactive entertainment software products based on the Gen13 comic book series for personal computers, Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and other advanced entertainment platforms.

EA’s games will feature the comic book’s seemingly average teenagers – the Gen13 – who are actually missing subjects from a top-secret government experiment to create super-humans. Escaping from their keepers, the youths are labeled as fugitives who pose a national security threat to the United States. Their only hope for survival is to use their newly-found powers to battle their enemies and to learn the secrets of their past. The Gen13 are kids on their own just trying to have fun – when they’re not running from spies or saving the world.

High Score Entertainment, the studio responsible for Madden NFL 95 and NHL 95, were in charge of producing and designing the Gen13 game. The high level concept was that the Gen13 video game will deliver the detail, depth and play-control of Mario, the great platform/shooter dynamic of Earthworm Jim, the hard-core action of Street Fighter and an adrenalizing soundtrack of heart-thumping techno and contemporary modern rock- with all the mind-blowing artwork and spectacular characters that only the Gen 13 universe can offer!

Regarding its gameplay, Gen13 was going to be a mix of vertical shooter, beat ’em up and one-on-one fighting game, with a cooperative mode:

THE GAMEPLAY:
The normal gameplay engine will be similar to that of Earthworm Jim where the player controls at least one of the five different Gen13 characters. There are also “team-up” levels where the AI controls additional players on the screen. In the case of a two-player game, both characters will be actively controlled.

In addition to side scrolling fighting/shooting, the engine will be designed to be flexible, allowing for a variety of scenarios such as: vertical shooter, static screen action, zoomed in cinematic sequences, zoomed out view of gameplay, and forced scrolling action.

The boss combat engine will be a dynamic 3-D environment where the characters can cruise around in an arena. The closer the character is to the “boss,” the closer the camera will be. The camera will zoom out respectively when the characters are apart.

CHARACTER DESIGN:
All your favorite Gen13 characters are in the game, each with their own special moves and animation. WildStorm Productions sent EA visual character specifications in order to ensure that the characters are intricately and properly portrayed.

The Gen13 characters can’t get by on their good looks and sparkling personalities alone. Throughout the game will be various ways to help the player survive, in the form of traditional gameplay “power-ups.” Of course, Gen13 offers that extra twist: The Ultra Move. The most potent powerup in the game is the “Ultra Move.” Each character has only one “Ultra Move” hidden somewhere in the levels of the game. The “Ultra Move” is the ultimate manifestation of a character’s Gen Active power.

BOSS DESIGN:
The design team asked Jim Lee and J. Scott Campbell to create the bosses for each of the levels. They have also been commissioned to create the mother of all end bosses to climax the Gen13 game. The mother of all bosses will require true teamwork from all of the Gen13 characters in order to defeat. The game ending boss would be introduced in comic form in an upcoming Gen13 series. A possible marketing ploy would be to offer a secret code that is unlocked upon completion of the game that will allow the player to send away for a poster of the mighty end boss.

LEVEL DESIGN:
Levels will provide diverse physics and game mechanics to give a variety of challenging gameplay experiences. Levels on skates, on ice, driving vehicles, flying, swimming, or climbing will give the user several types of gameplay to master. The different areas of Gen13 will be truly living and breathing environments. Locations will be chosen not only for good gameplay and storyline, but for exciting and realistic visuals. 25 levels were designed conceptually, many of which were drawn out for the developer. Some of the levels include the Grunge and Freefall traveling to Las Vegas in “Viva Las Vegas”, Fairchild discovering an underground complex under the city in “Down In It”, Grunge saving Freefall from One-Eyed Jack in “No Tut In Common,” and Freefall loose in a shopping mall after hours in “Mall Maul.”

BONUS:
Arcade classic bonus games will be hidden throughout the Gen13 game. The games will be spoofs of famous arcade games that are recognized by all. The goal of the bonus games is to score points to earn extra lives.

Once the design documents finished, EA was looking for developers that could have achieved the vision they had for their Gen13 game. Three different game companies made tech demos to show to EA. Those studios were Evolutionary Publishing, Realtime Associates and Gray Matter Inc. Ultimately, Gray Matter was the developer retained by EA.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY:
With the design documents completed, EA proceeded to entertain bids from possible developers. Potential developers included Evolutionary Publishing (Fox Hunt), Realtime Associates (Crusader: No Remorse, Iron Man & X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal), and Gray Matter Inc. (Perfect Weapon). Each developer submitted technical demos for review. It is important to understand that developers have concurrent projects in progress while technical demos are being created and some have more time and resources to dedicate on this than others. The technical demos are not to be taken as indication of how the resulting gameplay would be.

Evolutionary Publishing submitted two progressive interactive technical demos of Rainmaker and Qeelocke. Both demos allowed the user to move the character in a platform environment. The backdrop was from the “Viva Las Vegas” level. The more recent demo allowed Rainmaker to scale the wall of the pyramid in Las Vegas. Evolutionary Publishing decided to utilize 2D sprites for the characters whereas the following two competing developers used 3D models.

Realtime Associates submitted a playable demonstration of their progress in representing Freefall as a real-time rendered 3D model. This demo was put together in less than a week.

Gray Matter Inc. submitted a non-interactive art demo to illustrate the graphics style of the various Gen13 characters including an end boss as well as a fly through to the “Down In It” level. The graphics captured the essence of the design documents and ultimately Gray Matter was chosen as the developer.

But after some months of work, the game was cancelled for economical reasons. Gray Matter shutted down and EA decided to drop the licence.

CANCELLATION:
After just a few months of programming, Gray Matter developed two polished interactive levels, an arena mode, and FMV for both the PlayStation and PC. Three different characters were created for the two side-scrolling levels as well as enemies. Four characters and an enemy Boss were programmed for the Arena mode. Unfortunately the agreement between Gray Matter and Electronic Arts reached an impasse due to business politics. As a result Gray Matter closed down therefore ceasing all projects and all employees losing their jobs. Due to the amount of money spent and the popularity of Gen13 wavering, EA decided it was not financially feasible to engage another developer and instead decided to cut their losses.

Like many other games, over the years, the tech demo made by Realtime Associates and the prototype by Gray Matter leaked onto the internet.

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Evolutionary Publishing’s version:

Realtime Associates’ version:

Gray Matter Inc.’s version:

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Gen13’s Realtime Associates prototype:

Gen13’s Gray Matter Inc. version: