Conan: The Dark Axe was a fun action-adventure game based on the iconic Conan franchise. You played as the legendary barbarian as he slashed and clashed with enemies of all sizes, and rose victorious like he always does. Unlike the 2007 Conan game, this one didn’t play like a copy of God of War or Devil May Cry. It felt unique with all its pros and cons. Looking back, this game excelled in several areas over the 2007 Conan iteration by THQ.
Below, we can see a couple of beta images and concept artwork showing some of the changes.
Before it became known as Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, the game was originally titled ESPionage. In its early beta builds, it looked and played quite differently from the version that eventually hit the store. This was largely because Midway began showcasing the game while it was still in its alpha phase.
The game was indeed shown at E3 2003, where it was featured under the ESPionage codename. Thanks to footage and media from that event, we can catch a few rare glimpses of what the game looked like during its early development.
While the game was officially scheduled to release on the GameCube, that port was eventually cancelled.
Van Helsing is an awesome action-adventure game where you get to play as the titular monster hunter Van Helsing himself. The game plays similarly to Devil May Cry, Ghost Rider and many action games released during that time. Before launching in 2004, we can observe tiny beta changes from the images below.
Stolen is an obscure stealth game developed by Blue52 and published by Hip Games. The game was originally intended as a PlayStation 2 exclusive, but Sony abandoned the project. Blue52 eventually found a publisher, and the game was released in 2005 for the PS2, Xbox and PC.
Before the game’s release, it went through several changes, which I’ll demonstrate below. From the build dated April 5th,2004, we can observe the following differences:
Different HUD (HP, Map, Visibility Meter)
Different Gadget Icon
Whereas in the July 26, 2004 build, the only differences I noticed are the following:
Different HUD (closer to the final release layout)
Different suspicion music (it sounds like a soft version of the final release)
However, in the early build that probably dates to late 2003, we can notice MORE differences in this build. Please check out the video attached below.
Different running animation for Anya
Different wall run animation
Different icons for the mini games
Different HUD, gadget icons
Different movesets
Different walking animation for the guards
Different protection systems (if you pass by some machines, you’ll get zapped)
Unseen intro cutscene (?)
Different theme for the game ” Infiltrate. Neutralise. Vanish“. The final game is “Infiltrate. Steal. Vanish“.
April 2004 Build
July 2004 Build
2003 Build (maybe)
Early Concept Artwork
Anya Romanov, the game’s protagonist, went through several iterations along with Breeze, the game’s main villain. Below, we can observe some of the early sketches:
Videos
Fan-documentary containing insight from Jaid Mindang and Rudolf Kremers.
This trailer of the game is important to note because it shows the following:
Different HUD (similar to the July 2004 build)
A special take-down technique by Anya that isn’t present in the final game
Spawn: Armageddon is a relatively fun action-adventure game based on Todd McFarlane’s iconic Spawn comic book. The game adapts from issues 1 to 99 of the Spawn comic book series. However, before the game’s final release, we can notice a few differences from the E3 2003 preview trailer of the game.
The differences are as follows:
Different HUD (Guns, Necroplasm, HP)
Different healing pick-up up icons
Different Spawn attacks
Different gun sfx
Guns make some enemies float in the air (similar to DMC 2)
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