Playstation

Others, PC / MAC, Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Terminus [Saturn, Playstation, PC – Cancelled]

monokoma
31-07-2010
6 Comments

Terminus is a cancelled action adventure / shooter game that was in development by Scavenger Inc for the Sega Saturn, Playstation and PC in 1996. As they wrote in their press release, the project was meant “to give Tomb Raider a run for it’s money” but sadly it was already too late, as the company ran out of money and Terminus had to be canned.

The few screenshots preserved in the gallery below show a great graphic engine for its time, that used NURBS / voxel-like system, as we can read in an article from Gamasutra (wrote by a former Scavenger developer):

[…] Soon thereafter we were asked to develop our own game. That provided me with the incentive to figure out how to represent characters in a game better. We knew we wanted at least ten or more characters on the screen simultaneously, but all the low-resolution polygonal characters we had seen just didn’t cut it. So I decided to keep pursuing a solution based on what I had been working on for X-Men (32X), hoping that I’d come up with something that would eventually yield better results.

At first I flirted with a voxel-like solution, and developed a character system which was shown at E3 in 1996 in a game called Terminus. This system allowed a player to see characters from any angle rotating around one axis, which solved a basic problem inherent to sprite-based systems. Still, you couldn’t see the character from any angle, and while everybody liked the look of the “sprite from any angle” solution, many people wanted to get a closer look at the characters’ faces. This caused the whole voxel idea to fall apart.

In 1997 / 1998, Scavenger went bankrupt and all their unfinished projects vanished with them. The team behind Terminus (internally known as Team Fetus) was then hired at Shiny Entertainment and their game was resurrected somehow, evolving into Messiah.

Thanks a lot to Mike Damien for its help in preserving some info and concept arts from this lost project!

Thanks to Celine for the contributions! Scans from GameFan 4-2 and EDGE 34

Images: 

Playstation, Sony

Virus [PSX – Cancelled]

monokoma
28-07-2010
4 Comments

Virus is a cancelled survival horror game that was in development by Sony Interactive Studios America for the original Playstation. Players had to repel an alien virus that invaded a military ship, messing up with human tecnologies, transforming inanimate objects into dangerous enemies (as a big spider-copter hybrid). Virus by SISA should not be confused with Alien Virus, another game that was planned for the PSX by International Computer Entertainment /Vic Tokai (and only released for PC).

Virus was never released for unkown reasons. If you know someone that worked on this game, please let us know!

Here’s the original press-release:

Sony Imagesoft proudly announces the upcoming release of the first computer bug you’ll want to buy, Virus. The PC game version of Virus will debut today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) hel d in Los Angeles.

Based on the coin-op version of the game — which will be released by Betson Entertainment Technologies later this year — Virus is a first-person arcade-style shooter game that takes place on a hi-tech and heavily armed battleship.

“We’re excited to bring Virus to the PC and PlayStation soon after its arcade release,” said Kelly Flock, president, Sony Imagesoft. “As Virus is originally an arcade game, we’re striving to have tons of fast-paced action with some bizar re creatures lurking around every corner; it will definitely be a kill or be killed game.”

The story line of Virus takes place after the ship’s telecommunication system picks up an alien virus which infects not just the crew and the electronics, but the entire vessel. The virus physically fuses and combines everything it infects into flesh an d metal monsters. Apache helicopters grow spidery legs; crewmen meld with their instruments of death; giant wasps grow machine guns; and, the entire ship is turned into a massive living, thinking war-zone with the player trapped inside.

In Virus, the player will have to fight his way through six sections of the ship, confronting a wide variety of grotesque mutants along the way. For added action, Virus will also have a two-player cooperative mode. The PC version of Virus will ship on two CD-ROMs for IBM-compatible computers and is slated for a Christmas release. A Sony PlayStation version is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 1996.

Celine was able to find some images in CD Consoles #8 and Top Consoles #5 magazines.

Images:

 

Playstation, Sony

Guilty Gear [PSX – Beta]

monokoma
26-07-2010
No Comments

Guilty Gear​ is a fighting game developed by Arc System Works and released in 1998 for the Playstation. The game  has become famous for it’s great 2D sprites design, but in its early development it had a different graphic style, with pre-rendered characters. Some screens from the beta version of  Gulty Gear can be seen in the gallery below, thanks Saga Darvulia that found them in some old japanese magazines. We can also notice alternate designs for the characters and their weapons!

Guilty Gear Beta:


Guilty Gear Final:

Images: 

Playstation, Sony

Spyral Saga [Playstation – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
21-07-2010
4 Comments

Spyral Saga was a large, ambitious adventure game, created by Software Creations, planned for the PlayStation, and a sequel to the Super Nintendo game Equinox. However, only the isometric perspective and style of gameplay were kept the same; the story did not continue from this game.

Work initially started on the 1st of January, 1995, under the leadership of Ste Pickford (the game’s designer, producer and lead artist). The programming team included Andy Miah, David Gill and Pete Scott, while the graphics and concept designs were created by Justin Eagleton, Lyndon Brooke, Dave Mac and Weston Samuels, among others.

Although published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, the game had a planned worldwide release. Progress on the game slowed due to multiple development complications, and the project was eventually cut after Pickford left Software Creations to found a new company, Zed Two.

While not much more information on this game is available, it is likely that its gameplay would have been very similar to that of its prequel, Equinox (which is in turn a sequel to the Nintendo game Solstice). This game combines puzzle-solving and adventure elements, presented from an isometric perspective, and the player must traverse rooms searching for tokens to unlock boss fights and new areas.

The only available screenshot from Spyral Saga  (shared by the Pickford bros in their site) appears to show a significant improvement to the graphics engine (as expected on the PlayStation) and a more open environment than in Equinox.

Thanks to Scatman and Vegard we were able to preserve two more images!

Article by Franklint

Images:

 

Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Split Realities [PSX SAT – Cancelled]

monokoma
27-06-2010
10 Comments

Split Realities is a cancelled 2D side scrolling action game that was in development by Funcom for the Playstation and Saturn. The game looked a lot like Flashback and it’s possible that the gameplay would have been similar to Delphine Software’s title. Split Realities was canned for some development issues, but its core concept, setting and characters were reused to build “The Longest Journey”, a Point and Click adventure released by Funcom in 1999 for PC.

As we can read in an interview with Funcom’s Ragnar Tornquist on Adventure Gamers:

How did you come up with the concept for TLJ? Were you guys just writing down ideas when someone suddenly cried out “Eureka!” ?

If I remember correctly, I think it was “Geronimo!”. Okay, that’s not really how it happened. The core idea of TLJ—two worlds, one of magic, one of science, and a Guardian to keep watch of the Balance between them—was actually the setting for a platform game (of all things) that Funcom was developing at that time, called Split Realities. I wasn’t involved with that project at all, but when for various reasons the game was canned, the lead artist, Didrik Tollefsen, wanted to take the core concept and build a new game around it. Which is where I entered into the picture. We sat down for quite a while, played around with the setting and the characters and the story, and the end result of that process was the beginning of The Longest Journey. There are only little bits and pieces left of the original idea, but that’s the nature of any good game design; it grows and changes with the people working on it. At this point, it’s difficult to say who came up with what, but it’s really been a cooperative process between me and the lead artist, with constant input from the whole team. So, no, it was never “Eureka!” It was more of an organic process.

Celine and Rod_Wod were able to find few Split Realities screens in CD Consoles magazine issue #11 and other old magazines.

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