Cold Fear is a 3rd person shooter horror title developed for the PS2, Xbox, and PC. Developed by DarkWorks, published by Ubisoft and released in 2005.
Development:
Cold Fear didn’t start as a horror title, based on information and speculation, darkworks was working on several new projects with several publishing and developing houses. In 2003 when DarkWorks was working with Capcom thier project: Lost Mantis/USS Antarctica was canned. In 2004 DarkWorks worked with Namco U.S. on a new title. The game was Time Crysis Adventure. However the game, much like Lost Mantis, was canned, but not before Ubisoft stepped in and took over the project. TC: Adventure evolved into the game Cold Fear. There are several Concept Art images that remain of Time Crysis: Adventure. You can view the Concept Art below:
Alpha Stage:
Prior to the games release Cold Fear orignally looked more detailed and gritty. The enviroments showcased in these screenshots are different in the final version – similar but different. The main chracter in this build was not from the USCG (United States Coast Guard) but part of the Navy Seals and was involved in the operation that invaded the russian ship at the begining of the game. (CLICK TO ENLARGE THE SCREENSHOTS)
Tom Hansen Background
In the alpha build, Tom Hansen was a 29 year old captain of the navy seals – he wasn’t part of the USCG (United States Coast Guard). It can be assumed that – much like the final version – the navy seals was wiped out. Making Tom Hansen the last survivor on the russian ship. It’s possible that Tom was the leader of that Navy Seal group.
Popcorn is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by Eighth Wonder in 1997 / 1998 for the original Playstation. In the nineties Rare was one of the most prolific developer on Nintendo platforms. So it was quite a shock when in 1997 a small number of employees (game designer Oliver Davies; software engineers Oliver Norton, Steve Patrick, and Jeff Stafford; and two artists, Christopher Gage and Adrian Smith later replaced by Andrew Wood and Jemie Hemming) left the company to form a new studio called Eighth Wonder funded by no other than Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Nintendo main competitor at the time.
The deal had SCEE committed to publishing the new development house’s first three titles, with an option to pick up the next three. The first title in the work by this promising studio was an action/adventure game named Popcorn (also known as Short Fuses) that was similar to a 3D Bomberman clone but with puzzles and exploration elements.
Popcorn featured six world themes, each with three levels and after you beat the boss of each world you could progress to the next one and use the boss as a playable character (more than 10 playable characters including the hidden ones were planned such as a knight or a female ninja). The games was said to sport nice lighting effects, high resolution graphics (512×240) and a consistent framerate at 30 FPS.
At E3 1998 the game displayed under the Sunsoft booth so it is likely that Sunsoft would have been the american publisher. However as often happen with very publicized deals that involve many projects, Eighth Wonder are believed to have experienced a number of internal problems and, by 1999, the studio no longer existed relegating Popcorn into obscurity.
Thanks to Celine for the scan! (Console+ magazine issue 78 and Edge issue 60)
Bit.Trip is a series of action / music games that has been released on Wiiware download service for the Nintendo Wii. The series has been started in 2009 and finished in 2011. It was developed by Gaijin Games and published by Aksys Games. Each game revolves around the adventures of a character named “Commander Video”, and features “a crazy mix of 80s aesthetics and modern game design”. (Info from Wikipedia)
Six games have been released for Bit.Trip:
Bit.Trip Beat, first one of the series, which introduces a style of pong;
Bit.Trip Core, second one of the series, which introduces a style of more peculiar rhythm, similar of Dance Machines;
Bit.Trip Void, third one of the series, which introduces a different rhythm;
Bit.Trip Runner, fourth one of the series, introduces a new style, with 2D Platformer with rhythm;
Bit.Trip Fate, fifth one of the series, introduces a new style of side scroller shooting with rhythm;
Bit.Trip Flux, sixty one of the series, Gaijin games have returned the Bit.Trip Beat style.
Some of those games have unused stuff hidden in their code, such as animations and sound effects.
Bit.Trip Beat
There is a different game over screen in the first game of the serie. Later, it’s never have been used: Video:
Bit.Trip Core
In Bit.Trip Core, there are still sprites for WiiRemote that appears in Bit.Trip Beat, probably the game could be different.
Bit.Trip Void
There is some testing stuff into the title screen folder. It’s really unknown about it:
Bit.Trip Runner
There is a unused idle animation, which probably would be used if the player left controller. Maybe, just discovering this animation, the game could be a lot of different, it could probably a sidescroller which you could move manually, and if stops, it could appear this animation rarely. However, Bit.Trip series have the main goal of rhythm, so they retired the animation and did as automatic sidescroller game (probably).
Video:
Bit.Trip Fate Originally planned to be a more traditional shooter where CommanderVideo was in a ship and he had free movement around the screen. The game also did not use pointer controls or the “fate line” until a later date.
Bit.Trip Flux Started off using Breakout style gameplay during the normal course of the levels, but was cut because it simply wasn’t that fun. Bosses also used to be at the beginning of each level, reinforcing the reverse nature of the game, but that upset the pacing right away.
The whole serie:There is a sprite which appear in all the games, into the game files. Probably, it’s only used in Japanese Version: Those sprites only appears on the Japanese version of the game: Translation: BIT.TRIP VOID’s sytem file is corrupt. After erasing BIT.TRIP VOID from the Channel Management Screen, please redownload BIT.TRIP VOID from the Wii Shopping Channel. If you still get the same message afterwards, please contact the Nintendo Service Center.
Translation: BIT.TRIP CORE’s sytem file is corrupt. After erasing BIT.TRIP CORE from the Channel Management Screen, please redownload BIT.TRIP CORE from the Wii Shopping Channel. If you still get the same message afterwards, please contact the Nintendo Service Center.
Translation: BIT.TRIP RUNNER’s sytem file is corrupt. After erasing BIT.TRIP RUNNER from the Channel Management Screen, please redownload BIT.TRIP RUNNER from the Wii Shopping Channel. If you still get the same message afterwards, please contact the Nintendo Service Center.
Thanks to Gabrielwoj and Susumu (translation) for the contributors.
Sparkster is a platform game developed by Konami and released for Genesis in 1994. It is the sequel of the well-known Rocket Knight Adventures.
Below we can see some beta screenshots of the first and the second stage. In particular, originally the background of the wood section of the former was the sea and not the trees found in the final version. Sparkster’s portrait in the HUD was changed too.
A “Chex Quest 3” game was made by fans of the series who were disappointed that the third had been canceled. But, rather than make entirely new levels and graphics, they stole much of them from other mods (here you can download the stolen resource list), mostly from Hacx and STRAIN. This one was noticeably harder, and when it was discovered it was a fake, it was quickly discarded. In 2008, ten years later, Charles ‘Chukker’ Jacobi, a former member of Digital Café, the makers of the original Chex Quest, created and released Chex Quest 3, including recreations of the original two episodes. Chex Quest 3 can be downloaded here.
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