Rage Software

Cheeky Monkey (Rage Games) [PC – Cancelled]

Cheeky Monkey is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by Rage Games around 2000 / 2001, planned to be released on PC by Epic Games. From the remaining concept art and 3D model it looks like the game was set in some kind of “Asian dark fantasy” world, with japanese / chinese buildings, demon monkeys and flying islands.

As far as we know Cheeky Monkey was never officially announced by Rage nor Epic and we were not able to gather any more details about the project. If you know someone who worked on this lost game, please let us know!

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Under Pressure (Rage Software) [Cancelled – PC, Playstation]

Under Pressure is a cancelled underwater shooter adventure that was in development by Rage Software Newcastle around 1997, planned to be released on PC and the original Playstation. By looking at the few screenshots available it seems you would have been able to play in first and third person, exploring a 3D sea filled with fishes and robotic enemies.

As it happens for many other cancelled games, today not much can still be found online about Under Pressure. Screenshots were published on Edge magazine in February 1997 and a former developer mentioned the title in an interview with Arcade Attack:

Have you ever worked on any games that were never released, and if so, which unreleased games do you feel would have been the most successful?

After Power Drive Rally, I designed and helped create ‘Under Pressure’ running on PC for Rage Newcastle, an underwater submersible/action adventure game in 3D. EA were funding the game development at the time, but unfortunately they pulled the plug mere months away from release. The next game we made was the co-op space shooter Expendable, also known as Millennium Soldier on the Dreamcast/PC.”

 

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

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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Perfect10 [PS2 – Cancelled]

Perfect10 is a cancelled adventure racing game that was in development around 2003 by Rage Games Birmingham. We don’t know much about its gameplay, but we can speculate it could have been similar to Road Trip Adventure (Choro Q HG 2), with a big open world to freely explore while driving around doing quests.

The project was never officially announced by the company and only a few 3D models / concept art were found online, preserved in the gallery below to remember its existence. As we can read on Wikipedia in 2000 Rage began to expand into publishing. However, the costs of publishing and a run of games that did not sell as expected eventually led to the company closing in January 2003 due to bankruptcy.

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Cluster Buster [SNES- Cancelled]

Written by Jonathan Smith (known programmer for his Spectrum works) when he was first hired at Rage Software, the game was a shoot ’em up scheduled for Super Nintendo around 1993.  Sadly Cluster Buster never found a publisher. Here is what  Joffa Smith recalled about the project in an interview with World of Spectrum:

With new offices in Bootle, I started work on an original game called Cluster Buster on the SNES. This was an eight-way scrolling defender style shoot’em up, with huge exploding planets and moons. Unfortunately no-one was interested in publishing it (Sonic the Hedgehog was all the rage) so it was abandoned.

Scan from Nintendo Magazine System issue 10.

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