aMaze was among the first known titles to be announced for the NUON DVD game system but like most of the games announced for it, aMaze never saw the light of day. The premise was based upon those old marble balance board games where you tried to get a small ball to the goal, avoiding the many holes along the way. It also was notable at the time as the game employed real-time raytracing to draw objects such as the ball. The official description goes as follows:
aMaze is based on the classic board game that challenges you to tilt the board in order to roll a steel ball through a nerve-racking maze of trap holes. Simple in theme yet elegant in graphic nature, aMaze is best described as an overall experience that is highly addictive, yet surprisingly relaxing. From the outset, aMaze was designed to be attractive to all types of gamers – from hard core to mainstream. aMaze is an engaging game for everyone.
Some screenshots and a couple of videos can be found at NUON-Dome.
Red Dead Redemption is a Western open world action adventure, developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in May 2010. A trailer of the project was sent to a select number of people at a Sony conference in 2005, promoting the release of the PlayStation 3 system. The trailer was a tech demo of RAGE set in a western setting referred to as Old West Project and a direct sequel to Red Dead Revolver. [Info from Wikipedia]
In this tech demo video we can see like an early version of Armadillo, and the character it shows looks nothing at all like the John Marston we have now, most notable difference is the character in that video has blonde hair.
The comments in the Youtube page point out some more differences:
Looks like the town is an earlier rendition of Armadillo, with buildings similar to the ones in the MacFarlane Ranch. And the duster is an early rendition of the duster outfit that can be unlocked in RDR.
I’d say you are right, it sure does share great similarity to Armadillo building wise. Interesting to see the layout differences of some of the buildings. If you look closely at around 0:11 also, you can see what appears to be animals (possibly horses?) moving around the fenced building to the top-left. I’m guessing that was the original idea of the fenced horse area in Armadillo next to the Salon in the final game. I always find it amazing, watching this video.
The Big One is a cancelled action adventure / open world sandbox game that was in development by Melbourne House for the Playstation 2 in 2004 / 2005. After releasing Transformers on the PS2, the same team got started working on Transformers 2, but after only a few months this sequel was canned: Atari was starting to go through its financial troubles, and as a result they sold the Transformers license back to Hasbro to gain some money.
As we can read on Wiki News, Bruno Bonnell, then-head of Infogrames/Atari, had an a idea for a game that involved natural disasters and aliens having weapons that could cause earthquakes. The project was given to Melbourne House to make, that started to brainstorm different game designs and gameplay around natural disasters, while the art team went ahead and built ‘look-and-feel’ concept arts for destructed environments. This new game was going to be based on the great Transformers 3D engine, so the coders started updating it where necessary.
After some thoughs, they decided that the game would have followed a number of different characters in the aftermath of “The Big One”, the biggest earthquake to hit San Francisco. Similar to Raw Danger / Disaster Report 2, players would have been able to do different tasks depending on the character (one of which was a firefighter, as seen in the video below) and then the available area would open up and allow to freely explore the city (in a “Prince of Persia Sands of Time” style. to climb in and out of broken buildings) and to help more people (or leave them to die).
Melbourne House had an idea for a “karma system” based on the good / bad actions of the players and their interactions with the NPCs, but they did not have enough time to finish its design before the cancellation. The Big One would have included physics puzzles (for example you had to use crates and rocks to stabilise a tettering bus before rescuing the driver) and heavy use of fire, water and destruction-related effects (smoke, debris, etc).
The game had potential, but sadly only an early prototype was done and the apartment level seen in the video below was just a tech / art demo that had gameplay forced on it for demonstration purpose. When Atari’s Eden studio was working on Test Drive Unlimited for the Xbox 360 launch, Atari decided that to offset the risk of the launch title, they would have Melbourne House port TDU to PS2 and PSP, instead than to keep working on a tricky project as The Big One. TBO was cancelled and TDU PS2/PSP was the last game from Melbourne House before they were bought out by Krome Studios in 2006.
Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf (aka Jack Nicklaus Power Challenge Golf) is a cancelled sport game that was in development for the Jaguar CD by Atari and Hand Made Software in 1994. It seems that the game was canned in early stage, as no version more complete than what is seen in the video below (from viMasterJag channel) have been found, which is no more than a demo lacking animations, voice and gameplay.
Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf, a CD title, is a photo-realistic golf game for the Jaguar that utilizes over 9,000 images of Murfield Village Golf Course. This course is the first that Jack Nicklaus created and is the site of the annual Memorial Tournament. Well-known sports presenter David Livingston acts as a virtual commentator to teach the first-time player how to play the game or provide comments and suggestions for the more experienced players. Up to a foursome can play Jack Nicklaus Cyber Golf, and the CD is expected to ship late this spring.
Project Offset is a cancelled fantasy action adventure that was in development by Offset Software, initially planned for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. As we can read on Wikipedia, in February 2008, Intel acquired Offset Software and the game became a PC exclusive. After a couple of yers, Intel officially canceled the game in July 2010, citing “recent changes in our product roadmap” as the cause for the decision. The founders of Offset Software have moved to a new game development studio named Fractive LLC.
As we can read at Super Download, it seems that the changes in Intel’s product roadmap in the statement most likely refer to the company’s decision to cancel the high-end graphics chip product code name “Larabee” that was shut down as a commercial hardware product last December.
Some more info about Project Offset can still be found in the official website:
Q: Has the game gone back to the drawing board since you last saw it?
A: In some ways…Yes. We have a had a design scrub post Intel acquisition. The gameplay footage you have seen in the past was from a prototype. However we did not throw away all work or assets from that effort. We will share all we can as soon as possible and when ready. […]
Yes it has been a while, and yes this project and team started small and was then acquired by Intel. The tech and engine have been in development for some time, and post the acquisition did need some re-work to target Intel Architectures in the best way possible. We also took some time after completing the prototype of the game, which was created before acquisition, to look at the size of the team, our resources, the games out on shelf currently and our target hardware architectures, and did some re-working on design and gameplay mechanics. […]
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