Beta + Cancelled Action Video Games - Page 45 of 91

Split Realities is a cancelled 2D side scrolling action game that was in development by Funcom for the Playstation and Saturn. The game looked a lot like Flashback and it’s possible that the gameplay would have been similar to Delphine Software’s title. Split Realities was canned for some development issues, but its core concept, setting and characters were reused to build “The Longest Journey”, a Point and Click adventure released by Funcom in 1999 for PC.

As we can read in an interview with Funcom’s Ragnar Tornquist on Adventure Gamers:

How did you come up with the concept for TLJ? Were you guys just writing down ideas when someone suddenly cried out “Eureka!” ?
If I remember correctly, I think it was “Geronimo!”. Okay, that’s not really how it happened. The core idea of TLJ—two worlds, one of magic, one of science, and a Guardian to keep watch of the Balance between them—was actually the setting for a platform game (of all things) that Funcom was developing at that time, called Split Realities. I wasn’t involved with that project at all, but when for various reasons the game was canned, the lead artist, Didrik Tollefsen, wanted to take the core concept and build a new game around it. Which is where I entered into the picture. We sat down for quite a while, played around with the setting and the characters and the story, and the end result of that process was the beginning of The Longest Journey. There are only little bits and pieces left of the original idea, but that’s the nature of any good game design; it grows and changes with the people working on it. At this point, it’s difficult to say who came up with what, but it’s really been a cooperative process between me and the lead artist, with constant input from the whole team. So, no, it was never “Eureka!” It was more of an organic process.

Celine and Rod_Wod were able to find few Split Realities screens in CD Consoles magazine issue #11 and other old magazines.

Images:

Microsoft, Xbox

Roman Bloodsport [XBOX – Cancelled]

monokoma

26-06-2010

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Roman Bloodsport is a cancelled action / racing game that was in development by Dynamic Animation Systems for the original XBOX in 2003. The player would have been able to engage in gladiatorial events in many places across the empire of ancient Rome. As we can read in the official press release:

From gruesome fights to the death in arenas to dangerous high-speed chariot races, the player must master a multitude of different skills to survive and ultimately be victorious. Roman Bloodsport Live! extends the gameplay of the single player game presenting the player with the opportunity to compete against other online players in ladder and tournament games, eventually becoming the leader of his own clan of warriors.
* Arena combat and chariot racing together in one game
* 10 diferent arenas and 10 different chariot race tracks
* Exotic opponents from the far reaches of ancient Rome
* Role-playing elements allow the player to customize and upgrade their equipment as they gane wealth and fame
* XBox Live! game play extends the role-playing elements of the single player campaign

In the end Roman Bloodsport was never released, maybe because they did not find a publisher interested in the project.

Images:

Leaked, Mega Drive / Genesis, Sega

Zombie High [Genesis / MegaDrive – Cancelled]

monokoma

25-06-2010

11 Comments

Zombie High is a cancelled side scrolling action game that was in development by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. An incomplete beta rom was somehow leaked online

It seems that there are a few enemies at the end of level 1 that cannot be defeated with your default slime weapon. They can be defeated by using the book as a weapon by entering the door marked number 4 next to the enemies and the book weapon will appear. It is very difficult to defeat them without being defeated yourself.

Celine was able to find some early screenshots in Joypad magazine #10, in which we can notice that the main character sprite has some differences from the one in the playable beta. It’s currently unknown why this game was canned and never released.

Recently a debug mode was found by “The Jackal” by pressing start and A on controller 2 simultaneously. Using this debug mode we can get to see more levels,Music that was never used(which after some research appears to be music used in a later EA title “Crue ball” composed by “Brian L Shmidt” Weapon select,invincibility and disabling enemies. It appears a lot of the game was finished but the only things missing are an ending to the game and most of the minigames and dialogue sections that can be found by entering certain doors in various levels will not work properly unless accessed using the debug modes level select feature

The main characters name in this game according to the debug menu is “Travis” He is also referred to as Travis by some of the characters in the classroom sections

There is a movie of the same name released in 1987, This game may have taken some inspiration from this movie despite not being a game based on this movie, One of the in game characters is called “Emerson” there is also a character in the movie named Emerson, which further confirms this suspicion

The end boss of the game is loosely based around the appearance of Allister Fiend from the band “Motley Crue” EA also licensed Crue Ball a year after this games cancellation and Allister Fiend also appears in this game. The only difference in Zombie High is that he is blue

Crue Ball shares many things in common with zombie high, such as similar graphics design, and similar sounding music (one identical song) The designers of Crue Ball are called NuFx Who could be the possible designers of Zombie High
.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Videos:

PSP, Sony

Conan [PSP – Cancelled]

monokoma

16-06-2010

2 Comments

Conan is a cancelled action game that was in development in 2006 by Planet Moon Studios for the PSP. There are not many info available on the project, it seems that they created a playable prototype to show to various publishers, but in the end they did not find one interested in the game. The development of Conan was stopped and only few screens remain in the gallery below, to preserve its existence.

Thanks to Mytia for the contribution!

Images:

Playstation, Saturn, Sega, Sony

Mega Man 8 [PSX SAT – Beta / Unused Stuff]

monokoma

10-06-2010

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Mega Man 8, known as Rockman 8: Metal Heroes in Japan, is the eighth installment in original Capcom’s Mega Man series, and was originally released in Japan on the Sony PlayStation on December 1996. The following year, Mega Man 8 saw a release on the Sega Saturn and was localized for both consoles in North America and the PlayStation in PAL regions. Director Hayato Kaji revealed that he initially designed Duo as robot created by the Mega Man 4 character Dr. Cossack. When it was decided that Duo would instead come from outerspace, his appearance changed but still retained remnants of Russian traits, such as his headware. [Info from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Proto1, we found out that MegaphilX uploaded an interesting video from a Mega Man 8 beta in his Youtube Channel.

Everything is practically unused in the footage. The background, the effects, no bolt item, Mega Man’s got a strange running animation and towards the end of the video, you can see early footage of the stage select screen. The bosses have not been made yet, so their Metools act as their temporary icons. Also, a sprite of Duo appears here as well, something that isn’t in the final at all.

– Completely unused BGM
– The background for the stage is unused and unfinished.
– Mega Man has an odd running animation. He’s very stiff in comparison to his final running animation
– His color when using the MegaBall is Green and Yellow instead of Pink and purple.
– Enemies appear at places they don’t usually in the final.
– Big yellow blocks have a blue streak through them. In final, they’re solid yellow.
– at one point in these videos, there’s an elevator lift moving downwards. In the final, elevators never go down, only up.
– No enemies in elevator portions.
– No hit detection with Whale Airship enemies.
– Bolt items weren’t implemented yet
– Beginning at 5:04 in this video, you can catch a quick glimpse at a work-in-progress stage select. Mettools represent stages under construction, and the Duo character is shown as the boss for the Island stage. Duo isn’t a boss in the Island stage, so perhaps he was in this particular build.
– Also at the stage select, Tengu Man’s mugshot appears on the top right column where Frost Man should be. In the final, he’s on the top left.

Thanks to Proto1 for the contribution!

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