New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Star Fox (Starwing) [SNES – Beta]

monokoma
26-04-2010
1 Comment

Star Fox (Starwing in Europe) is a on-rail shooter developed by Argonaut Software and Nintendo EAD, published in 1993 for the Super Nintendo. Argonaut worked closely with Nintendo during the early years of the NES and SNES. They developed a Star Fox prototype on the NES, initially codenamed “NesGlider”, which was inspired by their earlier 8-bit game Starglider, and then ported this prototype to the SNES.

Programmer Jez San told Nintendo that this was as good as it could get unless they were allowed to design custom hardware to make the SNES better at 3D. Nintendo assented to this, and San hired chip designers to make the Super FX chip, the first 3D graphics accelerator in a consumer product. [Info from Wikipedia]

Megalol found some Star Fox beta screens in Nintendo Power magazine from Jan 1993, in which we can notice a completely different (and awesome) beta title screen!

Beta Title:


Final Title:

Originally a sequel titled Star Fox 2 was in the works for the Super Nintendo, but it was never released, though a handful of ROM dumps at various stages of its development were leaked onto the internet.

Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

Images:

Others, PC / MAC

Warhammer: Dark Crusaders [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma
25-04-2010
8 Comments

Warhammer: Dark Crusaders is a cancelled FPS that was in development for PC by Mindscape in 1995 / 1996. This project is not related to the RTS “Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade” expansion pack that was released in 2006. The 1996 Dark Crusaders was going to be one of the few first person shooters based on the Warhammer world, but the gameplay was not that much fun and in the end Mindscape decided to never publish the game, even though it was almost complete.

PC Gamer Online even reviewed a review-copy, with a 65% score:

Initially, the gameplay bears a strong resemblance to another squad-based shooter — Terra Nova — but unlike the sleek, efficient commands and diverse missions in TN, Dark Crusaders doesn’t let you make the most of your squad, and the missions don’t really require you to either.

During each of the 15 missions, which range from kill-’em-all scenarios to more specific reconnaissance missions, there are commands to order your troops to explore, follow, and teleport to and fro. But regardless of which command you choose, the results seem to be the same as if you left your brethren at home.

When ordered to explore, troops merely bump around walls shooting any enemies they encounter, then bump around some more often getting stuck in tight passages or wandering about aimlessly, leaving any and all mission-related work for you.

The weak command interface is so disappointing that during most missions it hardly seems worth the effort to even add units to the roster, since you’ll end up doing all the work yourself.

It seems that the FMV sequences used in Warhammer: Dark Crusaders were later recycled for Warhammer: Final Liberation, a turn-based tactics game published for PCs in 1997.

Derboo found a screenshot of the game in an old Korean magazine, if someone has saved more images or videos from old magazines or websites, please let us know!

Thanks to Jason for the english corrections! Thanks to Michal Fridrich and Tragos2d for the scans!

Images:

Mega Drive / Genesis, Sega

Jester [MD/G – Cancelled]

monokoma
25-04-2010
No Comments

Jester is a cancelled platform game that was in development by Sega of America for the Genesis / Mega Drive. There is not much info on its gameplay and only few levels backgrounds are preserved in the gallery below. Jester was canned after a problematic development and it is unknown how much was completed before the cancellation.

Thanks to Alan for the help in preserving some media from this lost project!

Thanks to Jason for the english corrections!

Images:

Projects, Unseen News

[Project] Monster Party Beta Restoration

U64 Staff & Contributors
25-04-2010
No Comments

Cubivore10 is working on a new Beta Restoration Project. This project is dedicated to restoring lost content and graphics to the cult-favorite NES game Monster Party. The first priority of this project is to remake graphics as they appear in beta shots of the game.

As of now, the only thing near completion is the first boss’ graphics, and the cursor at the start of the game. There are few beta-shots that show off what it originally looked like, however, some assumptions can be made about how things may have been changed or localized.

In addition to restoring beta graphics, on of the main goals of this project is to make the game more horror like, which is how fans assume it would have been which means more horror parodies, and more blood. That’s where you, the reader comes in!

If you have any interest and/or knowledge of editing games, then please, the Monster Party Beta Restoration Project needs you! “We” need somebody who can use graphic editors (currently using yy-chr) to edit graphics and pallets.

If you are interested in this project and want to resurrect a somewhat true-to-the-original Monster Party, please send any help and questions to [email protected]

Check the U64 article on Monster Party Beta to get a better understanding of what needs to be done. Also, please see below for screenshots and videos of what is currently done. Thank you! For more videos, check Cubivore10’s Youtube Channel.