New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Others, PC / MAC

Far Cry (X-Isle) [PC – Alpha & Tech Demo]

U64 Staff & Contributors
29-09-2009
6 Comments

Far Cry is a FPS developed by Crytek Studios from Germany and published by Ubisoft in 2004 for Microsoft Windows. The codename of the project was “X-Isle”, a tech demo with dinosaurs on a jungle island. Crytek history starts with the ECTS 2000. It was there that they impressed all the big publishers with their tech demos at the NVIDIA booth. They continued releasing various tech demos over the years and the X-Isle one evolved into Far Cry.

From the original X-Isle: Dinosaur Island the plot of the game was changed many times before the final one, and once there were aliens too. As we can read from an old Gamespot preview:

In the game, players will be pitted against an ancient alien life-form closely related to the dinosaurs. The aliens have re-created a colony of dinosaurs in an attempt to take back control of the globe. The player must overcome the advanced alien technology in addition to the brute strength and power of the dinosaurs in order to succeed.

In the pre-alpha version of the game, there were some differences as noticed by Slayermaggot81:

  • Different Hud/Health Bar
  • Different and unfinished levels (low textures)
  • More sunny lightning and clear transparent water (ain’t blue-ish like in the final game)
  • Enemies does look different than in the final game
  • Effects like explosions, smoke and blood were looking different

A Far Cry demo from E3 2002 was found and preserved online, you can read more on the “BRP: Beta Restoration Project” ModDB page!

Thanks to Slayermaggot81 for the contribution!

Images:

Videos:

 

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Necessary Force [Cancelled – Xbox 360/PS3/PC]

Liam Robertson
29-09-2009
2 Comments

Necessary Force is a cancelled action game that was in development at Midway Newcastle. The game was supposed to be open-ended, with the player that would have been able to choose how to approach the mission. Unfortunately, Midway Newcastle shut down in august 2009 and the project had to be shelved. A preview of an early playable demo can be found on the EDGE website and, as we can read, the game sounded promising:

[…] the developer’s demo room is the result of only three months’ work, yet there is plenty to see, and in remarkably stable, consistent form. […]

As a police officer assigned to this beat, you’re looking at a clean-up operation, which due to the game’s construction will play out literally. As you eliminate criminal activity to make these streets safer, we’re told, they will transform. The ubiquitous graffiti will be scrubbed away. Boards will be removed from windows. Entire buildings will be replaced with shiny new constructions, putting a shop, say, were once there was a tumbling-down tenement.

Thanks a lot to Sam Chester for the help in preserving some screens of the models that he created for the game!

Images:

Videos:

Nintendo, Wii

Epic Mickey [Wii – Beta / Concept / Unused Animations]

U64 Staff & Contributors
28-09-2009
8 Comments

Epic Mickey is a platform/action-adventure game designed by Warren Spector (of Deus Ex fame) and developed by Junction Point Studios exclusively for the Wii. The game was released in November 2010. As the title suggests, it stars the world-famous cartoon character Micky Mouse, however, after toying around with a magic paintbrush on a model of Disney Land made by a wizard named Yen Sid (“Disney” spelled backwards), he accidentally creates the Phantom Blot. He tries to erase it with paint-thinner, but he spills more paint on the model in the process, creating a portal with the paint/thinner mixture, which The Phantom Blot enters. Eventually, Micky gets pulled into it by the Phantom Blot, finding himself in a dark world known as The Cartoon Wasteland, populated by Disney characters who haven’t seen the light of day in years, even decades, not the least of which is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Pre-production started in 2007 when the company was bought by Disney. Some concept arts were leaked in Summer 2009 from a former employes’ resumes, but the final game doesn’t really look like these. It’s possible that parts of the original concept were cut.

As we can read at the Escapist Magazine, the Epic Mickey project originally started out as a PS3 / Xbox 360 / PC game, but later the developers decided to go with a Wii exclusive:

Speaking to Official Nintendo Magazine, Epic Mickey developer Warren Spector revealed: “The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title.” Spector told Disney Interactive Studios boss Graham Hopper that to develop a true success, “it’d be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform.” Everything was switched up when a Wii port of the game was discussed, with Spector rightfully believing that a regular port wouldn’t cut it due to the unique, arm-flailing nature of the Wii, so Hopper suggested that Epic Mickey go Wii exclusive.

Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!

Images:

 

Videos:

Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Toxic Crusaders [SNES – Cancelled]

monokoma
28-09-2009
9 Comments

Toxic Crusaders is an animated series based on the Toxic Avenger films. It features Toxie, the lead character of the films leading a trio of misfit superheroes who combat pollution. Video games based on Toxic Crusaders were also produced by Bandai and Sega, which were released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis.[Info from Wikipedia]

A Super Nintendo version was in development by Bandai, but it was never released in the end. It looked different from the Genesis version, that was developed by Sega. Some screens of the SNES version can be seen in the issue 39 of EGM.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Images:

Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Street Fighter Alpha 2 [SNES – Beta?]

monokoma
28-09-2009
8 Comments

Street Fighter Alpha 2 (also known as Street Fighter Zero 2) is a 1996 fighting game originally released for the CPS II arcade hardware by Capcom, and later ported to the SNES. Israel has found some beta SFA2 screens for the SNES/SFC version. These were published in the “Club Nintendo” magazine in Mexico.

According to the magazine, SFZ2 was going to include “an special chip to aid in data an sprite processing to make the game more fluid”. The description matches Nintendo’s SA-1 chip but there are no confirmations if it was going to be an SA-1 game.

There is some evidence that it could have been the case, thought:

1. The characters seem to be bigger in the beta, at least in the Rolent vs Vega shot. In the Sakura vs Sakura shot you can tell by the size of her thighs.

2. In the final build, the shadows flickered while in the beta they don’t (both can be seen in the shots). Why is this relevant? In the finalized game the flicker doesn’t look good. Why didn’t they just leave them like in the beta?

Israel thinks that they were indeed aiming towards a SA-1 cartridge but late in the development cycle they switched to a SA-1 + S-DD1 because of space constrains and maybe in the last few weeks decided to settle for a S-DD1 only cart due to costs concerns.

The screenshots were published in August 1996 so that means the the screenshots were taken in June or July. SFA2 was released in November so it must have gone gold in October at least.

Some differences noticed in the screenshots:

  • The game used to have a custom font for the character names. This was changed to a default SNES font.
  • Win icons were red (Sakura vs Sakura screenshot)
  • Shadows didn’t flicker, both are visible in the screenshots.
  • Characters seem to be a little bigger than their final iterations.

Thanks to Israel for the contribution!

Images: