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Games Entertainment

Three Games That Didn't Make It 68

Posted by Zonk from the go-on-without-me-save-yourself dept.
1up.com has a feature about three games with potential that never made it onto store shelves. From the article: "We look back at three games that died so young they never even made it out: They were cancelled before they could land on store shelves. Did gamers lose out on a great experience, or was it a lucky break for their unsuspecting wallets?" I played Thrill Kill for about five minutes at the 1998 GenCon, because I was working a booth two booths down. It was umm... bad. Games that don't make it to market, probably shouldn't.
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Three Games That Didn't Make It More

Three Games That Didn't Make It

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  • Worked on them too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Artificer ( 186606 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @01:51AM (#14415323)
    Not only have I played many games that shouldn't have gone to market, but I've worked on a lot of them that REALLY shouldn't have gone out. Unfortunately, being a lowly game tester, my opinion doesn't seem to matter all that much.
    • Maybe if your industry actually stopped taking bribes from sony, we'd see the end of 10-star reviews for "generic PS2 brawler"?
      • yet "Generic PS2 brawler" can be translated to "Generic Xbox FPS" or "Generic Xbox TPS" or "Generic Xbox online game"

        but I know what you mean, Sony ripped you off because you bought a PS2 that died, you bought a Sony TV that died, you bought a Sony Computer that died, you bought a Sony CD that infected your computer.

        Why do you keep buying sony products?
      • 10-star reviews are few and far in-between for any console. the only games that get credit nowadays actually deserve it on some level. [god of war? shadow of the colossus? etc] even those games didnt get "perfect" marks across the board.

        the ps2 isnt the only console that ships derivative generic titles either. how many of the xbox's must have titles are FPS's? and ported from games originally intended for pc in the first place? how many of the gamecube's titles include some form of NES-era character tie-in?

  • Sigh (Score:5, Funny)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @02:27AM (#14415428) Homepage
    It's a little depressing how little you hear about Duke Nukem Forever these days...

  • Thrill Kill Wasn't that bad (Score:4, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @02:39AM (#14415457)
    anyone who says Thrill Kill was a bad game needs to dig up a copy of Criticom for the Saturn. Now _there_ was a terrible game. But as for the first 4 player fighter? Sorry Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Makyo Toitsusen did it years ago on the Sega Genesis (and did a damn fine job, pitty we never got it, damn licensing *grumble*grumble*). And Street Racer ripped off Mario Kart long before mega man did.

  • I can remember playing a game like Thrill Kill (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @02:52AM (#14415493) Journal
    Thought at first it might have been a PC game but finally managed to terrify the remaining braincells into remembering I played it on a console at work.

    If you google for it you can defintely see hints that it has been released. Nothing definite but then it is an old title and google is infested with crap sites like 1up that push every game title they can find without having any content on their pages. (Wish there was a way to get google to filter its search results but that is another post)

    Ah but of course wikipedia comes to the rescue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrill_Kill [wikipedia.org] seems I played a bootleg version. So anyone else who could have sworn they played a game that was never launched. You ain't hallucinating.

    • Yeah, I too remember playing that game. One of my friends at the time got the bootleg version and we tried it out. I remember it being amusing for a few hours, but it was a hollow shell of a game with no redeeming value after the novelty of its violence wore off. Overall, I got the impression that I would have been upset had I paid $30-50 for it, but I've rented worse games.
      • to my knowledge, the game wasnt completed either. at least the copy i "came across" wasnt. it was slightly buggy, and had no character endings. there needed to be some more work done for sure, but i can see where they were trying to go. for the time [mid 1998-1999] it wasnt a bad idea... just needed polishing. [and maybe better characters, lol.]

        i knew i was playing an unreleased and 75% unfinished game, so i didnt have any high level expectations or anything.

  • X-COM - UFO Defense (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cadallin ( 863437 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @03:37AM (#14415619)
    Anybody else notice this on the sidebar? X-COM was a great game, but why the fuck would you have played it on the PSX instead on a 486 like it was originally intended?
    • cause PC's were still for geeks at that time?

      because the notion of spending $1500 on a PC and you still had to spend more for a graphics card wasn't known?

      cause witht he PSX you could put the disc in and play? no need to set up anything or configure anything?
  • Propeller Arena: Aviation Battle Championship. Sega's last great game for the Dreamcast, cancelled because a certain level somewhat resembled the 9/11 attacks. It was later leaked - and let me tell you, it kicks ass!

    For info, images, and music: CLICK HERE [gametribute.com].
    For a torrent of the game's ISO, CLICK HERE [torrentspy.com]

  • I'm pretty sure that the engine for Thrill Kill was actually used later to make the first Wu Tang Clan fighting game. Yep, as this [gamespot.com] link puts it so well, "With a different fighting engine behind it, this could have been a much, much better game."

    As far as I was ever concerned, this was one of the worst games to be squashed. There was this mythos that surrounded it as the most violent, bloody game ever, but not only was the gore way over-hyped, but the game itself was absolutely horrible. I'm sure this is

  • For better or for worse (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @04:26AM (#14415742)
    For the most part games that 'don't make it' are, arguably, ALWAYS case by case basis. Heres 3 games/series, that 'didn't make it' for reasons unknown.

    1. Final Fantasy 2(NES JP), 3(NES JP) and 5 (SNES JP). Yes, 2 and 5 were remade for the PS1 and 3 is being remade for the DS, but sans (VERY late) remakes, these games never saw U.S. soil. (Take your pick of reasons for each game ranging from 'too experimental' or 'it was too risky economically'.)

    2. The entire Sakura Wars series. Given the sheer number of games and its popularity in Japan, its more or less considered to be a conspiracy as to why the games (or the anime, or the manga or the movies) haven't made it over here.

    3. Any musical related game than DDR. (Either guitar, drums, or DJ-styled arcade game systems. Reasons/excuses not to bring it over here galore)

    • Re:For better or for worse (Score:4, Insightful)

      by -kertrats- ( 718219 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @04:55AM (#14415817) Journal
      I've been playing Guitar Hero since Christmas, and it is incredible. I've also heard good things about Karaoke Revolution, Samba De Amigo, and PaRappa the Rapper. DDR isn't the only music game in the US (though yes, there are a lot that don't make it over).

    • Re:For better or for worse (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dwedit ( 232252 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @05:23AM (#14415873) Homepage
      Final Fantasy 2 was 100% translated (though unedited) when the plug was pulled on a US release.

      • Yup, and whoever wants screenshots and lamentations of the translators, here's some [lostlevels.org].

        I'm not really sad though, the GBA version is really cool and certainly better translated =)

        (And what was with that "Funny" moderation? weird...)

    • 2. The entire Sakura Wars series. Given the sheer number of games and its popularity in Japan, its more or less considered to be a conspiracy as to why the games (or the anime, or the manga or the movies) haven't made it over here.

      Having played the first of the series for the Dreamcast, it's a half-step away from a dating simulator, and I just can't imagine it being popular in the US.

      • it's a half-step away from a dating simulator, and I just can't imagine it being popular in the US.

        Yeah, obviously Americans would never play a game where the dialog is more than some guy repeating "Guards patrol the castle walls" over and over every time you talk to him.
        • Yeah, obviously Americans would never play a game where the dialog is more than some guy repeating "Guards patrol the castle walls" over and over every time you talk to him.

          You're mistaking the issue, perhaps you're not familiar with video-game dating simulators. They are inane and pathetic and not fun. There is really no intelligence or literary merit to them.

          • Oh, I'm familiar with them, but I'd say as long as you kept out of the hentai sims, you can find some with decently thought out branching stories. I don't think they'd qualify as museum-quality works of art, but they're no more pathetic than Choose Your Own Adventure books. Sakura Taisen's implementations tend to not have much inherent replayability since (at least in the earlier games) the choices don't influence the plot much, however it does lead to variation in dialog, which beats hearing about "the c
    • Regarding Sakura Wars...The manga and anime have been released here, BTW. The manga carries the name Sakura Taisen instead, if I remember correctly.

      I don't expect there was ever any intention to bring FF3 over here, but FF5 was translated and was supposed to be released, but I believe Square didn't follow through because they thought that the job system might be too much experimentation and might casue the game to flop in the US. It was talked about in Nintendo Power and was going to be called "Final Fanta

  • The Red Star (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BruceTheBruce ( 671080 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @05:04AM (#14415835)
    While it wasn't cancelled, Acclaim's The Red Star fell *just* short of making it to market when Acclaim finally closed the doors. It had already been approved by Sony for NTSC and was almost through Microsoft. Acclaim management didn't think the game would come to any notoriety thus nobody in power had any desire to muck about with it in an attempt to attach their name to it, which thankfully left the development team unfettered ability to do as they saw fit. I even have to commend the guys at Archangel for not trying to steer the gameplay design. Though they did throw the occasional fit when a color or shape didn't fit their vision of the license. I'm a rabid shooter fan who worked on it and trust me, rabid shooter fans everywhere were denied a pretty good game.

    I heard the comic guys who held the Red Star license were shopping it around, but I never heard of any publisher taking interest in it. I noticed it was conspicuously absent from the list of Acclaim properties up for sale, I guess because of the licensing issues.

    There are supposedly some fairly close-to-final ROMS of the XBox build out there, I highly recommend it if you're into shooters or brawlers.
    • "I highly recommend it if you're into shooters or brawlers."

      Pardon my incredulity, but Ikaruga and Final Fight are not really that similar in terms of gameplay. How is it that people who like shooters or brawlers (being so different) would be inclined to play this game?
      • Perhaps it mixes those genres together perfectly? Also, when he says "shooters" I think he is referring more to Contra type shooters than space shooters.
        • Contra is an action game.
          Ikaruga is a shooter.
          Final Fight is a brawler.
          Dragon Warrior is an RPG.
          Super Mario Bros is a platformer.
          Mario 64 is a 3D platformer.

          It's very difficult to have a high-quality gaming conversation with people who are unaware of what games belong in what genres, and what those genres are named.
        • Yeah, I didn't explain that at all. It was essentially Contra (from an overhead perspective al a NeoC) with brawling, and some very good brawling at that. The hand to hand combat designer is a hardcore 2-d fighter player and the fighting had a little depth to it once you learned all of a characters' moves. The neat part was figuring out how to best balance the hand to hand action and the gunplay. Your guns would overheat with constant use, and too much brawling might not dispatch larger swarms of enemie
      • At times in the game, such as the battles with tanks or the really hectic battle with Troika himself, you are basically on screen shooting upwards at an enemy while shots rain down on you. Much like the boss battles in games like Ikaruga.

        Getting from battle to battle though the camera comes closer in and you take on a more melee type game like final fight. Only despite the simple basis of the combat I seemed to be finding new ways of killing things right the way through the game. I still havent worked out a
  • There are so many games that were very promissing but never made it anywhere close to a release. And they only picked three?
    This "article" doesn't have enough content to deserve the bandwidth.

  • Thrill Kill was pretty widely available (Score:3, Informative)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday January 07, 2006 @10:26AM (#14416541) Homepage
    Back in the day the Thrill Kill ISO was pretty widely available... one of the testers leaked the ISO onto FTP sites and the nanocent P2P networks. You can still find it if you are interested, though it has become a bit more rare. It isn't bootleg, it's a leak.

    Thrill Kill had a few interesting things about it. For one, you didn't have a health meter that went down. You had a carnage meter that went up. When you were fully carnaged, you could do a move that would kill off one of the other players. This lead to interesting situations where everyone is huddled in a corner trying to avoid the inevitable. It's the only fighting game I've ever played that had a special move of "put the other guy in front of you." There were also some unique moves... not having contortionists or midgets on stilts as staples in games, the developers could afford to get a little creative with character attacks. And being pre-GTAIII, it bled of a style that was lacking at the time. After the Night Trap debackle, nobody else seemed willing to reach out and make a game that pushed the boundaries of taste.

    Unfortunately, it also pushed the playstation farther than it was capable of going. The fighting felt very, very loose, and the entire thing ran at about 20 FPS at best. Also, fighting with 4 people got quite "dirty," as you might be attacking someone while someone attacks you who is getting attacked by someone else. As the game was combo-centric, and this ended combos, making the experience quite frustrating. Further wearing down the gameplay was the repetition of enemies in the single player mode. With three other characters in every battle, you ran through the full roster of the game in about two and a half fights. The developers didn't throw in any variants like 1v1 or 2v2 or 3v1, etc, so the fighting was all vanilla. The arenas didn't help reduce the sense of repetition, as while they had some degree of variability in set pieces, they were all perfectly square of exactly the same dimensions and they all played identically.

    I have to say: I was into the whole "let's make the least tasteful game possible" thing. The playstation wasn't the right platform for it, and there needed to be a second generation of gameplay, but it had potential and opened the door for later multiplayer fighters who could avoid all of Thrill Kill's mistakes.

    BTW, Thrill Kill is probably the only properly dead game on the list. Earthbound 0 and Mega Man B&C both saw overseas releases, and both have retro-pack releases coming up in the US. It's too bad they didn't list out more interesting titles that were actively canned before production was up, such as Secret of Mana for the SNES CD and Sonic the Hedgehog 32X (and about a million other games... 3/4ths of all games never get released).

    • Thrill Kill was a lot better than many games that were released - remember, this game was incomplete. With some polish, it could've been a decent game. It was the same engine used for Wu-Tang - it was made by the same developer, Paradox. I believe their most recent game is Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.
      • There are different iso's floating around with different levels of completion. Supposedly the last one was from near the end of their beta cycle, and was about to go gold. I've found a few ISO's over the years, and the best one has crashed maybe once, lending credence to the theory that it was basically done.

        Not to disparage Paradox or anything, but this thing was ready to ship.

        And honestly, it was. You're right in pointing out that it's a lot better than many of the games released at the time. Certainl
  • Back in the N64 days, a couple Nintendo websites reported that a playable simulation of the most popular pinball table of all time (and for good reason), Addams Family, was in the works. Word was that it was even spotted behind the scenes at an E3. I was very eagerly awaiting it... but for one reason or another, it never appeared.

    Other than that, I don't know anything about it. Rare, back in the NES/Gameboy days, produced a small number of video adaptations of Bally/Williams pinball tables that remain am
    • Thankfully there is Visual Pinball which lets you play many classic tables (including Addams Family)
      • I don't know. The problem with most of the Visual Pinball tables I've seen is that they're just too easy.

        For example: after months of obsessive play on an arcade Attack From Mars table, I finally managed to reach Rule The Universe, the ultimate wizard mode that comes from doing everything else in one game, a single time. On the Visual Pinball recreation, it wasn't too long before I was able to Rule the Universe three times in one game. Other VP tables I've seen have been comparable.
    • The GBA also had a second Pokémon Pinball title, a Muppets pinball game, and, if I'm not mistaken, a few other titles (I remember a Pinball Tycoon game, and I'm almost positive that there was a Pac-Man pinball game as well).

      Apparently, there's still demand. :)

      • Apparently, there's still demand. :)

        Yeah, it's a shame that most video pinball games simply aren't very good.

        The best video pinball attempts to simulate real-world physics without adding things that would be impossible in real life. Real pinball is cool because it's real, not because it's got goombas roaming the board you can hit with the ball. Pinball is cool because it's one table is rich enough with targets and rules that it doesn't matter that you can't go into "bonus levels" or other areas within the
  • "Games that don't make it to market, probably shouldn't."

    Can you keep your foot out of your mouth for one post? Games can fail to reach the market for a whole variety of reasons. Budgets get cut, schedules get shifted around, publishers make company-wide decisions to drop support for a specific platform or market sector, licenses fall through. Sometimes perfectly good, ready-to-ship games get mothballed for reasons completely beyond the developers' control.

    Of course, most of the games that don't see the lig
  • This was a japanse game that used to be on the dreamcast, then they ported it to Xbox. The xbox version was supposed to come here, and there were even a few reviews of the english version floating around, but it never materialized :/ Looked great too.
  • Games that don't make it to market, probably shouldn't.

    And with these words, Zonk seals his fate to a slow, painful death at the hands of every Fallout fan who tore thier hair out when the third one was cancelled.
  • How about Earthbound 64? In that we had the sequel to what was probably the most unique RPG for the SNES, and one of the greatest cult classics of our times. E64 was 2/3 complete when it was canned. There was a game that should have made the list.

  • Babylon 5: Into the Fire.
    Now that was a game that deserved to see the light of day.

    But no, Sierra in their infinite wisdom canned it, and several other worthy games, in favour of gems like Virtual Bullrider, or whatever it was.

    The freeware game B5: "I've Found Her" [firstones.com] has picked up the mantle quite nicely, but it would have been great to see what the original team would have produced -- especially as it was an officially sanctioned project, and had original footage featuring many of the cast from the ser

  • I've been waiting/hoping for this to come out since 2000. The first version - Stars! - was a Civ-type game played in space, and is still played by fans 10 years later; the sequel would be more of the same but with awesome graphics, better combat system, spys/diplomacy, less micromanagement, and fully extendable. Also with an end-of-turn newspaper [ign.com] created to help you track events.

    I'd check back to the official website and the fans sites every few months, drool over the screenshots, and read the beta teste

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