New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

M2 / 3DO, Others, Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Rollcage (Team 17) [PSX SAT 3DO – Cancelled]

monokoma
07-10-2010
12 Comments

Rollcage is a cancelled racing game that was in development by Team 17 for the original Playstation, Saturn and 3DO. Even if the title is the same, this game is not the same Rollcage (a futuristic racer) developed by Attention To Detail and published by Psygnosis in 1999. Team 17’s Rollcage was a more traditional racing game, with “realistic” cars and tracks from the real world. There are no more info available on this project, but Celine was able to find some screenshots in CD Consoles magazine issue #7. Rollcage was never released on any platform, for unknown reasons.

Unclejun found a video from ECTS ’95 on a cover disc from Génération 4 issue #78 showcasing the game, it was supposed to be the first Daytona USA-like racing game on the PC, featuring a mix of stuntcar and stockcar gameplay and capable of 60fps on a Pentium.

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GameCube, Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Pterosaur – Dawn of Destruction [GC/XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma
06-10-2010
1 Comment

Pterosaur: Dawn of Destruction is a cancelled platform / action game that was in development at Atomic Planet in 2002, for the GameCube, Playstation 2 and Xbox. In the game the player would had used a Pterosaur (a flying reptile) to lead your fellow dinosaurs to safety, or see them condemned to extinction, while the world was coming to an end.

To do that, you had to learn to recognise the most vulnerable dinosaurs and how they behave, to be able to save them. While bigger dino-predators were searching for the weaker dinos to eat, they could have been lured away or defeated in an open battle.  The scenario could have been explored to find hidden paths, with the help of friendly dinosaurs that cleared the way.

The Pterosaur project was never released for unknow reasons, but we can speculate that the gameplay was not that much fun and Atomic Planet was not able to find any publisher interested in the game. On the 25th of February 2009 Atomic Planet went into administration after a number of redundancies and the offices were closed: maybe a playable demo of Pterosaur: Dawn of Destruction could be leaked sooner or later.

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Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

Ætherion [PS3 – Cancelled]

monokoma
05-10-2010
No Comments

Ætherion (Aetherion) is a cancelled adventure game that was in development by Qube Software in 2005 / 2006 for the Playstation 3. The studio worked on  Ætherion’s concept and created an early prototype that was pre-approved by Sony, but in the end the project was never finished. As the main focus of Qube has always been the development of 3D software for 3D middleware and not games,  they probably found some problems during the development and Ætherion was soon cancelled. Only few artworks and some 3D models are archived in the gallery below, to preserve its existence.

Thanks to Sewia for the contribution!

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Leaked, Nes / Famicom, Nintendo

Sunman [NES – Cancelled]

yota
04-10-2010
6 Comments

Sunman is an cancelled NES action game made by Sunsoft which was supposed to be released in 1992. The most interesting aspect about this game is that originally Sunman was going to be a Superman game, and playing it is not hard to spot the resemblances: both heroes have a similar costume and the same powers. We don’t know why in the end Sunsoft didn’t get the official license from DC comics but probably the software house thought that it was a bad idea to spend a remarkable amount of money for a game planned for a rapidly aging console.

Other than that, Sunman was just an anonymous side-scroller game with below-average controls and only five stages, not exactly an appealing new entry for the NES market of the time. Nothing too strange, then, that Sunsoft decided to shelf it for good.

Update:

However, Sunsoft’s Superman survives as a Genesis game, as reported on Wikipedia. The game was published in the same year of Sunman’s prototype, 1992. While the graphic is better so that it can fit a 16bit console like Genesis , the game concept is still quite the same as the NES version. In fact, Superman/Sunman’s moves are the same (except that in the Genesis version he can also fire beams from his eyes) and some maps’ design is very close to the NES version. We can actually say that Genesis’ Superman is what we could’ve seen on NES.

John Doom is trying to make a complete Superman NES game using Sunman, creating and replacing Sunman’s sprites with Superman. You can try the game on John Doom’s space. It runs on vnes, an applet nes emulator (You need Java in order to play the game).

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Nintendo, Wii

Metroid Other M [Wii – Beta / Unused]

U64 Staff & Contributors
03-10-2010
No Comments

Metroid: Other M​ is an action-adventure developed by a team consisting of staff members from Nintendo, Team Ninja, and D-Rockets. Metroid Other M did something that no Metroid game before it even attempted. It gave samus a human side. Known as being the cold bounty hunter, Samus was given a softer yet unrefined image. Other aspects of the game rocked the boat to a degree, but overall, it still has that metroid gameplay that true fans of the series have come to love.

Production had a really large scale, with over 300 storyboards which took six months to be completed, and ten teams being employed to develop cutscenes. To make a game though, you have to decide what to put in, and what to leave out. Thanks to the unlockable art gallery, we can see some of what was left out of the game, over it’s 3 year development period.

Thanks goes to Proto1 for pointing out these differences and to Metroid Database for sharing the artworks!

In the beta gallery below you can see:

  • Samus’ beauty mark was not part of her conceptual design, likely added towards end of development.
  • Unused GFtrooper armor.
  • A conceptual, streamlined powersuit. Not in game.
  • A shot of an unused Lyle character model that depicts him unarmored (no helmet, w/undershirt). Not in the game at all.
  • Alternate, unused designs of MBs hair piece.
  • Concept art depicts Waver once had the ability to infect other enemies. Further, art shows them recoiling off of walls. Not in game.
  • Grippers might have at one point been able to fly.
  • An unused baby Dragotix.
  • Alternate design for Biosphere terminal.
  • Unused Ian and Samus photographs
  • Teenage Samus w/different hairstyle.
  • Unused Samus civilian clothes, purple shirt.
  • Unused Phantoon design

Also, FacePunch are currently hacking apart Other M, and have found some interesting unused assets:

  • Unused Power Suit, likely beta. It’s missing several creases along the shoulder pads, arms, legs and has a different colored arm canon.

Here’s a list of several unused character models that have yet to be ripped:

  • 249-zss body HQ
  • 250-young samus (from prerendered cutscenes)
  • 251-adam in uniform (from prerendered cutscenes)
  • 252-255 hq samus powersuit
  • 257/260- metroid

Another member found test rooms and unused clothing:

“There are some development left over files for sure. So far i found the old suit model i posted earlier, a few characters/outfits which are only appearing in pre-rendered sequences and some test rooms from a very early stage of development.”

Thanks to Zero7 for the contribution!

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