Sony

Playstation, Sony

Test Drive Cycles [PSX – Cancelled]

monokoma
08-06-2010
5 Comments

Test Drive Cycles is a cancelled motorcycle racing game that was in development in 1998 / 1999 by Accolade’s San Jose studios, the same studio responsible for Test Drive Off-Road 2 and 3.  Infogrames wanted to expand their Test Drive series (Test Drive, Test Drive Off-Road, Test Drive Rally and Test Drive Le Mans) to focus solely on motorcycles with licensed manufacturers such as Harley Davidson, BMW, Moto Guzzi, and Bimota, but in the end the project was never released.

As we can read on IGN:

Up to two players can go head-to-head on 12 tracks from locations all over the world, including the streets of Washington DC, the beaches of Bali, the canyons of Utah, the Alps, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, the French Riviera and even the historic site of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

Players choose from three game modes: Quick Race, Championship and Head-to-Head (two players). In addition to five opponents racing to win the cup, players must also deal with traffic, oil slicks and unpredictable weather conditions. Smashing through certain obstacles will open up new track paths and shortcuts, while trophies, new bikes and upgrades are won along the way. Infogrames even went the extra mile to get the licenses for real manufacturer upgrades, giving each bike its own upgrade pack.

As we can read on the Playstation Museum:

According to some sources within the studio, a major setback occurred when the lead programmer left the team. Coupled with Infogrames’ desire to close the studio, TDC was forever cancelled.

A Dreamcast version of Test Drive Cycles was cancelled too, while GameBoy Color and PC versions  were released in 2000.

Thanks to Father PSX for the contribution!

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PSP, Sony

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep [PSP – Beta / Unused]

monokoma
07-06-2010
No Comments

As we can read on Wikipedia, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is an action RPG developed and published by Square Enix for the PSP. The game was released in Japan on January 2010 and it is planned to be released in North America and in Europe on September 2010. Development of the game began in June 2005 and was originally intended for the PlayStation 2 with Sora as the prototype protagonist of the game.

Birth by Sleep was developed by Square Enix’s fifth Product Development Division, based in Osaka, the same team behind Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, and uses the same graphical engine as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

The plot was completed for the PS2, but development was halted six months after it began due to development of Re: Chain of Memories. The development team changed the platform to the PlayStation Portable so as to make use of the PSP’s functions such as co-operative and competitive multiplayer gameplay.

In August 2009, new Famitsu scans revealed a revamped User Interface (having been revamped twice before) as well as new worlds after a lack of news for close to a year.

As posted by Granville in our U64 Forum, hidden in the final game’s code there is a very cool secret world that was cut, but that you can still access via hacking! It’s a world based off the classic movie The Jungle Book.

The first area is in the Monkey Temple of the orangutan Louie. The other areas are your basic jungle type areas, although they are all clearly incomplete and lack a lot of their texture work. I’d say the Temple is the only complete area. The only way to access these areas is via hacks, they were never used in the main game and no images were shown in prerelease photos. It’s a pretty interesting find actually. A hack hasn’t been released yet, but i imagine it will soon.

On Youtube we can also see a video of Keytotruth, who managed to hack his/her way into the data and play around in it.

Thanks to Granville for the contribution!

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Playstation, Sony

Chrono Cross [PSX – Beta]

monokoma
04-06-2010
No Comments

Chrono Cross is a RPG developed and published in 1999 by Squaresoft for the original PlayStation. As we can read on Wikipedia, Square began planning Chrono Cross immediately after the release of Xenogears in 1998. Chrono Trigger’s scenario director Masato Kato had brainstormed ideas for a sequel as early as 1996, following the release of Radical Dreamers.

Developers brainstormed traits and archetypes during the character-creation process, originally planning 64 characters with unique endings that could vary in three different ways per character. As production continued, the length of Cross increased, leading the event team to reduce the number of characters to 45 and scrap most of the alternate endings.

More info about the Chrono Cross beta can be found in the Chrono Compendium:

Before the official release of Chrono Cross, Square Enix marketed a PlayStation release of Chrono Trigger and attached a demo of the game to it and Legend of Mana.[…] This demo has allowed a short look into the late stages of the development of Chrono Cross, offering a few prizes such as a scrapped facial portrait of Kid and missing playable characters.

Serge’s Swallow is tinted green and looks like the Mastermune.

Once the Fort Dragonia sequence is concluded, Serge wakes up in Arni and is instructed to find Leena as usual. Una has no portrait, hampering the suggestion that she was once planned to be a playable character.

The most glaring difference is the presence of a seemingly new character in Pierre’s slot. Since Pierre’s dialogue icon was already in its final state, it’s probable that this was an earlier design for Pierre.

There’s a different Viper Manor Study window.

There’s a different Lucca drawing.

Yasuyuki Honne is the artist of the Chrono series, and made some background art that was never used in the final game.

There’s also an incomplete debug room in the beta demo and some unused characters can be seen in the Chrono Cross artbook.

Also, GlitterBerri translated the Chrono Cross Ultimania interview in which we can read about some ideas that were never used in the final game. You can read the full interview at BerriBlue or in the Chrono Compendium.

Thanks to ace.dark and Megalol for the contributions!

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Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

God of War 2 [PS2 – Beta]

monokoma
03-06-2010
No Comments

God of War 2 is an action adventure developed by SCE Studios Santa Monica and published in 2007 by Sony for the PlayStation 2. In the final game it’s possible to unlock a bonus video in which to take a look at some removed levels, as the Colosseum, an Aquaduct, the Rhode’s Marketplace, Atlantis and The Tomb, plus some test / debug levels as the one in the river. An unused move was also found in the game’s code.

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Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

The Protector [PS3 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
02-06-2010
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In 2006, Eurocom and Sony Computer Entertainment started to work on their PS3 exclusive “The Protector”. Although even voice recordings had started in 2007, the project was cancelled in early 2008. As the game was never officially announced, game details are still unknown. After this lost project, in 2008 / 2009 Eurocom  developed and released Quantum of Solace (PlayStation 2), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC), G-Force (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC) and Dead Space: Extraction (Wii).

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