third person shooter

Game Boy (+ Color), Mega Drive / Genesis, Nintendo, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Elite [SNES MD GB – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
09-09-2010
3 Comments

As we can read on Wikipedia, Elite is a space shooter / trading game written and developed by David Braben and Ian Bell, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers. The game’s title derives from one of the player’s goals of raising their combat rating to the exalted heights of “Elite”. Elite was one of the first home computer games to use wireframe 3D graphics with hidden line removal. Another novelty was the inclusion of The Dark Wheel, a novella by Robert Holdstock which influenced new players with insight into the moral and legal codes to which they might aspire.

Despite being ported to virtually every home computer of that time, there is just one version available for a console and that’s Imagineer NES port, released only in Europe in 1991 ( the NES port is considered the best 8-bit version by the authors). However there were various attempts in early nineties to bring this milestone title to other Sega and Nintendo systems.

In fact Nintendo Magazine System issue 9 revealed how Hybrid Technology (developer of the Archimedes version) was developing the ultimate version of Elite using the Super FX chip. However , as Stern correctly noticed, the screenshots in the article were probably taken from the Amiga version. In the next issue ( #10 ) NMS unveiled ( this time for real ) the first official pics for Super Nintendo. Contrary to what they wrote in the previous issue, Elite for SNES wouldn’t utilize the SFX chip and despite that the game was said to have smooth framerate and Mode 6 ( SNES hi-res mode ). Super NES Elite had additions compared to the original title like a “planet buster” bomb and a more console-friendly interface that use icons ( like the NES version ) .

Those two article made clear how Hybrid Technology had yet to found a publisher for their project at the time so that’s likely the reason why it never come out.

Later on , in 1994, Hybrid Technology created two small tech demos as a pitch to port Elite to Genesis / Mega Drive and Game Boy however nothing came out from them. The two tech demos are available on Ian Bell ( Elite co-author ) ‘s website (backup at elitehomepage.org). You can watch two short videos about them below.

Article writteb by Celine, thanks to Steven for the contribution!

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Videos:

Elite [Game Boy Tech Demo]

Elite [ Genesis/Mega Drive Tech Demo ]
 

Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Area 51 [PS2 XBOX – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
29-07-2010
5 Comments

Area 51 is a cancelled action / shooter game planned for Playstation 2 and Xbox that was in development by Midway Games West in 2000/2001. It was meant to be a direct successor to Atari’s 1995 light gun shooter which saw a re-release on PlayStation, PC and Saturn in the same year.

Sadly in 2003 Midway Games West closed down and only in 2005 Midway Studios Austin released a loose remake of the 1995 game and in 2007 another sequel called Blacksite: Area 51. We can assume that Area 51 2005 is a completely different project than the 2000 / 2001 one, as the development teams were different.

It’s interesting to notice that in 1998 / 1999 Midway Games West also worked on Area 51: Grey Dawn, an unreleased arcade brawler that could have been re-used as a base to create the concept for their cancelled Area 51 for Xbox and PS2. The only video preserved from the 2000 / 2001 project looks infact a mix between a shooter and a traditional beat ’em up. If you have more info on this lost game, please let us know!

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Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Sky Gods [PS3/X360/PC – Cancelled]

monokoma
11-07-2010
No Comments

Sky Gods is a cancelled shooter based on HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening) Special Forces operations. The project was in development at BlackFoot Studios in 2008 for the  Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. As we can read in the official press release, in a typical HALO exercise, the parachutist will jump from the aircraft, free-fall for a period of time at terminal velocity, and open his parachute at a low altitude. The combination of high speed downwards and minimal metal and forward air-speed serves to defeat radar, enabling a stealthy insertion.

In Sky Gods players would have been in full control of their character during HALO freefall as well as while under canopy and were required to properly steer to a landing zone and land without injury or fatality. Once on the ground, players would have been tasked with various missions based on real life SOF experiences, observing and engaging targets through various terrain environments.

The game was planned to have 8 Coop missions playable with 1-8 people, customizable weapons and kit, a training scenarios playable solo or Coop and mod capabilities out of the box.

Sky God was officially cancelled when BlackFoot Studios went through some internal restructuring. As we can read in their official website:

BFS has been operating as a virtual company for some time now and we have had some good people move on to other ventures as well as those still with the projects finding themselves in need of other income sources and/or other outside influences effecting their involvement.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

The Protector [PS3 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
02-06-2010
No Comments

In 2006, Eurocom began working with Sony Computer Entertainment on a PlayStation 3 exclusive project titled The Protector. Development progressed far enough that voice recording sessions had already begun by 2007. However, the game was ultimately cancelled in early 2008. Because the project was never officially announced, very little information about its gameplay, story, or overall design has ever been publicly revealed.

Following the cancellation of The Protector, Eurocom continued developing several licensed and original titles between 2008 and 2009, including Quantum of Solace (PlayStation 2 version), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, G-Force, and the Wii-exclusive shooter Dead Space: Extraction, developed in collaboration with Electronic Arts.

Andrew Spinks, who worked on the storyboards and animations for The Protector, kindly shared his artwork and a series of screenshots with us along with some memories of this lost project:

“I was hired as a freelance storyboard artist by Eurocom to storyboard 3 key cutscenes for the demo version of “The Protector”, a planned PS3 Sony exclusive set for release early on in the PS3’s history. I eventually went to work in-house at the Eurocom studios in Derby and remember playing on the demonstration models of the PS3 which we have sent to us. I spent around 3 months working freelance before being hired by the company as a junior animator to animate the cameras in the cutscenes that I had storyboarded, using 3D Max. I completed two sets of storyboards before going to work in Derby and the first set took around 2 and a half months, they were quite detailed and essentially some of my best work at that time. A deadline was set to redraw the majority of the storyboards, I guess before submission to Sony, adding camera movements as a side directional element. I managed to fulfill this task in a short time span and the new storyboards became grittier and more visceral as a result. The parallels between this game, The Protector (2007), and The Last of Us (2009), has never really ever been addressed or hinted at before, but I do feel that Sony might have used some form of inspiration from this cancelled game that we were working on to help develop The Last of Us. I remember working with the design team when possible to make our central character, more beaten and world weary. I remember saying to people, “Make him older, give him lines of distinction, like Humphry Boggart.” And that the character model should always be alert and looking around instead of being static. When I saw the first trailer for The Last of Us, I can’t lie, I saw our game. The parallels are astounding. The central character of Joel is very much who and what we were developing and the Joel and Ellie dynamic was also present in The Protector. In The Protector, you played a hired-gun essentially who’s job was to rescue the American president’s children who had been kidnapped by a guerilla faction after a plane crash. And yes, there was a young girl character amongst those children who very much had a similar age and manner as Ellie.”

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke [PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma
29-05-2010
No Comments

Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke is a cancelled action game / third person shooter based on the manga / anime with the same name, that was in development by Red Entertainment for the Playstation 2.  The project was unveiled in 2002 in Sega’s 2002 GameJam video. The unveiling consisted of a 20 second clip from the game, with multiple characters from the Trigun series. Since its unveiling, no word on development had come out by its developer Red Entertainment or publisher Sega. After so many years, it’s clear that the game will never be released.

Red Entertainment also worked on Gungrave, a third person shooter heavily influenced by anime series and published by Sega in July 2002 in Japan, September 2002 in USA and November 2002 in Europe. If it would have been released, it’s possible that Trigun: The Planet Gunsmoke’s gameplay would have been much similar to Gungrave. Gungrave even had the same character designs by Trigun’s series creator Yasuhiro Nightow.

Thanks to Ace.Dark for the contribution!

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