Electronic Arts

Zombie High [Genesis / MegaDrive – Cancelled]

Zombie High is a cancelled side scrolling action game that was in development by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. An incomplete beta rom was somehow leaked online

It seems that there are a few enemies at the end of level 1 that cannot be defeated with your default slime weapon. They can be defeated by using the book as a weapon by entering the door marked number 4 next to the enemies and the book weapon will appear. It is very difficult to defeat them without being defeated yourself.

Celine was able to find some early screenshots in Joypad magazine #10, in which we can notice that the main character sprite has some differences from the one in the playable beta. It’s currently unknown why this game was canned and never released.

Recently a debug mode was found by “The Jackal” by pressing start and A on controller 2 simultaneously. Using this debug mode we can get to see more levels,Music that was never used(which after some research appears to be music used in a later EA title “Crue ball” composed by “Brian L Shmidt” Weapon select,invincibility and disabling enemies. It appears a lot of the game was finished but the only things missing are an ending to the game and most of the minigames and dialogue sections that can be found by entering certain doors in various levels will not work properly unless accessed using the debug modes level select feature

The main characters name in this game according to the debug menu is “Travis” He is also referred to as Travis by some of the characters in the classroom sections

There is a movie of the same name released in 1987, This game may have taken some inspiration from this movie despite not being a game based on this movie, One of the in game characters is called “Emerson” there is also a character in the movie named Emerson, which further confirms this suspicion

The end boss of the game is loosely based around the appearance of Allister Fiend from the band “Motley Crue” EA also licensed Crue Ball a year after this games cancellation and Allister Fiend also appears in this game. The only difference in Zombie High is that he is blue

Crue Ball shares many things in common with zombie high, such as similar graphics design, and similar sounding music (one identical song) The designers of Crue Ball are called NuFx Who could be the possible designers of Zombie High
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Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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GoldenEye: Rogue Agent [XBOX PS2 GC – Beta]

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is FPS developed by EA Los Angeles, EA Tiburon and published in 2004 by Electronic Arts, for the Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube. A sequel was originally planned but scrapped due to poor sales and reviews of the first one.  The game’s ending suggested a sequel as well. According to various sources, the sequel would have included vehicles and a longer story mode. [Info from Wikipedia]

DCodes7 noticed some beta differences in the early Rogue Agent screens and videos, as the models of the enemies, beta weapons design and different HUD. If you can find more changes, please let us know!

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007 The World is Not Enough [N64 – Beta / Unused Level]

007 The World Is Not Enough is a FPS based on the James Bond film of the same name, developed by Eurocom and published by Electronic Arts for the Nintendo 64  in 2000 (a Playstation version was released the same year, developed by Black Ops). An unused beta level was found hidden in the game  and thanks to some GameShark cheats codes created by Goldenboy, it’s possible to explore it to see how it could have been played. A video of this beta “Subterranea” level can be seen below, from SubDrag’s YT Channel.

This is the code to activate the beta level:

D00E0779 0008
813B002C 3FF0
80102EDF 0011
811FFFD8 C300
811FFFE8 C300
811FFFEC C300
D00E0779 0030
80102EEF 0001
800E0931 0000
800E0933 0000
50002610 0000
803B0164 0001

While at ANY menu (preferably the first) press L and R at the same time, the load screen will appear twice. Press C^ to rise (or moonjump) then gently tap it to get down in the pit.

Thanks to DCodes 7 we preserved some beta screenshots and videos in the gallery below. For some reason some images bond is wearing a black camouflage suit, which makes bond blend into the night. Also the HUD is different.

In the second screen you can see a bullet-proof glass door / metal detector that isn’t used in this level in the final game. In the same image a MI6 civilian employee is standing near the doorway, in front of the black door. The civilian seen in this image (dark pants, white shirt, dark tie) isn’t in the final build. He is replaced with scientists in white lab overcoats. The black tie civilian model was retextured with different shades of grey and used in another mission of the final game.

The 7th screen shows the top floor of MI6, near the starting position: behind the beta metal detector you can also see a table and a computer terminal down the hallway, not present in the final game. Then we have the security guard standing next to Bond. He is much different from the final. In the beta the security guard is wearing a suit with a hat to match, but in the final he wears  a bright colored shirt with a blue body armor.

A PC and a Playstation 2 versions of The World Is Not Enough were planned too, but then cancelled.

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James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing [PS2/XBOX/GC – Beta]

James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing is a 2004 third-person shooter, developed by EA Redwood Shores and EA Canada for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and the GameCube. DCodes7 noticed some beta differences in the early screens  and videos released for the game:

  • Different and unused outfits worn by James bond
  • Different outfit for Jaws (beige shirt with brown pants & brown suspenders)
  • Beta enemy wearing a silver/platinum armor (not used in the final game)
  • Beta enemy wearing a grey/black hat (the hat is red in the final)
  • Various differences in the first trailer

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Slipshod [PS2/XBOX – Cancelled]

Slipshod is a cancelled platform game that was in development by Electronic Arts in 2001, for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. It was supposed to launch a new platform franchise for EA (something like Crash Bandicoot or Ratchet & Clank), but sadly after some years of development, they decided to disband the team and kill the game.

One of the levels was finished and playable, but it was too easy and not much fun to play. The Slipshod team put a lot of time and effort into the artwork and the graphic engine but they did not have enough time to develope the actual game play.

The main character design and background evolved a lot during the development: named “‘Buggy”, he was originally meant to be a pizza delivery bug in a “human-sized” world, who rode a segway and was trying to save his girlfriend. After 2 years of work, EA decided to change the whole game from scratch. In another concept “Buggy” was more like a ninja bug, who had to collect scrolls. One of the last changes before the cancellation put Buggy  in a “bug-sized” world, having the whole game to take place in a tree stump.

After the target of the project was changed again to create the new “bug-scaled” world, rumors of the cancellation started to pass inside the dev-team and soon after they were all reassigned to different games. EA decided that they had already put too much time and money into the development of Slipshod, and to start over would have been too cost prohibitive.

Slipshod had the potential to be a fun game, but sadly the continuous changes of  perspectives and scenario ended up killing the project.

Thanks a lot to Hey Hey for the contribution and to Tyler for his help to preserve info and media from this lost game!

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