shooter

The Boondock Saints: The Video Game [PC, Xbox 360, PS3 – Cancelled]

The Boondock Saints: The Video Game, sometimes referred as Boondock Saints: The Game, is a cancelled action cooperative shooter game developed by Critical Mass Interactive in 2012, for PC and Xbox 360, with a potential Playstation 3 version. It was based on the movies of the same name.

The game was first mentionned in February 2012 when cast members from the movies told to Joystiq that they would make a gaming announcement at the South By Southwest Interactive Festival 2012:

Joystiq has learned that cast members from the 1999 cult classic film The Boondock Saints will be making some manner of gaming announcement during the ScreenBurn Arcade portion of next month’s SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, TX. Now, whether that announcement is actually Boondock Saints related is anyone’s guess, but that seems like the logical conclusion.

Two days later, the project was officially announced by its developer, as we can read on Gamespot:

The Boondock Saints are making a comeback. Speaking to G4TV, Critical Mass Interactive president and CEO Matt Scibilia revealed that the studio is at work on a “full-on co-op shooter” based on the film for the Xbox 360 and PC.

A PlayStation 3 version of the game is possible, but not confirmed, according to the report.

Scibilia told the site that he wants Boondock Saints: The Game to ship to retail, but conceded that it is too early to tell, and the game may end up being released episodically through digital channels.

As for the story the game will tell, Scibilia said the developer is keen on “staying true to the content” of the film, but is also looking at “expanding the story.”

“The Boondock Saints characters are so strong. The banter, the relationships between Rocco and the brothers, the Catholicism, that will all be featured in the game,” Scibilia said.

Boondock Saints: The Game will be discussed by Critical Mass Interactive and the film’s actors at a South by Southwest (SXSW) panel on March 11, before a bigger reveal at the E3 2012, which runs June 5-7.

Following this, a short teaser was shown at the SXSW.

However, it was the last time that we heard of The Boondock Saints: The Video Game, as it was never showed at E3 2012 and totally disappeared after that. We can speculate that something went wrong during its development or that Critical Mass Interactive didn’t secure a publisher. It is currently hard to know if the game even reached a playable state.

It wasn’t the only cancelled game made by Critical Mass Interactive. In their beginning, the studio had planned to make a First-Person Shooter based on the comic-books franchise Sword of Dracula, dropped due to lack of publishers interested in the project. The company took the decision to focus on outsourcing during nearly an entire decade before trying again with The Boondock Saints. According to Matt Scibilia’s LinkedIn profile, studio went bust in August 2014.

If you know someone who worked on The Boondock Saints: The Video Game and could help us preserve more screenshots, footage or details, please let us know! 

Viper: Red Sector [PSX – Cancelled]

Viper: Red Sector is a cancelled sci-fi shooter that was in development by New World Computing for the original Playstation. The game was based around aerial combats with a squadron of robot fighter planes and the player had to eliminate a race of irate synthetic humanoids through more than 40 levels. The missions were set in open areas, so that you would have been able to freely explore the world to reach the different objectives.  We dont know how much it was completed before 3DO purchased New World and decided to cancel the project.

In 1998 Ocean released another flying shooter for the PSX named Viper, but it should not  be related to Red Sector as it was developed by X-ample.

An image probably taken from a Viper: Red Sector’s FMV was found in EGM #84

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Jeff’s Shoot’Em Up [SNES – Tech Demo]

This “Jeff’s Shoot’Em Up” is a tech demo for a top-down shooter in the same vein as Smash TV or Alien Breed, that was developed by Iguana Entertainment (Aero the Acrobat and Turok) to test the SNES capabilities. The demo was titled “Jeff’s shoot’em up” probably after Jeff Spangenberg, Iguana (and later Retro Studios) founder. In this prototype enemies can’t harm the main character,every path lead to a dead end and sound is absent. Also in the introduction the spaceship that is zoomed in/out and rotated don’t appear correctly.

This demo was made available by the nice guys at Nintendoplayer. For a more detailed description please read their article: www.nintendoplayer.com/prototype/jeffs-shootem-up-super-nintendo-game-demo/

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Punk Development Shooter [SNES – Tech Demo]

In-house tech demo coded by Punk Development to test the SNES capabilities. After the demise of Razersoft, Punk Development publishing arm, the company morphed into Iguana Entertainment and soon was acquired by Acclaim. This demo was made available by the nice guys at Nintendoplayer.
For a more detailed description please read their article: www.nintendoplayer.com/prototype/shooter-super-nintendo-game-demo/

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Katakis 3D [GBC – Cancelled]

In 2001 legendary programmer Manfred Trenz (idea, design, program, graphics), Andreas Escher (design, graphics) and Tufan Uysal (sound effects & music) completed  a sequel to the old Katakis C64 shooter for Game Boy Color. Contrary to the original game (an horizontal scrolling shooter) Katakis 3D adopted a forward-scrolling perspective akin to Star Fox or Iridion 3D thus the “3D” suffix.

Development took 5 months that sadly were unfruitful because the completed project couldn’t find a publisher interested to shipping it so from 2001 the game gather dust in a safe. Quite unfortunate cause it would have been very interesting to witness what Manfred Trenz amazing low level programming skills could have produced on the weak Game Boy Color hardware.

Thanks to Collect-Thor for the contribution!

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