Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal is a platform / third person shooter developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony. It is the third installment in the Ratchet & Clank series and was released in November 2004. [Info from Wikipedia]
Bowsersenemy was able to notice various differences in the early beta screens and in some videos:
The upgraded version of the N60 storm, used the icon from the Lancer from RAC 2. The whole weapon status meter is from RAC 2!
In another beta screen the N60 had the icon of the second form Lancer, with LESS max ammo than before!
A beta screenshot of the multiplayer mode
Some removed enemies
A removed wrench weapon
Holostar studios mission was set in the evening, while the final version is in the day.
Qwark vid comics had beta timer, beta life bar, and beta Q token counter (bottom right corner)
Zero Hour is a cancelled third person shooter / action game that was in development by Argonaut Games for the PSP. The project started out as a Playstation 2 game, but when Argonaut got PSP early development-kits, they decided to port Zero Hour to the portable console. A demo for the PSP version was shown at E3 2004, but in late October of the same year, Argonaut fired 100 employees and was put up for sale. Lack of a constant stream of deals with publishers led to cashflow issues and a profit warning earlier in the year. Zero Hour vanished with the closure of the studio.
Thanks to USERDANTE and Tanguy for the contributions!
The Ace of Spade is a cancelled action game that was in development by Ubisoft in 2004, for the Playstation 2. The team created an early playable prototype that was probably used for an internal pitch, but in the end the project was never finished for unknown reasons. The game had a cover/fire system similar to the one used in Namco’s Kill Switch and later in Gear of Wars.
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a platform / shooter game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony in october / november 2009. As in other R&C games, to learn more about A Crack in Time’s development and its beta differences the team added a nice bonus to unlock in the form of the “Insomniac Moon” (unlocked after collecting all the Zoni and fighting a secret boss). As we can read from an article at Press the Buttons:
[…] a 3D recreation of the Insomniac offices in the form of a museum that serves as a tribute to and exhibit of all kinds of interesting objects, enemies, levels, and basic design features that did not actually make it into the main game.
[…] From the moment players guide Ratchet into the museum, it’s apparent that something special is going on here. While the area sports a minimalistic design, the real stars are the deleted and unfinished materials. Wander around the place and it’s not long before you’ll stumble on a guided missile weapon that uses flaming birds as ammo. Then there’s a set of crates that pay out special bonuses depending on how Ratchet whacks them with his Omniwrench. Want to have a look at a flying space monster that involved animation too complex to work into the environment in which he was meant to patrol? The museum can offer that.
[…] The best surprise inside the museum is that several of the cut level elements are playable. There’s a hoverboot race that was originally planned for the Agorian Battleplex, and checking out its exhibit space leads to being able to race through the semi-completed environment. There’s also an additional Great Clock platforming puzzle originally meant for Clank and another dropped Battleplex element that involved a procedurally generated obstacle course.
Huge props to Insomniac! If more studios could share this kind of bonus in their games, it would be easier to preserve the cuts and the changes in the development.
A couple of videos of the Insomniac Moon can be found on Youtube, but if someone could be able to record more footage of the area and take some direct-feed screens of all that beta-stuff, it would be nice!
Thanks to Robert Seddon and Bowserenemy for the contributions!
Battletech: Gray Death Legion is a cancelled mech game that was in development for the Saturn and Sega Mega CD at Absolute Entertainment in 1995, before the closure of the company. The project was based on a fictional mercenary company that exists within the fictional BattleTech Universe and probably the gameplay was going to be similar to other mech games, with mission-based levels and first person shooter view.
It’s currently unknown if the Saturn version was similar to the Sega Mega CD one or if they were 2 different games. A playable beta demo of the Sega Mega CD version was leaked somehow and it’s available at Good Deal Games. As we can read from the description:
The Gray Death Legion is a mercenary regiment within the Battletech universe. This game demo does not have audio, but is very playable and a blast at that! The game plays very similar to the excellent AH-3 Thunderstrike. Battletech: Gray Death Legion makes use of the Sega CD’s scaling and rotation hardware to create an impressive 3D environment with a smooth frame rate. Features a very long 3D animated Battletech intro that is also very impressive.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution (scan from GamePro #79)!
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