New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Playstation, Sony

Test Drive Cycles [PSX – Cancelled]

monokoma
08-06-2010
5 Comments

Test Drive Cycles is a cancelled motorcycle racing game that was in development in 1998 / 1999 by Accolade’s San Jose studios, the same studio responsible for Test Drive Off-Road 2 and 3.  Infogrames wanted to expand their Test Drive series (Test Drive, Test Drive Off-Road, Test Drive Rally and Test Drive Le Mans) to focus solely on motorcycles with licensed manufacturers such as Harley Davidson, BMW, Moto Guzzi, and Bimota, but in the end the project was never released.

As we can read on IGN:

Up to two players can go head-to-head on 12 tracks from locations all over the world, including the streets of Washington DC, the beaches of Bali, the canyons of Utah, the Alps, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, the French Riviera and even the historic site of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

Players choose from three game modes: Quick Race, Championship and Head-to-Head (two players). In addition to five opponents racing to win the cup, players must also deal with traffic, oil slicks and unpredictable weather conditions. Smashing through certain obstacles will open up new track paths and shortcuts, while trophies, new bikes and upgrades are won along the way. Infogrames even went the extra mile to get the licenses for real manufacturer upgrades, giving each bike its own upgrade pack.

As we can read on the Playstation Museum:

According to some sources within the studio, a major setback occurred when the lead programmer left the team. Coupled with Infogrames’ desire to close the studio, TDC was forever cancelled.

A Dreamcast version of Test Drive Cycles was cancelled too, while GameBoy Color and PC versions  were released in 2000.

Thanks to Father PSX for the contribution!

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PSP, Sony

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep [PSP – Beta / Unused]

monokoma
07-06-2010
No Comments

As we can read on Wikipedia, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is an action RPG developed and published by Square Enix for the PSP. The game was released in Japan on January 2010 and it is planned to be released in North America and in Europe on September 2010. Development of the game began in June 2005 and was originally intended for the PlayStation 2 with Sora as the prototype protagonist of the game.

Birth by Sleep was developed by Square Enix’s fifth Product Development Division, based in Osaka, the same team behind Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, and uses the same graphical engine as Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.

The plot was completed for the PS2, but development was halted six months after it began due to development of Re: Chain of Memories. The development team changed the platform to the PlayStation Portable so as to make use of the PSP’s functions such as co-operative and competitive multiplayer gameplay.

In August 2009, new Famitsu scans revealed a revamped User Interface (having been revamped twice before) as well as new worlds after a lack of news for close to a year.

As posted by Granville in our U64 Forum, hidden in the final game’s code there is a very cool secret world that was cut, but that you can still access via hacking! It’s a world based off the classic movie The Jungle Book.

The first area is in the Monkey Temple of the orangutan Louie. The other areas are your basic jungle type areas, although they are all clearly incomplete and lack a lot of their texture work. I’d say the Temple is the only complete area. The only way to access these areas is via hacks, they were never used in the main game and no images were shown in prerelease photos. It’s a pretty interesting find actually. A hack hasn’t been released yet, but i imagine it will soon.

On Youtube we can also see a video of Keytotruth, who managed to hack his/her way into the data and play around in it.

Thanks to Granville for the contribution!

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Others, PC / MAC

Guardians: Agents of Justice [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma
06-06-2010
6 Comments

Guardians: Agents of Justice is a cancelled superhero squad tactics game developed by Simtex in 1996 / 1997, that would have been published by Microprose. The project was supposed to play like X-Com, but with superheroes. As we can read on Wikipedia, Simtex created a number of well-known turn-based strategy games for the PC, most notably the first two Master of Orion games, but the company closed in 1997 for economic problems. Guardians: Agents of Justice vanished forever with the closure of the studio.

Derboo was able to find a some screens of this game from a 1997 PC Champ issue and other korean magazines. RADIX also found some more screenshot in Computer Games Strategy Plus. If you have more images from Guardians: Agents of Justice, please let us know!

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Mega Drive / Genesis, Sega

Popeye [GEN MD – Cancelled]

monokoma
06-06-2010
1 Comment

A platform game based on the Popeye character was in development by Technos Japan for the Genesis / Mega Drive, but in the end this project was cancelled. A Super Nintendo Popeye game was also developed and released in 1994 by Technos, but the sprite of the main character is much different from the one seen in the few Genesis / MD screens, so we can assume that these are 2 different games. As far as we know, Popeye for the Genesis / MD was never released in any territory.

Thanks to Celine and John Doom for the contribution! Scans from Console Mania #28, Game Fun #94 and Mean Machine #17

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Jaguar, Leaked, Others

Phase Zero [Jaguar – Cancelled]

monokoma
05-06-2010
12 Comments

Phase Zero (also know as “Hover Hunter” in early previews) is a cancelled first person shooter developed by Hyper Image for the Jaguar. A playable demo was somehow leaked online and many videos and reviews of the game can be found on Youtube. Phase Zero looked really nice and it was fun enough, but something went wrong during the development and Hyper Image were not able to finish their project.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution! Scans from Cd Consoles magazine, issues #4, #5, #8 and #13.

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