This little-known game appears as a ‘work-in-progress’ in the September 1994 issue of Sega Power, it was developed by DICE (originally for the Amiga) but it doesn’t have a decent description. According to the article, Hardcore was a typical run-and-gun platformer, similar to the Turrican series or Super Star Wars, with many different enemies to destroy. The press release for the game boasted that ‘you are able to shoot almost everything, even if it’s not necessary’. There was also a Mega-CD version to be released, which was to include a driving segment at the end of each level, similar to Batman Returns. Although planned for a November 1994 release, both versions of the game were seemingly cancelled.
Little else is said about the game in the article, which is a common trend for previews in Sega Power… They seem to have spent far more time writing the amusing captions, which you can see in the article scan.
It seems that the original Amiga version of Hardcore only got half-finished. Then they decided to do it on Megadrive instead; the MD cartridge version was 99% finished (just a bug or two in the game logic, and highscores aren’t saved) when Psygnosis decided not to publish it. The MD-CD version did not get very far in development.
Thanks a lot to Repi for the contribution! Thanks to DarkFalzX for the video!
Images:
Thanks to Grzegorz here are some screenshots from when Hardcore was developed for Amiga by Digital Illusion:
Videos:
