New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

32X / Mega CD, Saturn, Sega

Duel [Sega – Tech Demo]

yota
07-06-2013
6 Comments

Duel is a CG tech demo created by Acclaim in 1994. According to Mean Machines Sega, the British magazine where the first images of the “game” were published, Duel was planned for the 32x, but it’s unlikely that any real development was even started. 32X’s 3D capabilities were, in fact, very poor, and many titles conceived for the ill-fated add-on were later released for Saturn. However, as long as we know, Duel was not one of them.

Update:
In the video added below we can see how Duel was actually a CGI tech demo aimed to show Acclaim realistic character animation system using Acclaim’s Optical Motion Capture System.
It’s unclear if a game was ever planned out of it, however the technology was later used in some next-gen games (for example Acclaim’s Advance Technology Group is credited for Alien Trilogy’s full motion videos).
It seems the tech demo was the fruit of a deal between Acclaim and Sega (based on what is written on a italian mag scan).

Here is the original article that appeared on Mega machines Sega 20:

Duel 32x unreleased

If you have more info on this tech demo, please let us know!

Images:

Video:

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox

Thief: Deadly Shadows [Beta – Xbox / PC]

monokoma
05-06-2013
No Comments

As we can read in Wikipedia, Thief: Deadly Shadows is a stealth game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive in 2004 for Xbox and PC. After Looking Glass Studios, the developer of the original two titles, went out of business in 2000, many former employees moved to Ion Storm Austin. Here they began developing the long-anticipated third part of the series, Deadly Shadows. It is the last game produced by Ion Storm before its demise in February 2005.

The idea originally was that Thief: Deadly Shadows would let you customise difficulty similarly to in System Shock, with you able to tweak how smart the AI was, what your objectives were and so on. It’s a feature which survived until the last betas, but was suddenly cut out of the final game due to the extra work it created for testers. Instead, Thief: Deadly Shadows only has the usual Easy/Normal/Expert skill settings from the older Thief games.

You can get more detail on the cut, as well as RPS co-founder and comics writer Kieron Gillen’s take on the game, in the Unlimited Hyperbole Podcast. If you have more info, screens or videos with beta differences for Thief 3, please let us know in the comments below!

Thanks to Joe Martin for the contribution!

Nes / Famicom, Nintendo

Sakamoto Ryoma [NES – Cancelled]

monokoma
29-05-2013
1 Comment

Sakamoto Ryoma (aka Sakamoto Ryouma) is a cancelled adventure / RPG that was in development by Toshiba EMI (Toemiland) for the Famicom / NES. It seems that the game was based on the real-life leader of the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate during the Bakumatsu period in Japan (as we can read in Wikipedia). Ryoma has inspired at least 7 television drama series, 6 novels, 7 manga and 5 films, and in Live A Live, an RPG by Square released in 1994, Sakamoto appears as a playable character. No luck for Ryoma on the Famicom however: the project that was postponed many times until finally vanishing forever.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Screens from a Japanese website

Images:

Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure [Beta – SNES)

U64 Staff & Contributors
27-05-2013
5 Comments

As we can read on Wikipedia, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure is a 1994 videogame developed and published by Activision in partnership with Redline Games. It was first released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis) and Mega-CD (Sega CD) in 1994, followed by releases for the Sega 32X, Atari Jaguar, and PC the following year. Hallfiry on Betaarchive forums found some images from a beta version, if you want to write a list of all the differences, leave a message below! :D

Thanks to Stephen Reed for the contribution