midway

Arcade, Others

Rip Squad [Arcade – Cancelled]

monokoma
19-05-2010
No Comments

Rip Squad is a cancelled driving shooter / action game that was in development from 1999 to 2001 by Midway for the Arcades. It was going to be a war-themed game, inspired by Call of Duty and a TV show called “Rat Patrol”. The gameplay featured 360° of on-screen movement, a mounted .50 cal rifle inside the cabinet and a seat with a shaker beneath it, to simulate the motion of the jeep driving over different types of terrain.

As we can read on Arcade Heroes:

Back in 2001, Midway made a decision to dump their long standing coin-op division in favor of focusing developments on console gaming.  When that decision came down, there were still some arcade games floating around in the development cycle, which were subsequently canceled and were lost to the knowledge of the public.

Thanks to kieranmay for the contribution!

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Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Mortal Kombat 8 [PS3/X360 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors
11-12-2009
1 Comment

As we can read on Kotaku, before Mortal Kombat VS DC another MK game was pitched, but it was never fully developed. You could say that Mortal Kombat 8 was released as MK VS DC, but the original concept for this  new chapter of the MK saga was much different from what we got in the end:

Once again, we pestered Mr. Boon about the scrapped version of Mortal Kombat 8, once described by the long-term Midway dev as being heavily inspired by the look of Gears of War. While that grittier, darker version of MK didn’t make it far beyond the technology development stages — Boon told us there was little in the way of concept art for the grimier spin on the series — […]

In november 2009 an article at Game Set Watch revealed some concept arts that are assumed to be from this cancelled version of Mortal Kombat 8. It’s currently unknown how the gameplay would have evolved from the traditional fighting game, but if it would have followed this “new” style, it could have been something like “Gears of War” with more open arenas than the usual MK ones.

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GameCube, Microsoft, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance [PS2/XBOX/GC – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors
23-11-2009
2 Comments

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, originally known as Mortal Kombat 5: Vengeance, is a fighting game developed and produced by Midway. The game was released for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube in 2002. Deadly Alliance was the first all-new Mortal Kombat fighting game produced exclusively for home consoles, with no preceding arcade release. [Info from Wikipedia]

At the Mortal Kombat Secrets website we can read many interesting info about the development of the game and its beta differences. Various characters were created for Mortal Kombat 5, but some of them were never used in the final game, as Kai, Dairou, Tiamat, Hachiman, Baphomet, The Evil Masters and Siobhan.

Also, some playable characters in Deadly Alliance went through a lot of changes before their final design, as Shang Tsung, Quan Chi (with a living weapon that never made it in to the game), Scorpion, Li Mei, Mavado and Frost. Early screens of the game are probably just target renders, as the graphic is nothing like the one in the final game. A Water Temple arena was  also planned, but removed from the final version.

You can check Mortal Kombat Secrets for more info!

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Arcade, Mega Drive / Genesis, Nintendo, Others, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Mortal Kombat 3 [Arcade – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors
05-11-2009
8 Comments

Mortal Kombat 3 is the third game in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, released in arcades in 1995. It was updated into Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in arcade and home consoles, and later Mortal Kombat Trilogy home consoles only. Mortal Kombat 3 has been released for DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, Genesis, Master System, PlayStation, Super NES and Windows. [Info from Wikipedia]

From the Mortal Kombat Secrets website we can read about many differences in the beta builds of the game, such as early character select screen, a removed red carpet in “The Bank” stage and a removed sub-boss with two big hammers. Sektor’s original name was “ketchup”, Cyrax’s original names were “mustard” and even “Robocop” at one point, Sindel was known as “Muchacha” and Kabal’s working name was “Sandman”.

Kurtis Stryker was supposed to appear in MK1 but it was removed, then in MK2 but it was changed into Jax. Only in MK3 Kurtis Stryker made its final appearance in the series. You can find out more about the MK3 beta at Mortal Kombat Secrets!

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Arcade, Mega Drive / Genesis, Nintendo, Others, Sega, SNES + Super Famicom

Mortal Kombat 2 (II) [Arcade – Beta]

U64 Staff & Contributors
31-10-2009
1 Comment

Mortal Kombat II is a 1993 arcade game and the second title in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. Due to memory limitations for the title two characters from the original Mortal Kombat, Sonya Blade and Kano were excluded, reasoned by Boon as them being the least-picked characters in the original game, and the development team’s desire to introduce more new characters into the game. [Info from Wikipedia]

On the Mortal Kombat Secrets website there are many interesting concept arts and screenshots from the early development of the game, in wich we can notice some removed characters as Kintaro and a female kick-boxer. Also a couple of beta images for Jax, Johnny Cage and Baraka shown their original designs and we found out that a Blade Spin Special Move was removed from Baraka, because it was too powerful. You can check the original article on MKS for more info!

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