In 2007, Californian-based developer Heavy Iron Studios was working on a pitch for a new Toy Story game. Planned for PS3, Xbox 360 as well as Wii, the demo did not materialize into a full-fledged game. Instead, Heavy Iron Studios worked on Wall-E which was released in 2008.
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I-Ninja is a fun and underrated action game that was developed by Argonaut Games and published in 2003 by Namco (in USA) and Sony (in Europe) for the GameCube, Xbox and Playstation 2. A Game Boy Advance version of the game was announced too, but later cancelled.
As it happened with Orchid (another Argonaut game that was later cancelled), originally I-Ninja had a much more colorful and stylized graphic, but the publisher was worried that it looked too childish, and wanted an edgier, grittier look. As we can see from the early mockup / target renders, the original style of I-Ninja looked a bit like Zelda: The Wind Waker (especially for the islands, the pigs and the scene in which Ninja is sailing a ship) but the 2 games were in development almost at the same time so it was just a coincidence.
The Next Big Thing, also know as “No Limits Racing” is a cancelled Wii game, that was in development by Pandemic Studios Brisbane in 2008 / 2009. The gameplay was a mix between a racing game, a party game and a sandbox game, in which the player would have been able to race in a parody of L.A. streets, to jump on building rooftops, to fly in elicopters to collect items, to make crazy stunts and to raise more NPC “fans”. In July 2009, AustralianGamer released a video of the game in their YT channel.
The project was canned when Brisbane studio was closed down after being dropped by EA. As we can read on Tsumea:
Reports have come in confirming that the remaining employees at Pandemic Studios Brisbane have been let go after losing their bid in getting publisher interest for their Wii game called “The Next Big Thing” in the hope of finishing its development.
The open world reality show game was in production for the Wii by the second team at Pandemic Studios Brisbane before owner and publisher Electronic Arts let many staff go and cut loose the studio in early January. The final dozen or so remaining staff at Pandemic Brisbane were notified today that all avenues have been exhausted and were let go.
Thanks to Hey Hey, Robert Seddon and Dark ViVi for the contributions!
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Milo and the Rainbow Nasties was going to be an action game / platform in which the player would had to bring the colors back to the world after some weird bugs consumed it all. Originally the game was in development by Warthog Games for the XBOX, Playstation 2 and GameCube, but then it became a Gizmondo exclusive (as it happened with Johnny Whatever), untill its final cancellation. In February 2006, the owners of Warthog, Tiger Telematics, went bankrupt and therefore all their games were cancelled.
The concept of this game was never detailed considering it had a short lifespan, the gist of the plot was the world in which the player was in is overcome with darkness / bug creatures. The player was to clean this world using color, the concept was very similar to Super Mario Sunshine.
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King Arthur’s World is a 1993 side-scrolling strategy game for the Super NES. It was developed by Argonaut Games and published by Jaleco. In July 2009, Carnivol released an early beta the game throught the SNES Central website: the demo was called “Havoc” and there’s a playable level with almost the same gameplay as the final version, a different control scheme, some changes in the graphic and the HUD. For more info and to download the beta, check the Havoc page on SNES Central!
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