In 2008 Midway were working on various prototypes for the Xbox 360 and PS3: this one was a proto for a third person shooter / hack ‘n’ slash (that somehow reminds me of Phantom Dust), based on Unreal Engine 3 and inspired by Gears of War style cover system, that at the time was known as “Hero“. With the bankruptcy of the company, this project was cancelled but you can find a lot of info in the video below.
Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!
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In 2005 Rat Bag Games were developing an action game for the original XBOX and Playstation 2, with third person shooter and racing elements. After Midway bough the studio and shut it down, the Rat Bag project was cancelled and team was fired right before Xmas. It seems that a year later, Midway took the assets from this cancelled project to build a “new” Wheelman game, announced in February 2006 and then released in March 2009 for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!
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“It Came from the Desert” is a 1989 computer game developed by Cinemaware. It was originally released for the Amiga and the gameplay centers on the player choosing what they want to do by selecting an option on the multiple choice screens that pop up.
This unreleased Sega Genesis / Megadrive version was going to be released in 1990. The game has little in common with the Cinemaware classic as it’s more action oriented: an overhead shooter with the main protagonist running around on foot, and able to walk in all directions. Among the differences in play mechanics, the Sega version allowed the player to create powerups that were fashioned by collecting machinery pieces and joining them together in different combinations.
Note that the Sega version was originally cancelled and never actually released in physical cartridge: only later it was distributed as a ROM from the Cinemaware website after the turn of the 21st century. Despite the similarity of camera perspective, the Sega version did not appear to reuse any of the graphical elements created for use in the computer-based versions. [Infos from Wikipedia]
We cant thanks Cinemaware enough for their decision to share this unreleased game with everyone, instead to forgot it somewhere in their basement! An interesting interview with the main programmer of this project can be read at SEGA 16.
Here’s an interview by Ross Sillifant with Bob Jacob (Cinemaware)
Ross Sillifant: What happened to the MD/Genesis version of It Came From The Desert? I believe it was a very different game in terms of plot and gameplay, being more akin to an overhead shooter. Why the changes to game format and further canning of project?
Bob: I don’t remember! (getting old)
Ross Sillifant: It’s been claimed that when S.D.I was in process of being ported to
another format, it’s release was delayed as the company had asked the programmer to add extra features and such needed extra time, is this claim true? If so which format was it and what extra features did you ask for and why?Bob: The port referred to has to be the C64. It was never completed, not because we asked for features, but because the programmer was not up to the task (he later became quite good).
Thanks to Celine for the contribution!
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World in Conflict was developed and released in 2007 by Massive Entertainment. They showed lots of trailers before the final release, and one of them shows some things that are different in the final game:
The first thing that we can notice is that the interface is different: instead of being grayish as in the final version, we see a more reddish interface, some could even call it “futuristic”. The “buy” interface has a function left out in the final game: when you click one of the units, it shows it in 3D in a window in the bottom right corner. Read more
Green Beret, retitled Rush’n Attack in North America, is an action / platform arcade game released by Konami in 1985. In february 2009, www.coplanet.it made an interview with Naps Team, in which they revealed that a Gameboy Color port of Green Beret was in development in late 2000. Sadly the project was cancelled, probably because of the near release date of the new Gameboy Advance.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution and to Vaettur for the logo!
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