Beta + Cancelled car combat Video Games

Gorkamorka, also stylized Gorka Morka and GorkaMorka, is a cancelled Post-Apocalyptic cars combat racing game developed by Real Sports, around 1999 to 2001, and published by Ripcord Games for the PC and the Dreamcast. It is based on the tabletop skirmish wargame of the same name, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

First details for Gorkamorka was shared by IGN in April 2000:

Gorka Morka, whose name originates from a board game, is a vehicular combat game in development by Real Sports, the developer of Jeff Gordon XS Racing. The game features the popular Ork “Mobz” of the Warhammer 40K universe, and has you recruiting your own Ork Mob and arming your battle vehicle for combat. Then its off to the battle field for some fun weapons-based warfare against other Ork Mobz.
Actually, Gorka Morka‘s combat is like that Sega arcade game of old. Housed within your vehicle are two bodies, a driver and a gunner. The driver, of course, drives the vehicle, and the gunner operates a gun seated atop the vehicle, blasting any and every which thing that lay on your path around the track. In the game’s single player mode, you switch off between gunner and driver position constantly throughout the race, and the game’s artificial intelligence takes over the other position for you.
The game’s single player mode is actually centered around the notion of upgrading your driving buddy, as well as all other parts of your car. As you drive, you collect money by damaging opponents and getting to the finish line. You’ll be able to use this cash to upgrade your weapons, although some of it will also have to go to make repairs to the component damage that’s incurred along the way. The real cool thing is that one of your upgradable parts is your AI partner, and by coughing up a portion of the winnings, you can make your buddy study and become more adept both at gun fire and driving.
As you get better at the game and get a smarter driving partner, you can unload some of the dirty work on him. Even better is that Gorka Morka actually gives you a good deal of encouragement to actually drive better in a race, as you can actually build up a fan section amongst the spectators, with the size of the crowd being determined by how good a driver you are.
(…) It turns out that the developers are hoping that you’ll actively switch between driver and gunner positions based on the area of the course you’re currently in. If you’re in a part of the course that requires precision driving in order to get the best time, move into the driver’s seat. If you’re approaching a tough foe, and you really want to nail him, get into the gunner’s position and blast away while the AI guides you.
Of course, there are still some people out there who aren’t in on this AI thing at all, and that’s what multiplayer was made for. You and a friend can play the game simultaneously, with one player taking to the driving position while the other assumes gunner role. The real intriguing part is the Online play, though, which allows you to do the same thing with an owner of the Dreamcast or PC version somewhere else in America. You’ll actually be able to play multiplayer in this cooperative fashion, or you can join hands with your AI buddy and go at it competitive.

The game was shown at E3 2000 where more info about it was spread:

Basically the point of the game is to shoot up your opponents as much as you can on your way around the track. The races are run for a certain amount of time, so whether you are in the front of the pack or not doesn’t really make a difference to the overall standing. What does make a difference is how much you can damage all of your opponents vehicles. Each time that you damage an opponent you get the ork currency called “teef.” Yup, the orks trade their teeth as currency because they grow back so fast. It’s a matter of showing that you can kick the crap out of your fellow ork. All if this is accomplished through switching between the gunner and driver positions.
Ripcord was nice enough to come by the other day and show us an early version of the game and even gave us said version so that we could mess around with it. And I can say right now that it is looking pretty good. There still are some placeholder graphics and some of the features in the game haven’t yet been implemented, but it looks like it just might break the tradition of lackluster Warhammer 40,000 games.
One of the coolest things that will be implemented into the final version of the game is a crowd that reacts to the races and acts like any good English soccer fan would. They get rowdy. Like rowdy enough to start shooting at the opposing team. If you do well enough that you get the crowd behind you then they will start fighting for control of turrets around the track. Now that’s some crowd interactivity.
Not only will there be crowds to add to the fun, but there are also plenty of traps that you can trigger to hurt the other players in the race and the shortcuts that usually come with racing games nowadays. Of course, these things can only be accessed if you are in the right position. If you are operating the vehicle in the position of gunner, then you’ll be able to trigger the traps, but if the computer AI is in the gunner position, it won’t try to trigger the traps. Same goes for the shortcuts, AI won’t take them so if you want to go that route, you’ll need to be driving. Luckily enough, it’s very easy to switch between the two positions so you’ll be doing both with a little practice.
Probably the biggest draw to this game will be in the multiplayer however. As of this point, Ripcord is saying there will be max sixteen players and eight cars per race in multiplayer. So you can buddy up with a friend and get onto that course and take out the competition.
The game is still quite a ways off from being complete, but Ripcord is speculating a first or second quarter release next year.

In the same period, Gamespot wrote:

To make combat more interesting, there are location-based damage means that specific parts of a car can be targeted and blown off.

They also added in January 2001:

(…) The circuits are gloomy, desolate arenas with metal walls and blood-red surroundings. The vehicles have the same industrial look, in the mold of those in the old Mad Max flicks. Overall, the vehicles and tracks are highly detailed. Although its colors are muted overall, the game has a crisp look, and it should make very good use of the Dreamcast’s high-resolution capabilities.
Adding to the gameplay, Ripcord is bringing GorkaMorka online through SegaNet as part of Sega’s multiplayer network kickoff. Online gamers can select and recruit their own gangs, and they can race against up to 15 other vehicles – a total of 32 people can play at once. In fact, Ripcord is looking at allowing PC and Dreamcast players of GorkaMorka to hook up online. According to a company representative, this feature is yet to be successfully tested at this point, but if at all possible, it will be available in the final version.
GorkaMorka will be released for the Dreamcast, with full online multiplayer support, in October 2001.

Unfortunately, in March 2001, Ripcord Games decided to cancel their whole Dreamcast line-up, following SEGA’s decision to discontinue the system. Alongside Gorkamorka, Legend of the Blade Masters and Shrapnel: Urban Warfare 2025 were put on-hold:

Lately, it’s been more of the ugly news of third parties canceling their Dreamcast games and now, Ripcord Games might join that list soon.
“We have put a hold on the further development of our Dreamcast games,” stated John Peterson, Executive Vice President of Ripcord Games. “While we believe the Dreamcast is a great system, SEGA’s new business direction [into the software business] has made us re-evaluate our current state.” Mr. Peterson wouldn’t go so far as to state the Ripcord Games for the Dreamcast – Legend of the Blade Masters, Gorka Morka, and Shrapnel: Urban Warfare 2025 – were cancelled, but are pending publisher’s decision.

The next month, Ripcord Games ceased operations, burying any hope that Gorkamorka, in addition to Shrapnel: Urban Warfare 2025 and Legend of the Blade Masters, being released on PC.

An early build of the PC version, dating from January 24th, 2001, can be downloaded here.

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Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox

Battle Rigs (Rage Software) [Xbox, PC – Cancelled]

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30-11-2020

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Battle Rigs (AKA Construction Derby) is a cancelled vehicular combat game that was in development by Rage Software Sheffield around 2000 – 2001, planned to be released for the original Xbox and PC. At the time the team was mostly known for their work on Gun Metal and Incoming, proving their skills with first person and third person shooters. In Battle Rigs players would have been able to build their own sci-fi tank / spaceship to fight in single player and online multiplayer deathmatches.

While Battle Rigs was never officially announced before being canned, former Rage developer James Sutherland found a playable prototype of their lost project and shared one screenshot on Twitter.

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Microsoft, Xbox 360

Wrench (Ensemble Studios) [Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

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13-02-2020

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Wrench is a cancelled car-combat game that was in development by Ensemble Studios since the early ‘00s, and in its latest form it could have been published by Microsoft for their Xbox 360. It was developed as an internal demo and cancelled before being officially announced to the public, but bits and pieces of its history were shared online by former Ensemble devs such as Rich Geldreich:

“Unfortunately, mostly due to limited funding, our XNA demo didn’t see the light of day. This R&D and tech would later be used in a prototype at Ensemble named “Wrench”, then in a really cool internal demo Ensemble Studios got to show to Bill Gates in 2004 named “SevenDemo”. SevenDemo was a physics and graphics demo we put together in about 10 days to demonstrate what the still in development Xbox 360 console would be capable of doing. I was told he was very impressed. A few months after SevenDemo was shown, the Wrench prototype game was canceled (see below), so I rolled onto Age of Empires 3. Later, I used a lot of this tech in what would eventually morph into Halo Wars.”
“I first worked on the rendering and shader code of a prototype 3rd person car combat project named “Wrench” (also see here). After Wrench was canceled (this kind of game just didn’t match our strengths, honestly), I helped modernize and optimize Age of Empire 3’s graphics engine. (Age3 looked really good already, but Wrench had rendering and lighting tech that pushed the game even further.)”

“The team at Ensemble made this demo with the Wrench prototype code in approximately 7-10 days, where it was known inside Ensemble as “SevenDemo”:
“Video of the never before seen “Wrench” graphics/physics engine technology demo shown to Bill Gates by Ensemble Studios (Dallas, TX) in early 2004. We put this D3D9 shader model 3 demo together in roughly 7 days, but we had been working on the tech for around 18 months. The prototype AMD graphics cards we were using at the time became unstable at high clock frequencies, so we unfortunately had to show it at only 640×480 or 800×600 resolution with no AA. The real-time participating media effect used on the entire scene (pay attention to the light rays poking in from the front garage doors as they are riddled with bullet holes) consumed around 40% of our entire GPU budget. This effect is 100% dynamically computed by ray marching through dynamic 16-bit spotlight shadow maps, and was a very advanced effect for 2004. This demo shows light prepass rendering, HDR rendering, omni light shadows via dual paraboloid shadow maps, spotlight shadow maps, and dynamic light scattering effects on the omni/spot lights. Much of this engine code wound up shipping in Age of Empires 3 and Halo Wars.”

Also Richard wrote on Twitter:

“The Wrench gameplay prototype was a 3rd person outdoor car shooter. We had multiplayer working. The prototype was coming along, but I think Ensemble got pressured by Microsoft to pivot back to RTS game prototypes. This led to the “Phoenix” prototype, which then led to Halo Wars 1”

It’s interesting to notice that Phoenix was also the name of a cancelled RTS in development by Bungie for the first Xbox, but as far as we know it was not related to Ensemble Studio’s canned project. Unfortunately Ensemble Studios was closed by Microsoft in late 2008 after publishing Halo Wars. Some of their cancelled games were revealed in an article about the “last visit” at the studios by Gamasutra, with titles such as Agent, Bam! and their Halo MMO.

If you know someone who worked on Wrench and could help us to preserve more screenshots or videos from this lost game, please let us know!

Nintendo, Nintendo 64 & 64DD, Playstation, Sony

BioSwarm (BattleSport 2) [Playstation, Nintendo 64 – Cancelled]

monokoma

12-04-2018

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BioSwarm (initially conceived as “BattleSport II” and later also known as N.R.G. and Groundwave) is a cancelled sci-fi vehicle combat game that was in development in 1997 / 1998 by Cyclone Studios, planned to be released on Playstation and possibly on Nintendo 64 (as noted by IGN in 1998).

At the time Cyclone Studios was mostly known for BattleSport, a “futuristic sports game” published by 3DO in 1997 for their 3DO console, Playstation, Sega Saturn and PC. In BattleSport players battle in small arenas controlling armored hovercraft. The main objective is to shoot an energy ball into a target to score points, while killing your opponents. You could somehow imagine it like a mix between “Rocket League” and “Quake 3 Arena”.

BattleSport was popular enough to deserve a sequel and soon Cyclone Studios started working on BattleSport 2 which was officially announced by 3DO at the time, originally planned for the ill-fated 3DO / Panasonic M2. As wrote by Gamespot:

“Battlesport II (working title) Another former M2 title, Battlesport II is a futuristic sports game planned as a PlayStation-only title due spring of ’98. The first Battlesport game was originally released on the 3DO console system, and it is due for the PlayStation soon through Acclaim.”

In May 1997 IGN also reported:

“3DO has secured approval from Sony to develop a sequel to BattleSport, one of the better titles for the original 3DO hardware. The game is currently under the working title of BattleSport 2 (no big surprise there) but it may end up as BattleSport Extreme among other possibilities. It has not yet been decided whether the game will focus more on combat or sports, but, “It will be drastically different than the first,” according to a 3DO spokesperson. BattleSport 2 is slated for an early 1998 release.”

Some more details about the game were shared by former Cyclone Studios President Helmut Kobler, in a short interview posted in 1997 on the n64.com website (now closed):

“N64.com spoke with Cyclone Studios President Helmut Kobler, who gave us an idea what the game will be like. “We definitely want to bring a version of BattleSport to N64,” said Kobler, the 28-year-old former University of California at Berkeley student. “We’ve spoken with Nintendo, they’ve given us the OK to make it, but right now we’re focusing on bringing a little more order here in-house before we move on to anything else.”
Cyclone will orchestrate a Nintendo 64-specific title, with loads of changes, abilities no other system will have, and has yet to decide which system the game will be developed for, 64DD or N64 cartridge. “Battlesport is born to be on a system like N64,” Said Kobler. “And there is a possibility of the game going four-player, if two systems could be hooked up. As far as I know, a link up is a possibility, but I can’t speak for Nintendo. […] But we’ll only do the game when we feel it’s right. We’re a small company, and we like it like that, so we need to be ready, and need to manage our resources properly.”
Kobler’s plans to make a version of BattleSport for Nintendo 64 include alterations like improving the graphics so that tanks and arenas will contain a quantifiable leap in polygons, and special effects that will include smoke and exhaust, and an altogether far more detailed world. “You wouldn’t just see a flat wall area, crowds, color, and much more would be seeable. And tanks could destroy certain parts of the arenas,” Kobler says.
[…] Lastly, explained Kobler, the game will have new parts to it, which add to the strategy. “Some of the new elements will include underground and above-ground tunnels to hide from the enemy, and pits as well,” he added.”

In the end BattleSport 2 was still primarily in development for Playstation, but unfortunately it seems that Sony, 3DO and Cyclone Studios were not exactly sure how to enhance this sequel. As we can read in an interview with Lance Lewis (former Cyclone developer):

“MT: What is the current status of 3DO’s BioSwarm for the Playstation?
LL: We actually finished a playable level to demo at E3 in 1998, although it was never shown there. In defense of the game, I think it had really begun to take shape, and it was quite unique. However, this was one of those projects that just had too many “red flags” around it from day one. It was originally a sequel to the 3DO Multiplayer game BattleSport. I believe Sony wasn’t too keen on the idea, so it was redesigned and called N.R.G. (energy… get it?). Again, it wasn’t received too warmly so it was redesigned again to become BioSwarm. All of this was going on while the game retained that same engine, presenting a problem for the design team. I feel technology should be built to house a game, a game shouldn’t have to be restricted by pre-built technology. Now, there was nothing wrong with the technology, it was great in fact… but… it was built to do a particular style of game, so every design after that was obviously going to be limited. Upper management really didn’t care about details like this and so once again the 3DO theme: “Re-use, re-use, re-use…”

Unfortunately Lance Lewis passed away in January 2018; family and friends organized a “celebration of life” ceremony for him in San Jose.

To learn more about this lost game we got in contact with James Hampton, former Lead Game Designer at Cyclone Studios on BioSwarm, who recall when he started working on the project:

“Eddie Ruvinsky and Rob Adams were the lead programmer and artist on the team, and together they put together a playable level that featured these articulated hover ships that Rob had designed. When I started at Cyclone Studios, I was tasked with building a game design based on this prototype.
I agreed that the ships were fun to zoom around the arena they built, and wanted to add some unique mechanics that could help the game stand out in the vehicle combat genre. As a group we brainstormed and came up with a bunch of pop-culture inspired enemies and arenas.
The core idea for BioSwarm (as seen in the storyboards for the intro movie) was that a pair of intergalactic garbage men come across Earth, and when they see how polluted Earth is, they saw as the perfect landfill to dump their toxic waste on. This space trash turns out to be these energy based creatures that travel in swarms which defended itself by bringing stuff to life to fight for them. Each of the arena would be set in different kinds of trash themed locales such as ‘Silicon Slums‘ (where old computers parts and monitors go to die), a nuclear power plant, and even a Vegas like level that focused on ‘trashy pop culture’. Example: in the Automobile wrecking yard level, the swarm summons a boss monster whose body is made up of automobiles and car parts (this is the enemy creature seen in the BioSwarm poster and video). This initial build included a subtle easter egg in that a lot of the cars used in the boss monsters body were based on the vehicles the dev team drove to work every day.
The amazing art duo of Rob Adams and Mark Dixon came up with some excellent concept art to show what these new kind of enemies could be.”

BioSwarm’s gameplay was quite different from its early conception as BattleSport 2. Sports’ mechanics of scoring points by shooting balls in a target were dropped in favor of a more combat-focused gameplay, merging cult classics vehicle combat games such as Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8 with an interesting “flocking Artificial Intelligence”.

As told us by James:

“The goal for the BioSwarm player was to round up these alien energy creatures that defended itself by bringing inanimate objects to life to act as their protectors. Sort of a science fiction take on rodeo lasso-ing using these Hoverships to chase down, lasso and capture the ‘swarm’ of creatures. The Swarm used a “flocking” AI algorithm which resulted in these dynamic movement patterns of the swarm moving as one.”

The team worked hard on BioSwarm until April 1998, when Cyclone Studios were fully merged into 3DO and the project was cancelled so that they could instead focus on titles based on their “Army Men” franchise. They developed “Army Men: Air Attack”, published in 1999 for Playstation, Nintendo 64 and PC.

Before BioSwarm got canned the team was able to develop a “pre-alpha” version, which offered a taste of what the moment to moment gameplay was like. While not everything was implemented, you could control a hover ship in an environment inspired by Three Mile Island / nuclear plants and chase down the swarming creatures and zap them. This early demo was presented to the executives at Cyclone and 3DO, as well as a handful of journalists from some of the game magazines publishing at the time (such as EGM). We hope one day someone could rediscover BioSwarm‘s playable demo to share and preserve it online.

On a curious note, years later after Cyclone Studios merged with 3DO their former office space was used by Thomas Dolby’s company Beatnik to work on audio software solutions and games for Macromedia and shockwave.com. James remembers Dolby shown him a demo of Beatnik’s software remixing “She Blinded me with Science” in the same conference room they used to pitch game ideas while at Cyclone.

Huge thanks to James Hampton for helping us preserving more details to remember this promising lost game. All BioSwarm art was developed by lead artist Rob Adams and Mark Dixon. Also thanks to Ross Sillifant for the contribution!

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Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Full Impact (thq) [Xbox 360, PS3 – Cancelled]

monokoma

22-03-2018

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Full Impact is a cancelled car combat game that was being developed in 2010 by Juice Games (AKA THQ Digital Studios Warrington / UK) for the Playstation 3 (PSN) and Xbox 360 (XBLA). The game would have been somehow similar to the Destruction Derby series, with players using cars to destroy their opponent by driving around in arenas at high-speed.

There would have been different gangs to choose from, each one with their own style and car-type, somehow like in Twisted Metal. Players could also been able to fully customize their vehicles with new parts, colors and decals, before destroying them during missions.

Only a few images remain to remember the existence of this interesting project. As you can see it looked really promising. Many different arenas would have been available to play in, set in such locations as a demonic amusement park, a shuttle launchpad and many more.

Unfortunately Full Impact was never completed. THQ decided to move the team to other projects using more popular IPs: Red Faction Battlegrounds and Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team, both released in 2011 for PSN and Xbox Live Arcade. Juice Games also worked on many other cancelled games and prototypes, such as Split Shift Racing, Project FUUB, After Burner and Stormbirds.

This string of failed projects can attributed largely by the shifting focus of the company, and THQ’s own goals during the time after purchasing Juice Games in 2006. With the studio itself undergoing a transition away from boxed retail products and moving solely into digital goods, Juice Games was also undergoing its transformation into THQ Digital Studios Warrington.

Shortly after releasing their two digital games, THQ Digital Studios were then closed down by THQ in June 2011 due to “lackluster sales of Red Faction: Battlegrounds”. Talking to Eurogamer, an inside source who worked at the studio claimed that THQ had cancelled several projects over the years, and that they “struggled to find an idea THQ were happy with”.

Thanks to Andy for the contribution!

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