New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Pixeljunk Shooter [PS3 – Beta]

Pixeljunk Shooter, is the fourth in a series of games made by Q games for the Sony Playstation 3. Your main goal in the game is to save the scientists that have been sent to investigate a planet, and solve puzzles while doing so.

In a prerelease video, we can see the difference between the unfinished game, and the final release.

To start with, the ship design. You can’t tell to well in the video, but it’s somewhat rounded. In the final version, it looks almost like a yellow fly.

Also, the scientists are colored more yellow in the final version. Here, they’re orange. The final version of the scientists are also more detailed.

Also, the temperature bar is VERY different from the final. The final is more segmented. For that matter, the entire HUD is beta here. There’s no display of how many gems you’ve found, it shows how many lives you have left when in the final there’s no way to tell, and the area that shows the scientists at the bottom right, shows how many are in the current area, and thier current status. Either saved, deceased, or still missing. Also, the  final version of the HUD is sort of a yellow and gold mix, and is designed and arranged slightly differently in the final.

Also to be seen in the video, Are somewhat of a beta version of the bats. They barely look LIKE bats at all in the beta. And also, the doors that bar you from leaving the section you’re in are different in design.

Also beta here, is the “water bomb”. It’s rather large. The final version, is at least HALF the size. This is not to be confused with the sponge however. Water bombs explode with water all over the place upon being dropped. The sponge sucks up water it’s been dropped in, and then releases over time upon being picked up. However, on the subject of the sponge, in the beta, it releases one steady stream of water. in the final, it realeases the water steadily, yes, but in a 5 way spread.

In the beta, the “points” the enemies leave behind are yellow. In the final, they are a deep red orange.

Back to the men in destress again. In the beta, most have a flag. In the final, most don’t. In fact, only 1 per level does. On another note, upon being put under water, the men will begin to swim in the beta. In the final, they just continue to stand there.

And lastly, the enemy life meters are red and white. In the final, they are red with a yellow border. Also, when an enemy dies in the beta, they make the same sound that the standard flying enemies in Pixeljunk Monsters do when they die.

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RS Links: the unheard burps in Tapper

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As we can read on Wikipedia, Tapper is a 1983 arcade game released by Bally Midway. The goal of the game is to serve beer and collect empty mugs and tips. Robert Seddon has linked us to an article on Edge Online, in which they talk about some removed content from the game:

Sometimes good ideas turn bad when you actually hear them. Such was the case with the burps in Tapper. Wanting to take advantage of a brand-new digitising chip from Texas Instruments, Meyer and Morrison thought it would be a good idea to add a burp every time a character finished a drink.

So, to create the source audio, a group from the Tapper team went into a conference room with a bunch of soft drinks, beers and microphones, and just started burping.

Looking back on the misguided notion, Morrison says: “We put it in, and it was disgusting.” The game was so fast and the drinks were being finished so quickly that you heard constant belching. In the end, the duo didn’t bother installing the burps or the TI chip, although Morrison admits that passing by their office during that phase of development was a treat for all within earshot.

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Warhawk 2 [PSX – Cancelled]

Warhawk 2 is the cancelled sequel of the original Warhawk for the PSX. Warhawk 1 was a futuristic arcade-style flight-combat game for the PlayStation 1, developed by SingleTrac and released by Sony in 1995. This should not be confused with the multiplayer-only remake of the same name, developed by Incognito Entertainment and released on the PlayStation 3 in 2007. [Info from Wikipedia]

Warhawk 2 was probably in development in 1996 / 1997 by Sony Interactive Studios / 989 Studios, but the project was soon canned for unknown reasons. The SingleTrac studio was closed down in 2000. A group of SingleTrac employees broke off and formed the game studio Incognito Entertainment in 1999.

Thanks to Matthew for the contribution!

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Zelda: Oracle of Seasons [GBC – Beta]

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons was published by Nintendo and developed by Capcom’s Flagship Studio for the Gameboy Color. In the early screenshots released for the game we can notice many beta differences. In the gallery below you can see some of these beta screens:

  • The waggon that we see in the opening place (when Din is dancing near the fire) was once set near the first dungeon too. In the final game it’s never in there.
  • The sprites for the trees and flowers were different in the beta version
  • There are some circle green things near a signboard in one of the beta screens, that does not exist in the final game.
  • The entrance of the first dungeon was different and it did not had a keyhole.
  • Impa’s house was in a slightly different place.
  • There are also many areas in these beta screens that does not look like any other areas in the final game. It’s possible that in this early build they created a small playable demo in a placeholder world, just to shown how the Seasons System worked.

As the game have a complex password system that change some of the content, some of these differences could still be in the final version. If you have more info, please let us know!

Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons were originally going to be themed parts of the Triforce Trilogy along with Mystical Seed of Courage. Each of the three games originally had a piece of the Triforce and one of its qualities (Wisdom, Power or Courage) assigned to them. This idea was scrapped relatively late in the development process, and the games were re-branded to remove all mention of this Triforce theme.[Info from Zelda Wikia]

Thanks to the X-Cult Community for the contribution!

You can find more info about Zelda: Oracle of Seasons in the Zelda Wiki!

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