News on Cancelled Video Games & Lost Media

Do you know Lobotomy Software? If you played Exhumed / PowerSlave on Saturn or Playstation, you probably remember that it was a real masterpiece, a Metroid-alike adventure in first person view, before Metroid Prime even existed. Lobotomy were founded in 1993 and they released some other games like the successful Sega Saturn ports of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, that shown to the world what the 32Bit Sega Console was able to do with 3D graphic when great developers were able to work on great games.

They were also planning 2 new original games, Aquaria (Nintendo 64 + Playstation) and Exhumed 2 (Playstation), but unfortunately these were cancelled before being completed and gamers will never be able to enjoy them. In 1998 Lobotomy’s talented developers were acquired by Crave Entertainment and the team was renamed to Lobotomy Studios, to work on a Caesar’s Palace game for the Nintendo 64, but after a year of development the game was postponed and eventually cancelled. As we can read on Wikipedia, at that point Lobotomy Studios was closed and employees were let go or given the option to be relocated to another position at Crave Entertainment.

Thanks to our friend Ross Sillifant we are able to publish this interview with Brian McNeeely, one of the main Lobotomy Software developers that worked on all their games, to ask him about his memories on their released projects and their cancelled titles. And if you still don’t know why it’s such a shame that we lost Exhumed 2 and Aquaria, please take your time and watch the video below (created by Tatsu from Lobotomy Software Blog), to understand why Lobotomy Software was one of the most talented development team in the mid ’90, affected by an unlucky fate.

Interview with Brian McNeely by Ross Sillifant

Before we get started, i’m going to try and ‘avoid’ as many technical-based questions as possible, or least phrase them in a more general manner, as i think these type of questions would be better suited to coders like Ezra Dreisbach, with your goodself i’m looking more for the insights into the company itself, hopefully being able to get a few rumours from the press cleared up etc etc.

Q1) Starting with the standard, cliched opener, Brian, please introduce yourself to our readers, in terms of your background, if you could be so kind.

Brian: Thanks for this opportunity Ross. My name is Brian McNeely (my name was actually Brian Anderson up to around 1996 when I changed my last name to McNeely, which is my birth name). I’ve been working in the gaming industry since January 1989, when I was hired at Nintendo of America as a Game Play Counselor. It’s hard to believe that was over 26 years ago! I look back at those days as a golden era both in the gaming world and in my career, and I feel very lucky that I was at Nintendo’s epicenter during that period. The NES, SNES, and Gameboy hardware and software were all the rage, and I had the privilege of playing those games full-time and helping gamers all over the world with game tips and “counseling.” It really was a ton of fun. I love what I do now and what I’ve done since then, but that was one of the best times of my life for sure. Read more

Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

DJ Hero: After Party [Cancelled – Xbox 360, PS3, Wii]

Liam Robertson

02-03-2015

1 Comment

DJ Hero: After Party is a cancelled spin-off to the original DJ Hero game, which was briefly being worked on by Zoë Mode, the UK based subsidiary of Kuju Entertainment, for Activision in 2009. It was proposed as a game for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

Another Spin On DJ Hero

As FreeStyleGames was in the final stages of developing the first DJ Hero, Zoë Mode set a team of artists on formulating ideas for a spin-off game to it in July 2009. The developer had, in the recent past, created other such music games as Rock Revolution and Disney: Sing It! when the project began.

Leading Light, the design studio of Christian Bravery, was contracted to help make concept art for the company, as the vision behind game was steadily being realised. Together, they imagined an alternative approach to the formula of DJ Hero, one developer explained.

“It would have had a very different vibe to it than the other games. We wanted it to have its own personality and feel. More relaxed and laid back.”

DJ: After Party would have made for a more casual-friendly approach to the series. Another developer described the possibility of it being made up of “slower, more up beat” tracks, although work on the title never got as far as assembling a set list.

The general idea behind it was that most of the show venues, as you might imagine, were after parties. Leading Light and the developers put together images of some of the events, which included celebrity wedding receptions, boat parties and a private luxury island.

Activision allowed the developer to use the DJ Hero license in developing conceptual documents and a prototype demo for their potential spin-off, as well as the opportunity to present a proposal to their management. Zoë Mode ended up working on the concept for a few months before Activision ultimately decided against pursuing the project, rejecting the pitch in October 2009; the month of DJ Hero’s first release.

According to one artist, the concepts were, however, retained by Activision and some of their ideas were later used in DJ Hero 2.

Character art:

More concepts including pitch documents/research:

Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Mega Man Universe [Cancelled – XBLA / PSN]

yota

23-02-2015

4 Comments

Mega Man Universe is a cancelled 2.5D platformer game that was being developed by Capcom for XBLA and PSN. It was officially announced on July 16, 2010 with a short video made by Iam8bit.

Its first gameplay video was unveiled at PAX 2010, showing three different levels and some of the available characters; the stand outs of which were “Bad Box Art Mega Man“, and a teaser for Ryu from Street Fighter. Arthur from Ghost n’ Goblins was planned to be playable too.

Six months later, Mega Man Universe was playable at TGS 2010, where its main features were introduced in more detail.

The same three stages from PAX, created only for demonstration purposes, appear here too; each one representing a different difficulty level (Easy, Normal and Hard). Read more

Microsoft, Nintendo, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Wii, Xbox 360

Heroes: The Video Game [Cancelled – PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC]

Liam Robertson

16-02-2015

No Comments

Heroes, as it was tentatively titled, was a cancelled video game based off the NBC TV show of the same name. It was being developed by High Voltage Software and would have been published by Ubisoft. The title was planned for releases on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii.

Heroes: The Video Game

Shortly after the successful first season of the Heroes TV series concluded in May 2007, Ubisoft entered talks with NBC Studios to use the license for a video game adaptation. This was to be the second big TV property Ubisoft would adapt following the development of LOST: Via Domus, which had began earlier that year in February. While Ubisoft’s Montreal division was busy working on that game, the publisher reached out to external developers including High Voltage Software.

At the time, High Voltage already had experience with developing TV tie-in games, including the Family Guy video game, and was therefore “a natural choice for Ubi”, one developer recalled. Ubisoft successfully negotiated a deal with NBC, which they announced in June, but the final decision to secure High Voltage as its developer was made over the following few months without ever being revealed to the public.

High Voltage Software’s Vision For Heroes

Just as LOST: Via Domus introduced an original character, Elliot Maslow, as its protagonist, the Heroes video game would have centred around a new female character of High Voltage Software’s own invention. Given how short the project’s lifespan was, it appears as though this redheaded heroine had yet to be named, but you can see some concept art of her below.

In the vein of Ubisoft Montreal’s character, this new member of the Heroes mythos would have acted as the player’s vessel through which they could explore the world of the show and interact with its extensive cast of superhumans. She would have enabled High Voltage and Ubisoft a higher level of creative freedom as they attempted to delve into the Heroes universe without too greatly interfering with the pre-established lore. Read more

Unseen News

Do you love to write about videogames? Unseen64 needs your help!

U64 Staff & Contributors

10-02-2015

16 Comments

Note: this offer is ALWAYS valid, we keep searching for new people every month, every year, even NOW when you are reading this post!

There are some big projects coming up on Unseen64, so we really need to expand our staff for more help (currently, there are only a few people in the main staff). We are searching for new volunteer editors who are interested in writing and proofreading articles for this website.

We are searching for someone that is English native speaker (or that could write in English very well), who likes to write about video games (please, keep in mind: there will be A LOT to write, you cannot simply copy / paste info from Wikipedia) and who is capable of and passionate about digging up obscure info. He or she should be able to write at least 1 new article every 2 weeks or to proofread at least 1 article per week. Volunteer authors and editors will proofread and expand some of the descriptions for cancelled games that we already have in the Unseen64 archive and write new articles to remember even more lost titles. Are you interested?

New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Unseen Interview: Brian McNeely (Lobotomy Software)