Warspirits is a cancelled action game that was in development by Candle Light Studios for the Playstation and Nintendo 64. There are basically no official info about this project and sadly only few screenshots are archived in the gallery below, to preserve its existence. We can speculate that the game was cancelled because they were not able to find a publisher interested in it. If you have more info on this game, please let us know!
Thanks to Celine for the contribution!
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TwinBee Miracle is a cancelled RPG that was in development for the original Playstation. TwinBee Miracle was supposed to be the first “next-gen” iteration of the well-known, at least in Japan, Konami shoot’em up series. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the game apart that is was a 2d turn-based jrpg and that it was scheduled to be released on Psx in 1996 for the 10th year anniversary of TwinBee. A TwinBee RPG got out in japan in 1998, but it was a completely different game.
A video of Twinbee Miracle appeared in a 1995 V-jump tape and Arron was able to get a copy of it and to upload the footage on Youtube!
Thanks to Defunct Games for a bigger scan of the”Nov 1995 Die Hard Game Fan” magazine and to Youloute for “Consoles+ 49 – December 1995” magazine scan!
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Jak 3 is an action game developed by Naughty Dog as the third game in the main Jak and Daxter series, published in 2004 for the PlayStation 2. As we can read on Wikipedia, Jak 3 was first revealed to be in the works by one of Superplay’s writers on January 8, 2004. While browsing the Naughty Dog offices, he saw early work being done with desert environments.
Below you can see a video of a Jak 3 beta dated 24-28 August and about 70% complete, thanks to BamzookiMan130.
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Colosseum: Road to Freedom (aka Gladiator: Road to Freedom in Japan) is an action game developed by Ertain and published by Koei in 2005 for the Playstation 2. The uncut / beta version is a different enough game that it could be probably be considered the equivalent of a “director’s cut”. Aside from the slave trade mode missing, it’s an overall MUCH more polished and satisfying game to play all around and certainly a LOT less frustrating.
There is actually a “Retry?” option available for boss battles that lets you replay the fight several times if you lose. You do not instantly lose all of your items and half your money if you continue as you do in the release version. It is baffling as to why this feature was removed as it lets you “scout” out the boss and if you lose you will be able to prepare yourself better to fight him/her the next time around.
The uncut / beta version contains a “Gore” option that can be turned on or off. When turned on, body parts can be hacked off during battle and go flying across the screen. Severed heads can be used as handheld weapons, thrown, or kicked across the ground at opponents. Legs get hacked off and enemies fall down in severe pain. It adds a lot of fun and realism to the gameplay, and of course better portrays the brutal nature of what was gladiator combat. Body parts can also be carried out after a fight and sold to the merchant for a very large amount of money, so much in fact that you can buy any armor you could possibly want and the extra money allows you to upgrade your armors exactly how you want them.
I don’t know quite what happened between the two versions, but so many things were changed around and removed for worse in the release version and I feel the game suffered because of it. It almost seems to me as if the game producers / developers had conflicting concepts of how they wanted the game to be, and the release version we know won in the end.
Thanks a lot to DeusFlux for the info and the video!
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Powerslave 2 (AKA Exhumed 2) is a cancelled game that was in development for playstation and PC, set in ancient Egypt, thousands of years before the original title. At the start of Powerslave 2, Ra ( the sun god) disappears causing a permanent solar eclipse on the land. It turns out that he has been abducted by one of his arch-rivals, and its your duty to rescue him and return light to the world. As a young egyptian warrior you must seek out various egyptian gods and attempt to gain their super natural powers, in order to ultimately challenge and defeat Ra’s rival.
Contrary to the first Powerslave (a FPS) the sequel was meant to be a third person action game, even less linear than the first episode. Developed by original creator Lobotomy Software, the game was probably cancelled when the studios was acquired by Crave Entertainment in early 1998.
Images from GameFan 5-10
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