Sony

Spec Ops [PS2 – Cancelled]

Spec Ops is a cancelled third person shooter / action game that was in development at Rockstar Vancouver in 2003 / 2004 for the Playstation 2. The title was going to be published by Take 2 as the previous games in the Spec Ops series, but in the end the project was never released for unknown reasons. As we can read from Take-Two’s Fiscal 2002 Financial Results (also on IGN Ps2):

Rockstar Games will continue to create groundbreaking original content for console video game systems, as well as expand its proprietary intellectual properties, including extensions of its Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Midnight Club, State of Emergency, Spec Ops and Smuggler’s Run brands. Rockstar currently has eleven original projects in production at its five internal development studios.

The Queens of the Stone Age’s singer Josh Homme even confirmed to be writing the soundtrack for the game in an interview with MTV:

“Alain and I are writing the music for a Rockstar game called ‘Spec Ops,’ ” Homme said. “There’s a bunch of versions of new songs. Some of them are mellow, some of them are rock and some of them are, like, hick-hop because we’re a bunch of white guys.”

For Homme, working with Rockstar on the game was a dream come true — kind of. While he doesn’t actually play any video games, he did enjoy the process of writing tunes for the small screen.

After Spec Ops was canned, Rockstar Vancouver started developing Bully.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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I-8 (Resistance: FoM) [PS3 – Beta]

I-8 is the codename for the game that became Resistance: Fall of Man. The project was first shown at E3 2005, but the game shown in that video is almost nothing like the game that we have today.

The only thing in this video that really resembles the final game is 35 seconds into the video you can see a early looking Chimera. The video shows  large scale battles fought with hundreds of black op soldiers which is much different then the final games humanity’s losing the war feel. It also appears that you’re fighting other humans along with the Chimera, where in the final game you’re only fighting the Chimera.

In the “Resistance Alpha Video” it’s not known whether or not the game was called Resistance, or I-8 at this point in development you can see that the game now has the look of the final game, but it still has you playing as a black ops soldier, and still has the all out war feel of the first I-8 video. Some noticeable changes are, there are large amounts of enemies onscreen at once, the Chimeras are much more aggressive, and the animations are much better.

The Black Ops soldiers can still be found in the final game, but only as dead bodies that contain hidden messages.

An interesting article about the technical development of the game can be found at Cybergooch.

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Alien Breed 2K4 [PS2 – Unreleased]

Alien Breed 2004 (sometimes AB2K4 or AB2004) is an unfinished and shelved game in Team17’s Alien Breed franchise, a series of Science Fiction-themed shooters largely inspired by the Alien films. It was announced as in development in 2003, and was shelved in early 2005

This is the second known title in the Alien Breed series to be cancelled, after the aborted PC first-person shooter title Alien Breed: Conflict. The game was reportedly being developed using the Snowblind Engine that Snowblind Studios had been using for the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath franchises.

In July 2009 Team 17 announced the development of Alien Breed Evolution for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade downoad services. Given that the videogame will be viewed at the same top-down perspective, it is possible that this game is actually the same as Alien Breed 2004, with updated graphics. [Info from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Specwarrior [XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

Created by Pandemic Studios, Specwarrior is a cancelled third person shooter set in the Vietnam War that was  in development in 2002 / 2003. After some time the game was cancelled by its publisher, Midway. About a year later Pandemic released Full Spectrum Warrior (published by THQ), but it’s not clear if the published game used some assets from the unreleased project. Specwarrior was the reasons that lead Pandemic to file a lawsuit against Midway, because they cancelled the game to avoid payment.

The lawsuit claims Midway’s move was unwarranted, and says Midway owes money for services Pandemic completed during its months of work on the project. Pandemic is seeking damages of more than $4 million and some $750,000 in fees, according to a Reuters report.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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