Metal Head is a 3D shooter with mechs developed and published by Sega and released for the Sega 32X add-on for the Sega Mega Drive in 1994. Rod_Wod found some screens from an early beta / prototype of Metal Head, in which the main robot was still an unfinished ensemble of basic polygons. Check the video below (from the final version) for comparison!
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
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Flying Nightmares 2 is a cancelled flight simulator / shooter that was in development for PC by Eidos Interactive, with a presumed port for the original Playstation and Saturn. As we can read in an interview by Combat Sim with Bryan Walker, Lead Producer of the FN2 project, the game was “a sequel to AV8B Harrier Assault, a game that Domark and Simis developed several years ago, and went on to become SVGA Harrier, the first 640×480 flight sim on the PC, and Flying Nightmares on the Macintosh“.
An online multiplayer mode up to 16 players was also planned. It seems that Eidos decided to shut down Flying Nightmares 2’s development team for unknown reasons and the game vanished with them. Only a self-running PC tech demo was released before the cancellation.
There is not much info on the presumed Playstation and Saturn ports, but Celine was able to find a scan with a short article about them on CD Consoles issue #4. We can assume that the console ports would have been a downgraded version with a more arcade-ish gameplay and no online mode.
Check the FN2 preview at Combat Sim for more info!
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
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Shell Shock is a mission based tank shooter that was originally in development in 1994 / 1995 by Core Design for the Sega 32X, but soon this version was cancelled and the game was reworked and published in 1996 for the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. We don’t know how much of the original 32X project went into the new 32bit ports, as the only image available for the original platform is a target render of an aereoplane, found by Rod_Wod in an old magazine.
Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!
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Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is a flight-shooter game developed from 2001 to 2003 by FASA Studio (part of Microsoft Game Studios) for the original Xbox. Series creator Jordan Weisman noted that the game had a “difficult development,” and went through many different creative directions.
When development of Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge was first assumed by FASA Studio, it was conceived that the game be made into an “interactive movie,” a concept that would have involved an elaborate storyline and a large number of cutscenes. This process would have needed a linear mission design, potentially restricting gameplay.
Consequently, developers pushed back the game’s release date by a year in favor of increased development time. At this point, both playtest feedback and inspiration from games that offered more gameplay options helped shape the game’s development. The game’s “interactive movie” concept was scrapped, the storyline simplified, and the original linear mission design was reworked to promote more choice-driven gameplay.
When the game was first announced in 2002, features for the game included destructible environments which could be used to eliminate enemies, hidden areas containing bonus weapons, and “danger zones” similar in function to those featured in the previous Crimson Skies for the PC. Sadly many of these features were scrapped from the final version of the game. [Info from Wikipedia]
As noticed by Xenomrph on the Something Awful Forum, in the original Crimson Skies trailer (embedded below) we can see some removed levels:
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge on the Xbox was going to have a bunch of other levels, and a completely different tutorial level that centered around robbing a flying casino over the ocean off the coast of Louisiana. You can see remnants of it (and other content) in the early trailer. It would have included destructible terrain, different cutscenes, and a bunch of other stuff…. but no online multiplayer.
Crimson Skies became a launch title for Xbox Live, and that involved totally overhauling the game to include Xbox Live multiplayer and cutting a lot of content to make room on the disc.
There’s still some remnants of the old content, though – the game’s dialogue includes references to the casino heist, the music from the above trailer was included on the game’s soundtrack CD (although the music never plays in the game itself), and the game’s tie-in novel ends at the casino heist (which, at the time of the book’s writing, wasn’t cut from the game yet).
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Psy-Phi is an unreleased arcade action-shooting game based on Sega’s Lindbergh hardware, that was designed by Yu Suzuki and incorporated a 29″ touch-screen display for gameplay. In Psy-Phi players hovered in the air and competed against the CPU or another human with attacks by trailing a path or inputting special symbols on the touch screen.
The original release was planned for spring 2006, but the arcade units were called back in March 06 (the units were still in shipping and had yet to reach arcades) and so Psy-Phi vanished forever. Some units were previewed at trade shows, as well as some arcades receiving units for beta tests (most notably Gameworks). It’s currently unknown why Sega decided to not release this project. [Info from Wikipedia]
Thanks to Kieranmay for the contribution!
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