Crash Bash is a party game developed by Eurocom and published by Sony for the PlayStation in 2000. Mucus linked us to a couple of videos from a beta version of the game, in which we can see a different Keg Kaboom level, from the Winter Jampack 2000 PSone demo disc. Also, the first trailer for Crash Bash has some beta elements in it!
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In 2006, Eurocom began working with Sony Computer Entertainment on a PlayStation 3 exclusive project titled The Protector. Development progressed far enough that voice recording sessions had already begun by 2007. However, the game was ultimately cancelled in early 2008. Because the project was never officially announced, very little information about its gameplay, story, or overall design has ever been publicly revealed.
Following the cancellation of The Protector, Eurocom continued developing several licensed and original titles between 2008 and 2009, including Quantum of Solace (PlayStation 2 version), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, G-Force, and the Wii-exclusive shooter Dead Space: Extraction, developed in collaboration with Electronic Arts.
Andrew Spinks, who worked on the storyboards and animations for The Protector, kindly shared his artwork and a series of screenshots with us along with some memories of this lost project:
“I was hired as a freelance storyboard artist by Eurocom to storyboard 3 key cutscenes for the demo version of “The Protector”, a planned PS3 Sony exclusive set for release early on in the PS3’s history. I eventually went to work in-house at the Eurocom studios in Derby and remember playing on the demonstration models of the PS3 which we have sent to us. I spent around 3 months working freelance before being hired by the company as a junior animator to animate the cameras in the cutscenes that I had storyboarded, using 3D Max. I completed two sets of storyboards before going to work in Derby and the first set took around 2 and a half months, they were quite detailed and essentially some of my best work at that time. A deadline was set to redraw the majority of the storyboards, I guess before submission to Sony, adding camera movements as a side directional element. I managed to fulfill this task in a short time span and the new storyboards became grittier and more visceral as a result. The parallels between this game, The Protector (2007), and The Last of Us (2009), has never really ever been addressed or hinted at before, but I do feel that Sony might have used some form of inspiration from this cancelled game that we were working on to help develop The Last of Us. I remember working with the design team when possible to make our central character, more beaten and world weary. I remember saying to people, “Make him older, give him lines of distinction, like Humphry Boggart.” And that the character model should always be alert and looking around instead of being static. When I saw the first trailer for The Last of Us, I can’t lie, I saw our game. The parallels are astounding. The central character of Joel is very much who and what we were developing and the Joel and Ellie dynamic was also present in The Protector. In The Protector, you played a hired-gun essentially who’s job was to rescue the American president’s children who had been kidnapped by a guerilla faction after a plane crash. And yes, there was a young girl character amongst those children who very much had a similar age and manner as Ellie.”
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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 0001While 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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Mortal Kombat 4 is considered the 4th intallment of the Mortal Kombat series, 6th if you count MK3U and MKT. Released in 1997, it was the first MK game to use 3D graphics. It was first released in the arcade version and it would be the last arcade MK made. It was released on the N64, Playstation and PC in 1998, ported by Eurocom. An updated version was released on Dreamcast in 1999 called Mortal Kombat Gold, which was identical with the exception of better graphics, added players and a few more stages.
A new character named Belokk was intended to appear in Mortal Kombat Gold, but was cut from the released game. The developer of the game, Eurocom, sent information about the game with Belokk to Game Informer, and as a result, six screenshots of him were published. According to Ed Boon, Belokk was cut due to time constraints during development. Despite the mention of Belokk’s scrap, he was still rumored to appear as a secret character. [Infos from Wikipedia]
Actual secret characters can be accessed via rotating a specific box for a normal character, however when a player do this to Tanya’s box a question mark that was rumored to unlock Belokk appears, but it unlock nothing.
Since it was the first Midway 3D fighting game, the staff had many difficulties while in development, partly due to the fact the staff had doubled in size. Which means many changes were made and many interesting aspects were taken out.
Differences from the arcade version to the N64 version would include: Lower pixel rate and additions such as Goro being a playable character, extra costumes, and another arena called Ice Pit.
Pre-release trailers show Reptile and Fujin with God-O-Mite as their name in the lifebars. More then likely this was before they got to the name detail.
Kitana, Noob Saibot and Kano were orignally going to be in MK4. Kitana was then changed to Tanya. Noob saibot was taken in and out many times and replaced with Reiko. Jarek replaced Kano and for some reason was left with Kano’s moves, which caused many fans to complain because Jarek was hardly original. Noob Saibot can be accessed in the N64 version by a cheat, but was never in the Arcade. These characters were taken out mainly because Midway wanted more new characters in the game.
The hidden character Meat was originaly intended for testing.
Thanks to Pachuka and Sir_Brando for the contributions!
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