Schwarzenberg is a cancelled third person shooter that was in development by Radon Labs in 2005, for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The game was set in World War II when the Third Reich was collapsing: Schwarzenberg was the name of a Nazi stronghold, a storage of plundered treasure beyond imagination and secret weapon projects. After the project was announced, it soon vanished without traces: maybe Radon Labs did not find a publisher interested in the game.
Images:
Magic Carpet is a shooter / action game developed by Bullfrog Productions and designed by Peter Molyneux, released in may 1994 for PC, Playstation and Saturn. As we can read on Wikipedia, in the game player plays a wizard (on a magic carpet) flying over water, mountains, and other terrain while destroying monsters and rival wizards.
Pcloadletter found an old beta screenshot of Magic Carpet in Edge magazine issue 1 (october 1993) with different hud and 3rd person view. The final game can only be played in first person view so we never seen the main character on the playing screen before (thanks to Aybe for the confirmation!). Also, it seems that the game was planned for the 3DO too..
Images:
Here’s a video from the final version:
Babylon 5: Into the Fire is a cancelled space combat simulation that was in development by Yosemite Entertainment, an internal division of Sierra FX / Entertainment, based on the cult TV series. The main story would have been placed after the war against the Shadows, but an in-game simulator was supposed to allow fights against their ships, as well. As we can read in Wikipedia, work on this game ended on September 21, 1999, when, as part of a corporate reorganization, Sierra cancelled it and laid off its development staff when the Babylon 5 was only a few months away from release.
The game was going to let players to pilot of a Starfury fighter craft, giving the opportunity to “move up through the ranks,” and eventually take command of capital ships and even fleets. Christopher Franke composed and recorded new music for the game, and live action footage was filmed with the primary actors from the series.
In the old Babylon 5 website we can still read some more info about the project:
What ships can we fly?
In the single-player game you’ll be flying for the Earth Alliance. That means that your primary ships will be the Starfury and the Thunderbolt. The Minbari Nial, the Centauri Sentri, the Narn Frazi and the Drazi Sky Serpent fighters will be available in multiplayer mode. The Whitestar may also be added as a special case ship.
Will this game be multiplayer?
From day one, the game has been designed with a robust multiplayer mode. B5’s mulitplayer mode has been shown at 1999’s E3, Gencon and a few other events where gamers have been able to test the multiplayer demo.
Thanks to Brackynews and derboo for the contributions! (scans from from PowerPlay 7/1998 and PowerPlay 9/1999)
Images:
Videos:
Dark Guns is a cancelled shooter / action game that was in development from 1997 to 1999 by a SCEA team (989 Studios?) headed by David Jaffe, planned to be released for the Playstation. The original concept was for a run and gun 3rd person shooter, but it soon evolved into a flying-shooter, in which players would had took the role of a UFO, to destroy real-life cities and abduct humans to use them for alien esperiments. A playable beta was created (as we can see from the photo of the disc, revealed by Jaffe) before they decided to stop the works on the project, because of some development and managment issues.
David Jaffe talked about Dark Guns in various interviews, that we can read on Gamespot and Gamasutra:
“I had come off Twisted Metal 2,” Jaffe said. “They gave me a blank check and said, ‘Do whatever you want.’ Anybody who was looking at $2 million–at the time that was a lot of money–to do an overhead shooter…that should have been a red flag. To have a design document that was 300 pages for anything, let alone an overhead shooter, should have been a red flag. And then being told the producer and the designer was the same person and that person was someone who had never produced a game in his life… All three of these things came up during the pitch. A number of people, including myself, should have said, ‘Let’s rethink this.”
“Everything about that game came from negativity, and after four years they pulled the plug,” he continued. “And I’m glad they did. I remember when that game was cancelled I realized, that was a huge opportunity and I blew it. No one gets that opportunity, and I wasted it. So after I did another Twisted Metal game my boss came to me and asked again, ‘What do you want to make next?’ And it was really for me a chance to do it right.”
We can only hope that in the future some Dark Guns screens or videos could be preserved too.
Images:
A number of things were taken out of the port of the second Battlefront game to the PSP. However, game modder Broadus managed to uncover this material, which was not present in the final game, but left in the game’s coding. Seven levels were not available in the final game: Coruscant, Geonosis, Utapau, Jabba’s Palace, Felucia, Kamino and the Death Star. The last three of these are not playable, whilst Jabba’s Palace loads but remains unplayable as well.
Geonosis: available in later games such as Renegade Squadron, this vast level includes usable vehicles and gun turrets.
Utapau: again, a large and complex level, with vehicles for both sides.
Coruscant: the main Jedi temple, which is very reminiscent of the level in Force Unleashed. Playable Jedi characters were supposed to be available.
Jabba’s Palace: includes the Rancor pit.
Death Star: unusuable, according to Boardus, but the above loading screens seem to indicate the tractor beam control area.
No screens exist for Felucia or Kamino at present. Thanks to M!573R_X for the screenshots. More screenshots by Schnippshly can be found here. Article by Cybertriffid!
Some gameplay videos are on YouTube:
Geonosis:
Coruscant: