Kemco

Switchblade 2 [NES – Cancelled]

Switchblade 2 is side-scrolling action title originally developed by Core Design and published by Gremlin Interactive for Amiga in 1991. A Famicom / NES port of the game, created by Kemco, was slated for release in november 1992. The player controlled a soldier, nicknamed “Switchblade”,  who had to save planet F-S5 from an alien invasion. As in similar action titles, he was able to double jump, use blades, guns, and collect power-ups for the latter. More weapons and upgrades could also be bought in the store.

It’s unknown why Kemco never released their version of Switchblade 2 or if it had any major difference compared to the original Amiga version, graphics aside.

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Runelords [GBC – Cancelled]

Runelords is a cancelled RPG that was in development in 1999 / 2000 by Saffire and it would have been published by Kemco for the GameBoy Color. The game was based on the fantasy book series with the same name, created by David Farland. In the universe of The Runelords, there exists a unique magical system which relies on the existence of distinct bodily attributes, such as brawn, grace, and wit. The game would have been a traditional turn based RPG, but it seems that the gameplay was not much fun. As we can read on IGN:

When we played the game at E3, we weren’t too excited by the sluggish and laborious RPG play. The game has a 3/4 view (like Mission Impossible) for the action, but just lagged in conversations, in movement, in battle, and elsewhere.

It’s possible that the publisher decided to cancel this project for quality reasons.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Lobo [XBOX PS2 – Cancelled]

A beat ’em up based on the Lobo comic was in development in 2003 by Kemco USA for the Playstation 2 and XBOX. The project was officially canned after a couple of years for unknown reasons, but we can speculate that it was because of its quality. Players would have been able to use knives, chains, guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and Lobo’s signature weapon, a hook and chain, or to morph into different creatures, such as a ghost, a skeleton, and a variety of mutant animals. Sadly Kemco never shown any in-game screens or video to the public, even if the title shoud have been presented to the press at E3 2003.

The cover design planned for the game’s box preserve the existence of the game:

Original Game Art Painting ‘Montage Poster’ for Lobo Videogame. This is one of the original paintings Simon Bisley did in 2003 for the Lobo videogame developed by Kemco Games. Simon is best known for the greatest depiction of this famous character published by DC and licensed for videogame production. The piece was also signed by Simon Bisley in 2005 when he received the art back from the games company.

In September 2021, Bleeding Cool revealed another artwork by Bisley, titled Lobo Vs The Rat King:

A bunch of Simon Bisley original painted artwork is goes under the hammer today as part of an extensive and desirable original artwork lot up for auction today from Heritage Auctions. There’s tonnes of amazing stuff, including artwork, neverbeforeseen by Simon Bisley for a Lobo video game developed by Kemco USA Game, that never happened. Lobo Vs The Rat King, apparently. A beat ’em up for the Playstation 2 and XBOX. Players would have been able to use knives, chains, guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and Lobo’s signature weapon, a hook and chain, or to morph into different creatures, such as a ghost, a skeleton, and a variety of mutant animals.

If you know someone that worked on this game and could help us to preserve more images, please let us know!

Thanks to ForWhomTheBellTolls for the contribution!

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Video Kid [Unreleased for the SNES]

Update: thanks to Tanukitsune we found out that this game was going to be a port of an Amiga/Atari ST game that was released. You can see a video from the Amiga version below!

Video Kid is a cancelled side-scrolling shoot ’em up that was in development by Kemco for the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom. The player would have take the role of a flying thing (in one screenshot it seems a robotic rat, in the other 2 it looks like.. something else) to shoot down enemies through various fantasy scenarios, like a magic forest, the wild west or a dark cemetery. Scans from EGM and Super Power magazine #12.

Thanks to Celine and RayVM for the contributions!

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Video (from the Amiga version):