Unreleased Games 3 - Game Sack

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great episode, really enjoyed it.

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/j_tothemoon 📅︎︎ Jul 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

I love this!

I hate to look backwards but man the new stuff has been fantastic. The writing and scripts are tremendous.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/gandering111 📅︎︎ Jul 08 2019 🗫︎ replies

Nicely done. I had never seen that X-Men game with Bishop before.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/lsmucker 📅︎︎ Jul 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

I love that 32X "suit up" sequence

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/junkmeister9 📅︎︎ Jul 08 2019 🗫︎ replies
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(Game Sack Theme) - Hello and welcome to Game Sack. I'm looking at some prototypes of games that never got released, and some of these games I would've loved to see get released. But others, they weren't released for a reason. And I sure am saying "released" a lot here, but whatever. Let's start off with some games on the Super Nintendo. (playful game music) Here's Tom vs. Jerry: The Chase is On for the Super Nintendo. That's right; not Tom and Jerry, Tom vs. Jerry. This was being developed by Software Creations and it was gonna be published by Hi Tech Expressions, who had the rights to Tom and Jerry games at the time. This prototype is from April of 1995. You play as Jerry and basically your mission is to escape Tom, who's always hightailing your ass. And you know what? This game is actually pretty fun. I've always loved the Tom and Jerry cartoons that started way back in the 1940s. Through reruns, I mean; I'm not that old. The game seems to capture the gist of the cartoons decently, though I admit I always preferred Tom over Jerry and I really want a game where I can play as Tom. Anyway, you run around avoiding Tom and collecting cheese icons. Some of the bigger cheese icons will give you a power-up which will let you slam Tom around on the floor. There's also other things that you can collect, like a hammer so you can smash Tom or a little cannon that stuns him for a bit. Usually, once you reach the end of a level, it's over. And the levels are mostly pretty short. In a couple of levels, you need to collect each and every one of the cheese icons before you can leave, and the game will let you know how many more you need to get. Some levels will even let you warp through mouse holes and go through doorways, but Tom can teleport to wherever you are without much delay. The game is far from complete though. Take the basement level, for example. I get to the end, but it won't permit me to exit, no matter what I do. Instead, the doorway puts me all the way back at the beginning of the level. I can run through it again and Tom is trapped at the end by the other door. To my knowledge, there's no way to complete this level, but you can press start and select at the same time to skip levels. There are even dungeon levels with a maze of doorways. And sometimes you even need to find a key first to unlock them. All in all, the game is pretty fun and I smiled a lot and I even laughed a few times. I like that Tom is almost always around trying to end you, and he will if you get caught. The animation is excellent and Tom stands nearly half the screen high, so visually it's pretty impressive. Rumor has it that this game was canceled when Ted Turner bought Hanna-Barbera, but he did that in 1991 and this game was still being worked on in 1995, though it could be that a lot of projects were canceled a few years after the acquisition. Hi Tech Expressions went out of business in 1997, but they never released any games after 1994, so I think it's safe to say that there were financial troubles at Hi Tech Expressions causing this game to be canceled and never finished. It's too bad because I feel that this would've been the best Tom and Jerry game for sure if this were polished and completed. (cartoony music) This is Atmosfear on the Super Nintendo, emphasis on the fear, of course, from Beam Software. This is based on a board game called Nightmare, which I've never personally played. This prototype is from July of 1994 and nobody knows why this one was canceled. In fact, hardly anyone even knew it was under development in the first place. Anyway, you're just a standard kid with a baseball hat and you walk into a gate and suddenly you're trapped by the Gatekeeper, and this guy sure is a chatty fellow. - Welcome to the other side. Thank you can win? I think not! I rule this game! - [Joe] You start out on a map where you can navigate to one of several different levels to try. It's a 2-D platformer, as you can see, and on the surface it's not too bad, though I wish your ray gun had a slightly better range. Also, I had to adjust the controls so that they conformed to what the normal gaming world is used to. Anyway, I started out in the forest, where I'm being attacked by what appears to be soldiers from the Revolutionary War? And it looks like I'm shooting the blue guys, which, if I recall my history, that's my own people. Am I trying to prevent the United States of America from becoming the beckoning land of cheeseburgers that it is? Anyway, you can exit back to the graveyard at any time by pressing Select. You can collect like skull icons as well as dice, and I have no idea what either of them do. If you make it to a checkpoint, a hand will pop out of the ground. And be sure to shoot it to activate it; otherwise, if you die, you'll be sent all the way back to the beginning. And what's weird is that all of the enemies that you've killed stay dead, so you're just running through an empty level to that point. There's also a timer rapidly counting up to who knows what. You can even collect other weapons to cycle through, but mostly I found that my ray gun works well enough. There's a stage with a zombie rave where I have to collect coins and use them at the bouncer in order for him to let me pass. If you try to get by without bribing him, he just tosses you into a bunch of enemies. I thought this was a pretty cool idea. At random, the Gatekeeper will come on and flap his lips and probably do something unfair. - Stop. Like to tempt fate, worm? - [Joe] The controls mostly work fine, though sometimes I feel like it's hard to kill enemies that are inches away from me. I found it impossible to proceed past this point in the pyramid level. There are these switches over here and I don't know if it's a puzzle, but nothing I did seemed to work and I just can't make that jump. Sometimes, the game will crash and you'll get a screen full of code. And this level is definitely not finished, unless this is the actual ending; I don't know. I generally like the visuals, but some stages definitely need more polish, like the forest area when it turns gray. It just doesn't look right. The stages that have music mostly sound pretty good. Overall, this is an interesting game, and I'd like to know why they just gave up on it. (eerie dance music) With the sales and popularity of the Super Nintendo, it's no surprise that not every game being made for the system was able to come out. But do you know what system wasn't quite as popular as the Super Nintendo? No, wrong guess, not the PS2. That's right, the Sega 32X. (energetic Ys IV music) ("When You Wish Upon a Star") You remember Pinocchio for the Genesis from Virgin? I sure don't. I was never even able to rent this one, or maybe I just stopped caring about Disney games made by Virgin back them. Anyway, this one was obviously released for the Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Game Boy. However, the one that wasn't released but was completely finished was Pinocchio for the exciting 32X attachment. Did I just hear your heart rate go up when I said 32X? Damn straight I did! It's the most intense peripheral in the history of forever. Anyway, I never played any of the other versions of Pinocchio until recently and, I'll be honest, I didn't really care for them. And I don't care much for the unreleased 32X port either. Like many of the later Disney games from Virgin, Pinocchio's extremely cryptic in exactly what you're supposed to do and it has some pretty bad collision detection. Once you learn the game, it's of course way less cryptic, but let's just say that it's not meant for kids like you'd think it might be. Just like in the movie, you have to get three badges in order to become a real boy, or not; I haven't seen the movie since I was a small child. You begin in town and you need to make your way to school. And along the way, the entire world is trying to destroy you for whatever reason. You bounce around poles and signs and other strange things in a small maze to finally get to school. Then, suddenly, you're playing as Jiminy Cricket and you must defeat moths who just wanna be near the light. This is something that I'd like to see in real life: a single cricket attacking a bunch of moths to claim ownership to a light. The world truly needs more insect territorial battles. Next is by far the worst part of the game, which plays like Simon Says. And take my advice: Don't use a six-button controller. Either use a three-button controller or put your six-button controller into three-button mode because the commands are much easier to remember this way. I get that it mimics a scene from the movie, if I'm remembering the movie correctly, but that doesn't mean it makes for fun gameplay. Next, you're riding on a roller coaster. This is kinda fun until you get to the end. Now you're battling this kid with fireworks, and I have absolutely no clue what the hell I'm supposed to do. Like I said, this game can be very cryptic. He just keeps launching them and the roller coaster cars keep coming by and I'm at a loss. I mean, I could look something up on the internet and learn how to get past it, but I just don't care. Doesn't matter anyway, as I seem to have beaten it somehow, and I have no idea what I did. Next, I'm on a platforming adventure, climbing rocks and battling enemies. This is cool, except for the wonky collision with the ledges that I'm trying to jump to. Anyway, the 32X version here adds an extra layer of parallax scrolling and the foreground graphics have slightly more color. This one also has a black border behind your life bar, since that's generated by the Genesis and it's hard to put the Genesis graphics on top of the 32X graphics. It can be done, they just didn't wanna do it. Like a lot of 32X games, they didn't do anything to improve the sound. Well, except that they made the music faster, because that's how much more powerful the 32X is. Here's the Genesis version. (super slooooow game music) And here's how it sounds on the 32X. (wicked-fast hypersonic playful game music) This version was probably canceled because, well, it's the 32X and the world just didn't care much about it. And honestly, I'm amazed they even bothered to start making the game. (dramatic game music) (sweet synthesizer music) Now for something a bit more impressive, and that's X-Men, also for the 32X. This was being developed by Scavenger in 1996, and this prototype has been floating around for about 10 years now. In fact, I can't believe I haven't talked about it before. You can only play as Bishop, who's a character I'm not familiar with. You can select from different levels on the title screen, but no matter what, you're always playing as Bishop. You walk around open areas and fight ninjas and samurais. You can do a melee attack, a couple of projectile attacks, block, and jump. You can even crouch by pressing the elusive Mode button. The enemies have to be on the same horizontal plane as you before you can harm each other. This game is far from complete, as there seems to be no way to finish any of the levels and there are no clear objectives, though this one seems to feature a pinball mechanic, which could've been interesting if it were completed. I imagine you need to try to get the ball to go into a certain path to accomplish different things, but, alas, there's no way to launch the ball in this build. Now, you've probably already noticed the graphics, which are outstanding for the 32X, even at this early stage in development. And let's be honest here, it looks like an early PlayStation game. Well, except that the textures aren't warping all over the place to high heaven. I think this is the kind of leap people wanted to see with the 32X instead of just minor enhancements like with Pinocchio. This really was an ambitious project, but I'd expect no less from Scavenger, who previously developed Sub-Terrania on the Genesis. Oh, and also that really cool 32X demo tape that's been around forever. Some of that tape looks like they were already laying the foundation for what we'd get in the X-Men prototype. I wish there were a ROM of this demo, by the way. Most of the levels are empty and there's nothing to do but walk around and explore. But, you know what? That's okay because the music was done by Jesper Kyd. He's known for The Adventures of Batman & Robin, Scorcher, Red Zone, Borderlands, and a lot of other stuff. And the music tracks that he did in this era went anywhere between five and 10 minutes before they even thought of completely looping. He didn't use any of the 32X sound hardware for this, but, you know what, it doesn't matter because it sounds great and it's fun just walking around listening to it. (driving electronic Sega Genesis music) This one was likely canceled because the Saturn was already out and in full force, and the 32X was dying fast. Perhaps if more 32X games were this ambitious right from the start of the add-on's life, things could've been different. I would've loved to see this one finished and polished, and I would've for sure purchased it back then. It's been rumored that this game was converted into The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga for the Saturn and the PlayStation. I can kinda see that based on how the games work, but I'm dubious. The development teams were completely different. I think it's just a coincidence that these games move around in a similar fashion. (sweet Sega Genesis music) So, tell me, would you have purchased a 32X if more games like X-Men had been released early in the console's life? No? (sighing) Well, let's move on the Saturn and the Genesis. (sweet techno music from Scorcher on the Saturn) Here's a game called Armed from developer Point of View for the Saturn, and it was gonna be published by Interplay. This one is also known as Aftermath. It was also gonna be made for the PlayStation, but so far only the Saturn version here has surfaced. This one was likely canceled because, well, it's awful, at least at this point in the development phase it is. It's 100% pre-rendered and all of the animations are slow. Basically, you walk around with Prince-of-Persia-style controls, but slower and less responsive. Your goal is to collect different colored key cards and then deposit them in the same colored reader. The problem is that there are about a dozen different card colors and some cards will even color-cycle, so you'll have to match those up to the different readers that color-cycle in the same exact way. And the controls are just so clumsy. You have very little life and it's hard to hit enemies, but of course it's super easy for them to hit you. As a bonus, if you die, you get reset to the main menu and you have to start all over. It feels like the people who made this one weren't really big gamers themselves. I'll be honest, I'm glad this one never came out, as we didn't really need more games that were bad. (pulsing techno music) - [Woman] Key card. - [Joe] And then there was Atomic Runner Chelnov from Data East, which was gonna come to the Saturn in 1997. This is one that I have a hard time getting into, mainly due to its bizarre control scheme. You're always running, but I feel like they could've handled the controls so much better. You can't move backwards unless you stand still, but you can run towards the right of the screen, which is always scrolling. Aiming your weapon is tough because you can't shoot diagonally without running forward. If you flip while you jump and shoot, your shots never, I repeat, never go in the direction that you want them to. If you press the C button, your character turns around and runs backwards. Press C again to make him face forward. Lots of Sega Genesis fans love the port that this one got to that console, and rightfully so, as Atomic Runner is an outstanding game on the Genesis. They've changed some things here and redesigned some things there, but it's all for the better. Everything in this game, and, yes, I mean everything, has been improved compared to the arcade: graphics, scrolling, gameplay, control, music, you name it. The most important thing is that the Genesis version gives you tons of different control options so that the game soon feels second nature to you. There are no options for control at all in the Saturn prototype, unless they're very well hidden. It's impossible to say if they would've implemented those control options had the game been completed, but I sure hope they would've. Anyway, this port here seems like it was gonna be an exact copy of the arcade version, with two exceptions. Firstly, the original arcade has a resolution of 256 pixels wide, but unfortunately the Saturn doesn't have a horizontal resolution that low. So, they scaled the original arcade's resolution horizontally to fit the Saturns' 320-pixel-wide mode, which means that the scrolling has some very significant shimmering. Also, while there's music, there's absolutely no sound effects here, but that's probably just because they haven't been added yet. Other than that, it seems complete, but please take that with a grain of salt since I can't even get past the first boss, as I really suck at this version. And nobody seems to know exactly why this one wasn't released. But if you're one of those people who loves the arcade original for some reason, hey, check out what you missed. (fast-paced yet mediocre electronic game music) This is It Came from the Desert for the Genesis from Electronic Arts. This one isn't like any of the previous games that share the same name. It's basically an overhead run-and-gun with lots of adventure overtones. A nuke has gone off and now the ants have mutated and, of course, become evil. You're Buzz, a hotheaded teenager hellbent on putting a stop to all of this. The first thing that you discover is that this game is pretty relentless. You somehow lose health, even if you walk on the dirt that's been dug up by the ants, because that dirt is now EVIL! Fortunately, you have a flamethrower, some grenades, and the ability to jump, but you move really slowly. At the beginning of the game, you have to kill your dad, who has mutated into a mutant. Yeah, I know, that's redundant, but it's all about the low-hanging fruit here at Game Sack. Anyway, it's hard to move far enough away from him to turn around and shoot him. Eventually you'll do it though and make it to the town of Lovelock, which acts as a hub world of sorts. Here, you can have Doc upgrade your weapons and do other sorts of things besides that. And even in here, the ants are just swarming in from everywhere. You need to collect lots of different parts to help Doc and yourself out, all while killing ants. Some ants carry colored stars that can restore some of your health or make you invincible, among other things. The game is pretty tough, as you don't have many continues at all. Supposedly, the game is 99% complete but it was canceled for two reasons. One reason is a rare bug that caused the game to crash. I'm guessing they either couldn't or didn't want to fix it. The other reason is said to be that Electronic Arts wanted to focus more on sports games. That one strikes me as kind of odd, as this would've been a 1992 game and EA was still releasing non-sports stuff then, and plus this one was nearly done. And I think, with a little tweaking to the character's speed, this one would've been really fun. As it is now, it's just kind of fun. (unimpressive music) (flamethrower firing) Zombie High on the Genesis is a strange side-scroller supposedly named after the 1987 movie of the same name. It doesn't have a title screen. This one was gonna be published by Electronic Arts, and it's woefully incomplete. The worst thing about it is that the jump and shoot buttons are backwards, so it's very difficult to play. Anyway, it appears you're invading a zombie high school. All the zombies wanna do is learn and catch up on their zombie history and their zombie math, but for some reason you feel that zombies are unnatural! They try to take you down and you don't have much of a life bar. You can collect clips, which can power up your shot, which is extremely helpful. No matter what you do though, you can't defeat the librarian zombies at the end of the stage. Your weapon doesn't damage them and if they touch you even once, you die immediately. I've heard it said that you need to enter door number four here to get the book which can kill them, but you can't enter any of the doors no matter what you do. And believe me, I have tried. There's a debug mode, and messing around with it I was able to see the very end of this level, but I can't figure out how to see any of the others. I can only assume that they canceled it because maybe they actually played it and were like, "Yeah, no." That's too bad because I think with a lot of TLC, and I mean a lot, this could've been a great companion for Polterguy. (awful, low-effort sound effects) Here's Swamp Thing on the Genesis from NuVision Entertainment. This was gonna be a late-1991 game and it was even shown in a few magazines of the time. NuVision Entertainment's only other game was Bimini Run, and it's safe to say that that one didn't set the world on fire, so my guess is that they just ran out of money to finish funding development for this one. Anyway, you control Swamp Thing. I don't know why he's running around in this game. I'm sure there's some story behind it, but there's always this vampire-looking dude casually chasing you. Do not try to fight him or he will end you and no more swampy things for you. Anyway, you can punch and jump, all of which feels really stiff. However, button A will allow you to change into nearby objects like a log to roll around or a blob of slime, I guess, to swing on the vines. I have no idea what's going on in this game. You have to use your wits to figure out what to change into in order to get by. It's like you're playing a really bad version of A Boy and His Blob. Sometimes, you'll fall down underground and you'll be swimming around. And watch out for the fiery hand that reaches up. If it grabs you, you get reset to the beginning of the stage. Of course, the game is extremely cryptic. How the hell would you know that in order to get past this fence, you need to go back and merge with this tree, which forces a bunch of chainsaw guys to come out and start cutting the tree down for no reason. Eventually, you fall off as a piece of fruit and that enables you to roll past the gate. Who thinks this stuff up? This game also only has one music track, and it's one of the most repetitious things I've ever heard. I think that NuVision knew when to fold 'em when they saw how this one was coming along. (extremely repetitive and unexciting music) Okay, now for the scraps, and I call these scraps because some of these games have barely even begun to be made or I just don't have a lot to say about 'em. So, I'm not gonna talk about each game very much in this next segment, but I figure, hey, they're still kind of interesting to see. Here's Gekido for the Game Boy Color. This is a series of beat-em-ups that eventually ended up on the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance. They gave up pretty quickly on this version though, as there's not much here yet. The game is a beat-em-up that takes place on a single plane, similar to Bad Dudes. You can punch, jump, and jump-kick. The enemies are all relentless here. It's extremely tough to punch the dogs and the bats, and you need to do so in order to move on. So it's safe to say that they hadn't even started to balance the gameplay yet. I like the graphics for what they are so far and they all fit well on the screen. And there's no music to speak of. But personally, I think what's here shows promise and it would've been neat to see how the final product would've turned out. (bombs exploding) How about Battletoads for the Game Boy Advance? Apparently, this one was only in development for a week or two before they pretty much just gave up. You look more like a skinny frog than a Battletoad. Pretty much nothing is here and you can only get so far into the first level before you have to kill yourself by falling off of a cliff. Whenever you die, the game just resets to the beginning. The music is actually kind of cool, but it didn't take long for the annoying ringing sound effect that you hear when your score tallies up to never shut off, ever. Still, it would've been neat to see a proper Battletoads game on here. (energetic electronic music) And did you know that Interplay was porting ClayFighter 2 over to the 32X? You can only fight as these two on a text background and you can even win the fight. After that, it just resets you and you do it again and again, forever. That's all there is to it. It sure didn't take them long to nope outta the 32X world. Anyway, I just wanted to show this super basic prototype for you all. Batman was coming to the Super Nintendo from Software Creations. As you can see, it's a beat-em-up that really sucks! It's hard to avoid getting hit, but don't worry, you're invincible. At the end of the first stage, you get to defeat the Joker. The game only has two stages and absolutely no sound. After you beat the second stage, it just resets, and I'm pretty sure nobody wanted a Batman game like this. Another unreleased Batman game was Batman: Revenge of the Joker from Sunsoft, also for the Super Nintendo. This one was released for the NES and the Genesis, but it's slightly different here. I never liked this one as much as the earlier Batman games on any of those systems, but I'm still surprised that they didn't release it. I mean, this one is supposedly complete. At least it's better than the Genesis version. And I really like the music here. I think it's better than even the NES version, which had great music. Oh well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be. (sweet Batman music) Powerslide from Elite was a racing game for the Super Nintendo that used the Super FX chip. It uses the ever-so-popular dot-that-travels-along-the-steering-wheel method of steering. And if you've been watching Game Sack for any length of time, you know how I'm really not a fan of that. It doesn't work well here either. This is a demo of the game made for the European Computer Trade Show, and all you can really do is drive around the track and try to get the best time. I can fully understand why this one never really got very far in development. It would need a ton of work, not only to play decently but to look acceptable as well. Still, it's really interesting to play a canceled Super FX chip game that's not Star Fox 2. (energetic rock music) All right, there you go, more prototypes for games that were never released. And I still wanna get my hands on a few, like Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill or maybe even that 32X Castlevania game that was supposedly being made; that would be incredible. But until then, thank you for watching Game Sack. (Game Sack Credits Theme) Hmm. What should I do for the next episode? Hey, I know! How about an episode about games about dragons?! Yeah, people will love that, for sure they will! Let's check out what games I have. (cartoony quick footsteps) Dragon's Fury! Dragon Force! Dragon Ball Z! Aw yeah, Double Dragon and Double Dragon 2! The Legend of (pausing) Dragon! Rise of the Dragon! All right, everyone ready for an episode covering games about dragons?! (fire crackling) I'm gonna take that as a firm no.
Info
Channel: Game Sack
Views: 173,958
Rating: 4.9372845 out of 5
Keywords: sega, nintendo, turbografx, gameplay, videogames, retro, genesis, snes, nes, msx, tom & Jerry, the chase is on, tom and jerry, batman, batman revenge of the joker, sonic, sonic the hedgehog, atmosfear, unreleased games, canceled games, cancelled games, retro games, retro videogames, canceled retro games, x-men 32X, 32X xmen, jesper kyd, power slide super fx, ects, games about dragons, atomic runner, chelnov, atomic runner chelnov, armed, gekido, battletoads gba
Id: WzGFC99Es68
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 29min 5sec (1745 seconds)
Published: Sat Jul 06 2019
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