New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Game Boy Advance (GBA), Nintendo

Dark Empire [GBA – Cancelled]

monokoma
06-12-2010
3 Comments

Dark Empire is an unreleased RPG that was in development by Marvelous Entertainment for the GameBoy Advance. This project was previusly unknown, untill an auction for its prototype was posted by Sample_Seller on Ebay in June 2009. As we can read from the item description:

DARK EMPIRE for the Gameboy Advance !!

RARE ORIGINAL SAMPLE/PROMO VERSION !!

FIRST ONE EVER FOUND !!

Will run on any US Gameboy Adance system. Original promo/sample game was never released or completed, game is playable but only around 30% complete. Very good graphics for Gameboy Advance, you have a world map, a castle you can go to and a village. Ingame text is Japanese, developer most probably Marvelous Entertainment.

It’s fun to notice how the developers used some real photos (as one of Mel Gibson from the Braveheart film) as placeholders for the characters avatars in the game, before the final ones were finished. The gameplay would have probably been like a traditional RPG / SRPG, and looking at one of the photos added in the auction it seems that there were some 3D scenes too (maybe for the combats?).

Images:

Microsoft, Xbox

Infiltrator: Shadow Wars [XBOX – Cancelled]

monokoma
05-12-2010
No Comments

Infiltrator Shadow Wars is a cancelled Massive Multiplayer Online RPG that was in development by Orbital Frog Productions for the XBOX. As we can read in the original press release, the game was set in a futuristic online world of espionage: Orbital Frog promised that Infiltrator would had in-depth character development and an enveloping and interactive environment for the player to interact with. There was to also be an interactive online environment to pit the players to the task of creating their own teams, researching new weapons, and brand new technologies.

During the development something went wrong and Infiltrator: Shadow Wars had to be cancelled. Sadly only few concept arts remain from this lost project.

Images:

Playstation, Sony

Grand Champion’s Rally [PSX – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
04-12-2010
No Comments

Grand Champion’s Rally is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Aques. In mid nineties Squaresoft, known for its mastodontic RPGs, created Aques (Advanced QUality of Entertainment and Sports ), a label under which release game based on thoughts and sports. At the japanese PS Expo in late 1996 they announced the first three titles for the Aques brand: a baseball game named Super Live Stadium, a mahjong simulation and a racing game known as Grand Champions Rally, the latter of which would never been released for unknown reasons.

At the time a single screenshot (below) of the rally game was shown in various western magazines like for example Edge 40 and Player One 70. Article about Aques from EGM issue 90.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

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

Magic Carpet [Beta – PC, PSX, Saturn]

monokoma
03-12-2010
9 Comments

Magic Carpet is a shooter / action game developed by Bullfrog Productions and designed by Peter Molyneux, released in may 1994 for PC, Playstation and Saturn. As we can read on Wikipedia, in the game player plays a wizard (on a magic carpet) flying over water, mountains, and other terrain while destroying monsters and rival wizards.

Pcloadletter found an old beta screenshot of Magic Carpet in Edge magazine issue 1 (october 1993) with different hud and 3rd person view. The final game can only be played in first person view so we never seen the main character on the playing screen before (thanks to Aybe for the confirmation!). Also, it seems that the game was planned for the 3DO too..

Images:

Here’s a video from the final version:

Unseen News

[New Article] Left 4 Dead 2 Beta Analysis

U64 Staff & Contributors
03-12-2010
No Comments

Left 4 Dead 2 was built from the ground up and used material and ideas (used & unused) from the original left 4 dead. Left 4 dead 2 remained the same over the course of its development with few to no changes made until the games release. In a nut shell, most of the concepts that weren’t incorporated into the original Left 4 Dead has been incorporated into Left 4 Dead 2. >> Read the full article!