New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Specwarrior [XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma
06-10-2009
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Created by Pandemic Studios, Specwarrior is a cancelled third person shooter set in the Vietnam War that was  in development in 2002 / 2003. After some time the game was cancelled by its publisher, Midway. About a year later Pandemic released Full Spectrum Warrior (published by THQ), but it’s not clear if the published game used some assets from the unreleased project. Specwarrior was the reasons that lead Pandemic to file a lawsuit against Midway, because they cancelled the game to avoid payment.

The lawsuit claims Midway’s move was unwarranted, and says Midway owes money for services Pandemic completed during its months of work on the project. Pandemic is seeking damages of more than $4 million and some $750,000 in fees, according to a Reuters report.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

Images:

GameCube, Nintendo

Don’t Call Me Max [GC – Cancelled]

monokoma
05-10-2009
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In 2002 Prolific Publishing were working on a new platform / action game for the GameCube, known as “Don’t Call Me Max”. The project was going to be  originally published by TDK and later by Destination Software, but in the end it was never released for some reasons. As we can read from the original press release the story was a real masterpiece:

In Don’t Call Me Max! the player takes control of a kangaroo named Max, who has run away from home looking for the circus that his father once traveled with. Max arrives at the Great Circus, only to find that it is a ramshackle, a shadow of its former glory. The circus has been overtaken by the curse of the evil Ringmaster. At the circus Max stumbles into an abandoned tent and finds himself surround by magician’s props. The ghost of the magician appears and gives Max his quest to travel to the magic realms and release the circus clans from the evil Ringmaster’s curse. Max’s only companion is the spirit of his father who resides in the magic staff he carries over his shoulder. Together they must travel through a variety of unique circus worlds, using magic and skill to survive the perils set forth by the Ringmaster. Can Max free the innocent Circus clans from the spell of the Ringmaster, and change the fate of the Great Circus?

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

Images:

Video:

Unseen News

RS Links: the lost Mortal Kombat court for NBA Jam

monokoma
04-10-2009
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Robert Seddon has linked us to the Escapist Magazine, where they talked about a Mortal Kombat themed court that was meant to be used in one of Midway’s NBA Jam / Hangtime home ports. In july 2009, Ed Boone, co-creator of the Mortal Kombat series, revealed a screen of this unused court in his Twitter account. As Boone said:

These images were going to be used in a “hidden MK court” for one of Midway’s NBA Jam/Hangtime home ports. But the NBA said no. :(

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

nba-jam-mortal-kombat

Dreamcast, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sega, Sony

La Femme Nikita [DC/PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma
04-10-2009
2 Comments

La Femme Nikita is a cancelled action game that was in development in 2000 / 2001 at Infogrames Lyon House: the project originally started in 1999 as “Mission Impossible 2”, a sequel to the original Nintendo 64 game. It seems that Infogrames soon decided to stop the development for the N64 and port MI2  to the new-released Dreamcast.

Fabien Lacaf, a professional story boarder, worked on MI2 and created different level environment (for 3D artists) and some parallel action designs  for the missions. The first concept to MI2 was based on levels that would have been completed following the progress of the main protagonists that worked in parallel at the same time.  The player was going to use different characters to complete the missions divided in different parts: in every single part the actions would have affected the next parts of the mission with the following characters.

After some months of work, the studio did not have the “Mission Impossible” license anymore and so they had to change the game into “La Femme Nikita”, based on the film / TV series with the same name. The project was then moved to the Playstation 2 but after 2 years of development, the publisher (Atari) decided to cancel “La Femme Nikita” for economic reasons.

That was the end of “Mission Impossible 2” for the Nintendo 64.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution and to Rodolphe for his help to preserve more images from the project! Read more