Games That Were Cancelled...why?

[ChrisMWaters 0]

OK...watching a show on G4 (video game TV Channel) called "Cinematech"...showing preview videos on this episode for games that were scheduled to come out, but were cancelled for some reason or another.

 

I was wondering if anyone knew why these games were cancelled.

 

The games shown...

 

- Full Throttle: Hell On Wheels (XBox)

- Sam and Max: Freelance Police (PC)

- Black 9 (PC)

- Strident: The Shadow Front (PC)

- Duality (PC)

- Dragon Empires (PC)

- The Lord of The Rings: Treason of Isengard (PS2)

- Ultima X: Odyssey (PC)

- Mythica (PC)

- Falcone: Into The Maelstrom (XBox)

- B.C. (X-Box)

[Youth N Asia 0]

Hell, I was up for the new Earthbound game that was supposed to come out for the Nintendo DD.

[DangerousDamon 0]

I have three simple words for you all.

 

 

DUKE

NUKEM

FOREVER

 

 

 

EDIT:DNF is actually still in development, as the developers said it'll be done "when it's ready."

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever the fuck that means.

[Ced 0]

I'd reason that the Full Throttle and Sam & Max sequels got the axe since the click and play genre is dead in most companies' eyes. Which is kind of a shame since I dug both games.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Yeah...unfortunate about point and click dying.

 

Secret of Monkey Island was one of my favorite games EVER. I'm still humming the theme to it from time to time.

[AndrewTS 0]

It's obvious we'll most likely see more people posting about cancelled games they were looking forward to rather than many reasons why games were cancelled.

 

The most obvious ones are the sequels to Japanese-bred games that were being developed by non-Japanese programmers; frankly, plenty of times they're worried that their series might be "ruined" by others and have the game development yanked.

 

Although I can kinda see why--for every Sonic CD or Metroid Prime, you have perhaps 5 Contra: Legacy of Wars or Sonic 3D Blasts.

 

...especially if you let Traveller's Tales program it, who haven't made a good game in over 10 years.

[GreatWhiteNope 0]

Super Nintendo had some nifty 3D games that were announced in 1995-1996, but got scrapped when the system died.

 

Most notable was StarFox 2.

[AndrewTS 0]

Super Nintendo had some nifty 3D games that were announced in 1995-1996, but got scrapped when the system died.

 

Most notable was StarFox 2.

FX Fighter aka Fighting Polygons was one of them I was looking forward to. It eventually came to the PC, and can be found in bargain bins at EBs everywhere.

 

I think Vortex also had a sequel in the works--was one of the last FX chip games where you controlled a giant mech.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Super Nintendo had some nifty 3D games that were announced in 1995-1996, but got scrapped when the system died.

 

Most notable was StarFox 2.

Which got turned into Starfox 64, right?

[tbondrage99 0]

They were going to make a Kill Bill game as well but it quicky got the ax almost as far as production on it started. I think it was going to be for the PS2 & X-Box.

[AndrewTS 0]

They were going to make a Kill Bill game as well but it quicky got the ax almost as far as production on it started. I think it was going to be for the PS2 & X-Box.

I'm not all that surprised they were going to do it. It could actually work well as a game, unlock a lot of movies that get made into games.

[Jingus 0]

Shit, I'd be happy if they'd just release more than one great Castlevania game per decade.

[teke184 0]

The original Earthbound for the Famicon was partially converted to the NES but never got past the prototype phase. (A prototype went on eBay some time back)

 

Prototypes of Return Of The Jedi- Ewok Adventure and Lord Of The Rings: Journey To Rivendell for the Atari 2600 have also shown up in prototype form recently.

[2GOLD 0]

ALIENS: Colonial Marines.

 

 

I was beyond pissed when they cancelled that game. I was completely prepared to buy it and I dislike first person shooters. A Rainbow Six style game with pulse rifles and aliens?

 

That wouldn't sell WHY exactly?

[Guest Failed Mascot]

The original Earthbound for the Famicon was partially converted to the NES but never got past the prototype phase. (A prototype went on eBay some time back)

I have the NES Emulator and they did the Japan version in English for it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Shit, I'd be happy if they'd just release more than one great Castlevania game per decade.

Assuming you hated the GBA games--huh?

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/castlevania/games.htm

 

Lots of people disliked 2...

 

90's had 3, 4, Bloodlines, and Symphony getting domestic release.

 

I'd like to see some of the "RPG elements" of the newer games get the ax, though.

 

On-topic--info on the cancelled DC CV.

[Jingus 0]

Actually, take a picture, cuz I'm one of the 17 people on the planet Earth who thought that Castlevania 2 for the NES was a good game and a worthy sequel. I love that friggin game. I'll still play it, once a year or so. I love having an NES that still works.

 

People have been claiming for years that Metal Gear Solid was gonna have some sequels that would not suck. Did they cancel all those games too?

[CBright7831 0]

Primal Rage 2

 

I remember buying one of the PR toys and looking on the back which read "Get ready for Primal Rage 2".

 

Of course that never happened.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

I was reading through these...

 

...why has the focus suddenly shifted away from the Belmont family in these things?

 

Or are the characters still Belmont by blood, but just not by name due to no son for a part or something?

[GreatWhiteNope 0]

The original Earthbound for the Famicon was partially converted to the NES but never got past the prototype phase.  (A prototype went on eBay some time back)

I have the NES Emulator and they did the Japan version in English for it.

Correction: You have a NES emulator and the English translated ROM of the game.

[Jingus 0]

...why has the focus suddenly shifted away from the Belmont family in these things?

 

Or are the characters still Belmont by blood, but just not by name due to no son for a part or something?

Whoa, hang on, when did this happen?! The entire point of the Castlevania series is that you're some guy named Belmont who hates Dracula and you're trying to whip the asses of the entire legions of Hell, literally. If you don't have all of the above (plus Grim Reaper), then bah gawd it ain't Castlevania.

 

Well, except for Symphony of the Night, of course... that one didn't let you play as a Belmont (at first anyway) but it was still pretty cool.

 

And furthermore: GBA? Bah. I refuse to ruin both my eyes and what's left of my social life by carting a goddamn Gameboy around with me. "But GBA has great games!" Wonderful. I'll be over here playing my XBox. "It's the best handheld system in the world!" It's still a goddamn toy for kids. "::insert various cool games that Nintendo only released for the GBA here::" I don't fucking care. Call me when you can plug it into a TV.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

And furthermore: GBA? Bah. I refuse to ruin both my eyes and what's left of my social life by carting a goddamn Gameboy around with me. "But GBA has great games!" Wonderful. I'll be over here playing my XBox. "It's the best handheld system in the world!" It's still a goddamn toy for kids. "::insert various cool games that Nintendo only released for the GBA here::" I don't fucking care. Call me when you can plug it into a TV.

...man...you're bitter about Gameboy.

 

Even though you CAN plug it into a TV...it's called the Game Boy Player. You just put it on the bottom of your Game Cube and viola.

 

Also, for the earlier point...I was confused with the Reidhart Schneider thing I read in the link.

 

I looked up characters and, even though his last name isn't Belmont, he is one.

[Jingus 0]

Damn right I'm bitter. I bought one of those fuckers when they first came out. And it promptly broke the very first time I dropped it. (My cell phone is bulletproof by comparison.) And I refuse to ever buy another one, period. Nintendo can go fuck themselves. Oh, wait, look at their company's history over the last ten years, they already did.

[Fökai 0]

I'm trying to recall that PSX game they were going to release directly after Fighting Force - except it was chockful of "real-time" violence, so the publishers scrapped it at the final stage.

 

Anyone have a clue of what this was?

 

EDIT: Thrill Kill.

[Guest MikeSC]

I'm trying to recall that PSX game they were going to release directly after Fighting Force - except it was chockful of "real-time" violence, so the publishers scrapped it at the final stage.

 

Anyone have a clue of what this was?

 

EDIT: Thrill Kill.

It was a shitty game (I had a copy of it) --- and they released a Wu Tang fighting game with the engine.

-=Mike

[Guest DVD Spree]

I'd reason that the Full Throttle and Sam & Max sequels got the axe since the click and play genre is dead in most companies' eyes. Which is kind of a shame since I dug both games.

Well, when LucasArts started the new Full THrottle they moved it away from the point-and-click genre, and made it into a beat-'em-up/adventure hybrid. By all accounts, it looked awful, and nobody really lamented its loss in that form.

 

Sam & Max stuck to it's point-and-click roots, albeit in 3D Grim Fandango syle. There was a lot of excitement about the sequel, but LucasArts shitcanned it at short notice for no apparent reason. Which shocked a lot of people, not least of which the team behind it, as they had made significant progress - Steve Purcell (S&M creator) has made a lot of comments about what an ass backwards move it was. However, the latest rumblings are that said development team are working under their own volition on an "unnamed 3D adventure title", which many are reading betwene the lines to be the phoenix-like remains of Sam & Max 2...

 

Super Nintendo had some nifty 3D games that were announced in 1995-1996, but got scrapped when the system died.

 

Most notable was StarFox 2. 

Which got turned into Starfox 64, right?

Not directky, but in spirit - the split screen multiplayer is something that came directly from StarFox 2, but the story etc are pretty much unrelated. I was surprised at just how playable StarFox 2 actually was - still more fun than the frigging new one.

 

B.C. getting the can stings more than it probably should, because Sir Pete's other title-to-be The Movies has also been mired by development problems. If neither of these materialise it will be a true shame - specially seeing as Fable was (inevitably) a disappointment after all the hype.

 

There are prototypes of Primal rage 2 in existence, as far as I'm aware.

 

They were going to make a Kill Bill game as well but it quicky got the ax almost as far as production on it started. I think it was going to be for the PS2 & X-Box.

Kill Bill has been cropping up on release lists again recently, as has Resrvoir Dogs. I don't actually expect them to see the light of day, but nonetheless.

 

ALIENS: Colonial Marines.

Can't help with this one, although I did get to play the original build of Alien Resurrection before they crapped it and went the FPS route. It was a bizarre, pseudo-3D top-down shooter, and not very good. The levels were all so well lit, you could see all the corridors and had full view of all the aliens, which completely demystified everything. Plus, since your character sits in the middle of the screen (a la Gauntlet) there is about a quarter of a screen's distance in every direction around you, meaning that there's no chance of anything creeping up on you - completely missing the point of a property where spooks and surprises are half the fun. Good move to can that piece of shit.

 

And all of these random Nintendo projects being mentioned? It's probably worth pointing out that, at any one time, Nintendo Kyoto has anywhere between 20 and 30 projects being worked on that NOBODY outside of Nintendo HQ will EVER see, and most of which will never see the light of day. They have a full-time R&D team of over 200 - the irony is, for all that people say about Rare never getting anything done, Nintendo really is a much bigger culprit (especially when you consider that, as of late, they have been handing over massive development duties for their key, traditionally in-house properties to second- and third-party developers).

[Karnage 0]

Black and White, another Half Life game and Shenmue II were supposed to be released in the last days of the Dreamcast but they got cancelled for obvious reasons.

 

Oh yeah, I also remember seeing a few screenshots of this WCW game from THQ that was supposed to come out on the Playstation. It was called WCW Live or something and looked like it used the AKI engine. Instead, they released Nitro and Thunder...

[Dimensions 0]

Four Horseman of the Apocalypse from 3DO was cancelled.

 

Anyone else hear about this game? Looked like fun.

[teke184 0]

The original Earthbound for the Famicon was partially converted to the NES but never got past the prototype phase.  (A prototype went on eBay some time back)

I have the NES Emulator and they did the Japan version in English for it.

Actually, it may be the prototype I was talking about...

 

 

The one that went on eBay got ROM-scanned and uploaded it to the Net.

 

It's playable, although at some point within the game there is a booby-trap that would permanently disable the cartridge if it was tripped. This was Nintendo's way of handling leaks if they ever occurred.

 

Apparently, they found a way around it and finished all the changes they had to make, then made it available for downloads.

 

 

http://starmen.net/articles/qt/775.php

[GreatWhiteNope 0]

Black and White, another Half Life game and Shenmue II were supposed to be released in the last days of the Dreamcast but they got cancelled for obvious reasons.

Shenmue II got released on Dreamcast in Japan.

 

I have the Gold version of Half-Life for Dreamcast. Imagine everything from the PC game being there, but having to wait every 60 seconds for textures to load no matter where you were.

 

Oh yeah, I also remember seeing a few screenshots of this WCW game from THQ that was supposed to come out on the Playstation. It was called WCW Live or something and looked like it used the AKI engine. Instead, they released Nitro and Thunder...

 

That reminds me of the Tiger Game.com games that were announced right before the system died. There was a WCW game - I think only a screenshot of the "select wrestler" menu exists.

 

I remember Madden, Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night were also announced.

 

Almost forgot my favorite unreleased game ever:

 

Hellraiser 3D for NES

 

Apparently the developers had a smooth enough frame-rate, but the chip technology they built into the cartridge would have made the game upwards of $100 for consumers.