Yes, that’s Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates pretending to walk around in a level from DOOM and firing a shotgun at a demon marine.

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A training video Sega put out in 1996 for rookie video game testers has been released to the internet at large by the production company behind it, Green Mill Filmworks.

The 28-minute "trainumentary" was filmed at Sega of America's office in Redwood City, California and boy does it capture life in the 90s.

It makes Sega of America seem like a fairly grueling place to work with hours ranging from a reasonable 40 to multiple claims of 90 or more, though you might not notice between the butt rock music and MTV editing designed to get new recruits pumped about their new gig.

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Testing videogames isn’t a glamorous job – you’ve got to put up with long hours, repetitive work and the high probability of working on a game that isn’t so good.

If you don’t believe us, just take a look at this training documentary from Sega, circa 1995. It’s not attempting to sell the job, and as such it’s remarkably honest. Sega’s testers talk about the long hours and the boredom that came with working on Pico edutainment games.

Still, it’s a fascinating look at a company at the peak of its powers – just before it came crashing down to the ground, lumbered with too many platforms and a hugely powerful competitor.

This is SEGA TEST (1996) Director JOHN JANSEN from Green Mill Filmworks on Vimeo.

Alle Screenshots stammen von GamersGlobal, sie wurden via Pixel-Verdreifachung vo

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There was a source on the subreddit /r/NintendoNX a little over a month ago showing some of the specs and features that the Nintendo NX would be rumored to be coming with. One of the specs from this source claims that the system will be receiving an x86 architecture; a type of processing power used in consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. According to more recent sources from Emily Rogers though (an apparent rumor mill with a good track record), that's not entirely true...

The rumor mill for the NX continues to churn, and today another has surfaced thanks to SemiAccurate. The entire article is only available to subscribers, but NeoGAF forum user FourthStorm listed the major points for non-subscribers. The major takeaways from the article are that the handheld will be running an as of yet unknown Tegra with an unknown process node. Also of important notice is that this applies only to the handheld and not the home console, though FourthStorm does say that information can be speculated...

Two new ways to put some Platinum Points into your My Nintendo account have been added recently. The missions state that your Nintendo Account must be set to receive promotional e-mails from Nintendo and keep it that way. Doing so will earn you a one-time 30 Platinum Points bonus, and as long as the settings are kept like this, you will also receive 10 Platinum Points each month...

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Bei den heutigen Online Only Offers, bekommt ihr unter anderem folgendes Angebot...

►Fallout 4 – Uncut - Xbox One oder Ps4 für je 24,99€ Versandkostenfrei

Idealopreis: 29,-€ Mediamarkt bei Filialabholung ansonsten mit Versand bei ca.32€

Der Preis gilt übrigens diesmal bis DIENSTAG 09.00 Uhr aufgrund des Feiertages

Danke an "Standeck" für den Super Tip. Wenn ihr Tony Hawk auch für 15,-€ oder Street Fighter mitnehmen wollt, könnt ihr den Newslettergutschein nutzen und zahlt damit entweder nur 19,99€ für Fallout oder 9,99€ für Tony Hawk. Seht es wie euch beliebt!

Der Deallink führt zur XB1 Version. Im 1.Kommentar ist der Link zur PS4 Version. Eine Strafgebühr aufgrund der FSK fällt nicht an. Dennoch müsst ihr bei Lieferung euren Perso vorlegen!
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Schicksal des Ödlands bestimmen. Schließe Dich verschiedenen Fraktionen im Kampf um die Vorherrschaft an oder ziehe allein ins Abenteuer. Die brandneue Grafik- und Licht-Engine der nächsten Generation erweckt die Welt von Fallout zum Leben – realistischer als jemals zuvor.


Features:

- Es lebe die Freiheit! Tun Sie in einer gigantischen Welt mit Hunderten von Orten, Charakteren und Quests was immer Sie möchten. Schließen Sie sich verschiedenen Fraktionen im Kampf um die Vorherrschaft an oder ziehen Sie alleine ins Abenteuer - Sie haben die Wahl.
- Sie sind S.P.E.C.I.A.L.! Spielen Sie, wen Sie möchten, mit dem S.P.E.C.I.A.L.-Charaktersystem. Vom Soldaten mit Powerrüstung bis hin zum charismatischen Überredungskünstler haben Sie die Wahl aus Hunderten von Extras und können Ihren eigenen Spielstil entwickeln.
- Pixel Deluxe! Eine brandneue Grafik- und Licht-Engine der nächsten Generation erweckt die Welt von Fallout auf eine bisher nie da gewesene Weise zum Leben. Von den zerstörten Wäldern des Commonwealth bis hin zu den Ruinen von Boston - alle Orte stecken voller dynamischer Details.
- Gewalt und V.A.T.S.! Die kompromisslosen Kämpfe aus der First- oder Third-Person-Perspektive lassen sich mit dem neuen dynamischen Zielsystem von Vault-Tec (V.A.T.S.) verlangsamen, sodass Sie Ihre Angriffe präzise wählen und filmreife Schlachten erleben können.
- Sammeln und bauen! Sammeln, verbessern und bauen Sie Tausende von Gegenständen mit dem umfangreichsten Herstellungssystem aller Zeiten. Waffen, Rüstung, Chemikalien und Nahrung sind nur der Anfang - Sie können sogar ganze Siedlungen errichten und verwalten.

Via Pressemitteilung kündigte Take 2 an, dass Civilization 6 am 21. Oktober dieses Jahres für den PC erscheint. Einen ersten Trailer könnt ihr euch direkt unter dieser News anschauen, ebenso findet ihr erste Screenshots zu Civilization 6 in unserer Bildergalerie.

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Civilization VI comes to PC on October 21. I spoke with lead designer Ed Beach and associate producer Sarah Darney on the project to nail down some big changes coming to the classic strategy franchise for its sixth installment.

“One of the first principles with Civilization VI was to keep most of the subsystems from the finished (with expansions) Civ V around in some form,” Beach says. “Civ VI builds off a lot of the design that Civ V finished with, but the code and the A.I. and everything like that is all implemented from scratch to fit Civ VI.”

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“We want players to adjust and think on their feet in Civ VI. We didn’t want there to be a standard playbook or recipe on how to get through it, from tech tree to policy,” Beach adds. “We always saw discussions about dominant strategies, like, 'Get the Great Library and go into these policy trees and build this way.' We built a game with so many options, but so much of the community is playing it this same way with the same pattern, and we want to shake that up and adjust to the map and leaders they are faced with to come up with other solutions, to rethink their strategic approaches every time they play the game.”

The team laid out the plan for three key core mechanics changes that will drive more dynamic gameplay in Civilization VI. 

The first is “unstacking the cities. With cities getting filled with all kinds of buildings, wonders, and other things over time, the gameplay is changing by moving some of these buildings out onto the map. This concept is called districts, and these are pieces of your city that would traditionally be nested inside your city being pushed out up to three tiles away.

“For instance, let’s take the science district,” Beach says. “This is a prerequisite to building science buildings. What’s going to happen is that the exact tile you choose to place that district will be an important decision, as scientists will work better in different tiles. So tiles with more lifeforms like rain forests or something on a mountain to observe the stars would be more valuable. We have 12 different kinds of districts you can place around your city. They require a certain amount of population, so you are going to have to make choices about what kind of districts to build based on what resources you have available.”

The second is the active research system. This will change up the way players approach the tech tree by offering massive bonuses toward specific research based on other variables in the game, pushing players away from going into a game with a set path of tech that they always progress down for the optimal game build. Players can still research whatever they like, but a new boost system will likely change your progression path from game to game.

“Let’s take masonry. In order to do masonry well you need the type of materials to put together for walls or pyramids or whatever,” Beach says. “So if you’re in the middle of a grassland and there’s no stone around, it’s going to be tough for you to be really good at masonry. So if you can find a resource like that, like a quarry, as soon as it’s up and operational, we unlock a boost toward masonry, which will give you 50 percent of the cost for that technology. Similarly, this will work for say maritime technology for setting up on the coast. If you’re on the coast putting in the time on those areas, you’re now getting bonuses for those technologies. That part of the tech tree will naturally unlock for you as a result of the boost.”

“A lot of it is based on the map and what’s around you,” Darney says. “So it changes each game.”

Third is diplomacy, a constant hot topic in the Civilization series. A big focus here is how the A.I. will react and relate to the player. The leaders in Civilization VI will play differently based on their own personalities and not just based on how the player interacts with them – they have their own specific agendas.

“Every leader is assigned one historical agenda based on something they did while ruling their nation in actual history,” Beach explains. “Let’s take a leader who built a whole bunch of wonders. In our universe, that leader is going to feel like he’s better than anyone else in world history at building wonders, and that should be reflected every time they are in a Civilization game. Wonder obsessed. So that civilization will get a bonus toward building wonders, but they also get an obsessive personality where he will get angry if anyone else is building more wonders than they are. So you might have a strategy where you always go for Stonehenge and Hanging Gardens so you grab those right away. If this guy is next to you and he sees you doing this, he’s going to be up in arms and invading your borders."

Leaders will also have a hidden agenda that will be assigned to them that will change from game to game, so even if you know the opposing leader's core personality, you have to discover additional, dynamic traits if you want your political agendas to progress smoothly.

There will be a new emphasis on shorter sessions for multiplayer that will facilitate getting games in well under the traditional 5-10 hour mark. There also will be new ways to engage with multiplayer that can be completed in one or two hours. Other significant new features and mechanics are coming in Civilization VI, but the team wasn’t ready to discuss them at this time. 

Zurück zu den Modulen Gerüchten zufolge wendet sich Nintendo den klassischen Discs als Datenträgern ab und will wieder auf Module setzen.

Choices, Choices

The Atari Lynx has always been a favorite console of mine, not just because I’ve always been obsessed with Atari, but because its a fantastic little piece of hardware in its own right.

A while ago I was pondering what I could do for the Lynx on the new hardware front, and two ideas came to mind — an LCD replacement and an SD cartridge (allowing you to play ROM images stored on an SD card). After a bit of searching I found that Candle on AtariAge had a working LCD replacement prototype (although development had been stalled for some time), so I decided an SD cartridge was a good place to start. If nothing ever came of the LCD project, I could look into that next.

As it happened, while developing the SD cartridge, a chap known as McWill on AtariAge came up with a finished LCD replacement and quite promptly started selling them — and a fantastic mod it is!

The Proof of Concept

Thankfully the Lynx doesn’t give up. The main challenge with the SD cartridge was getting the Lynx to somehow reboot on demand or hold it in reset until the contents of the SRAM connected to the cartridge bus were programmed. The Lynx cartridge bus is effectively an 8-bit, block indexed serial interface (a bit like an SD card, oddly enough), rather than being directly connected to the CPU system bus as ROM, like many consoles of the day. So at the cartridge connector there is no control over the reset line of the CPU — another method had to be found.

After a sift through the boot ROM disassembly, the answer was thankfully easy — the Lynx repeatedly attempts to load from the cartridge if the data received fails the integrity check, displaying the infamous “INSERT GAME” screen. So the answer was as simple as disconnecting the Lynx cartridge bus from the SRAM and having a microcontroller program the contents of the SRAM before returning the bus to the Lynx whereby it would load the game.

This was the proof of concept — getting the Lynx to boot from an image loaded from the SD card. But the Lynx still needed some way of communicating with the microcontroller on the cartridge to allow different ROM images to be loaded and run.

Are you receiving me? Over.

This is where the Lynx’s 2nd I/O port comes in handy. The Lynx has two possible data I/O ports for accessing the cartridge bus, each one pulls a different signal on the cartridge low to indicate a read or write on that port. The one port is used by the system as the normal input port for the cartridge data, but the second is not used. Well, this is not entirely true — it is not used by any commercial games, but has been used by some homebrew cartridges and prototypes for save game purposes. In the case of the SD cartridge, I am using this port, along with the single auxiliary I/O line, to communicate with the cartridge. Any existing ROM image using this port for save state would need to be modified to now read and write its save data on the SD card.

To facilitate writing to the microcontroller from the cartridge bus there is an 8-bit latch used to capture data written by the Lynx such that the microprocessor doesn’t have any time constraints on reading the value. When the microprocessor gets an interrupt to indicate a write has occurred, it can then query the latch and find out what data was written. Using this, along with the auxiliary pin for handshaking, a simple communication protocol was developed which allowed bidirectional data transfer between the Lynx and the microcontroller on the cartridge with the microprocessor acting as a server responding to commands from the Lynx.

From here it was just a matter of donkey work to create a series of commands which the cartridge would respond to, allowing the Lynx to query the contents of the SD card and ask the microcontroller to write specific file contents to the SRAM.

Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

The final piece of the design is the menu system allowing you to select a ROM image to play. On booting, the microprocessor loads “menu.bin” from the SD card root directory into SRAM and allows the Lynx to execute it. This ROM image then communicates with the microcontroller getting the SD card directory and file information before finally displaying it in a list on the Lynx. From here you can select any of the ROM files found which then loads the image into SRAM and kicks off the Lynx boot process again, loading up the game.

The source code for the menu, and the library code for accessing the features of the SD cartridge has been added to the Atari Lynx Code Repository so anyone can freely create their own front ends (the one included is very simple) or create games which make direct use of the SD card.

Das rundenbasierte Strategie-Rollenspiel Fire Emblem Fates erscheint am 20. Mai 2016 für den 3DS in drei Editionen. In "Vermächtnis" kämpft man für die Hoshido-Familie, während man in "Herrschaft" der Nohr-Familie beisteht. Der dritte Weg "Offenbarung" ist ab dem 9. Juni als Download-Spiel erhältlich. Der "Wähle deinen Weg"- Trailer zeigt Eindrücke der verschiedenen Möglichkeiten.

Weiter zum Video

Vor 25 Jahren erschien eins der bekanntesten Actionspiele der 16-Bit-Ära und mit ihm ein Soundtrack, der Spuren hinterlassen hat: Chris Hülsbeck, der die Musik zu Turrican 2 geschrieben hat, nutzt das Jubiläum zum Start einer Kickstarter-Kampagne, mit deren Hilfe eine orchestrale Version der Melodien entstehen soll. 75.000 Dollar (knapp 66.000 Euro) sollen für Turrican 2: The Orchestral Album bis zum Ende der Kampagne am 28. Mai zusammenkommen.

Eine knappe Stunde mit Musik soll auf dem Album zu hören sein, u.a. sollen Titel wie The Final Fight, Freedom, The Great Bath, Concerto for Laser and Enemies sowie The Desert Rocks neu arrangiert werden. Jonne Valtonen und Roger Wanamo, die schon für viele Arrangements der Symphonic-Reihe und beider Final-Symphony-Konzerte verantwortlich zeichnen, sollen die bekannten Stücke für das FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague überarbeiten. Valtonen arrangierte mit Symphonic Shades bereits vor acht Jahren Hülsbeck-Musik für ein Orchester.

Auf Kickstarter räumt Hülsbeck zudem die Möglichkeit von Konzerten mit Turrican-Musik ein. Da mit Merregnon das Studio verantwortlich sei, das unter der Leitung von Thomas Böcker auch die Symphonic-Aufführungen und Final Symphony produziert, könnte eine erfolgreiche Kampagne bei Orchestern vielleicht Interesse an entsprechenden Veranstaltungen wecken.

Hülsbeck hatte in den vergangenen Jahren bereits Erfolg auf Kickstarter: Der Komponist produzierte zuletzt Chris Hülsbeck: The Piano Collection per Schwarmfinanzierung (in Auszügen auf Bandcamp hörbar) und davor bereits eine Anthology mit der Musik aller Turrican-Teile, für die er seinen Soundtrack selbst modernisierte und deren vier Alben in Teilen ebenfalls auf Bandcamp hörbar sind.

Falls die aktuelle Kampagne erfolgreich ist, soll Turrican 2: The Orchestral Album Ende 2016 erscheinen. Ausgaben auf Vinyl und Plastik sowie Artwork-Ausdrucke würden im kommenden Jahr folgen.

Content: Raiden V
Check price and availability in your Xbox LIVE region

Game Description: A quarter-century after the arcade hit Raiden first left its mark on the shooting genre, the series now comes to the Xbox One in its most modern and advanced form yet! Join the war for Earth’s future, where the tide of battle holds constant surprises, in this game that’s easy to learn, but difficult to master. Using Xbox One cloud functionality to its fullest, now all players can easily access their data, allowing you and your comrades-in-arms to enter the fray side-by-side! With tons of content, a variety of weapons, and a revolutionary new combat system, this is Raiden on a scale you’ve never seen before!

Purchase Raiden V for Xbox One from the Xbox Games Store

Product Info:
Developer: MOSS Co., Ltd.
Publisher: MOSS Co., Ltd.
Website: Raiden V
Twitter: @moss_caladrius

Der Beitrag 551. Die jährliche Satire-Krise (TVS 09/16) erschien zuerst auf Oliver Kalkofe.

James alias „Saint“ im AtariAge Forum hat einen SD-Card Adapter für the Atari Lynx entwickelt. Dieses kleine Modul macht es möglich rom files wie z.B. neue homebrew spiele, prototypen etc. via SD-Card direkt auf den Lynx zu laden. Gute Nachrichten für homebrew Entwickler, die ihre Spiele für Beta-Tests teilen wollen oder einfach eigene Software mit […]

Am 18. Mai erscheint ein kostenloses Spiele-Update für Minecraft auf der WiiU, das das erfolgreiche Indie-Spiel mit der Super Mario-Marke kombiniert. Neben blockförmigen Hammer-Brüdern und Skelett-Koopas lässt euch das "Mash-Up Pack" auch diverse andere Bewohner aus dem Pilzkönigreich kreieren.

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MP3-Download (166 MByte) Alternativer MP3-Download light (84 MByte). Inhaltlich identisch, aber kleinere Filegröße. Besetzung:  Heinrich Lenhardt, Jörg Langer, Mick Schnelle, Roland Austinat und Winnie Forster Aufnahmedatum: 29.04.2016 Themen: Ein funkverstärkter Winnie meldet sich zur Gesprächsrunde zurück, die ausgiebig über aktuelle und alte Spiele plaudert. Geblättert wird in Maniac 2/1995 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der augenzwinkernden Editorial-Prophezeiungen von „Fosteradamus“. Und […]

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Der Amazon Marktplatz Händler Nagiry (386.253 Bewertungen) verkauft Fallout 4 in der AT Version (FSK 18) als Neuware für 21,99€ plus 2,50€ Versand. Es sind 29 Exemplare vorhanden. Lieferzeit ca. 7-14 Tage.

Der Preisvergleich inkl. Versand nach Geizhals/Idealo liegt bei 38€.

Velvet Dark is a cancelled spinoff / sequel to Perfect Dark, the cult classic FPS developed by Rare Ltd and published for the Nintendo 64 in May 2000. A few months before Perfect Dark was completed, Duncan Botwood (Production Designer on GoldenEye and Level Designer on PD), Steve Malpass (Designer on PD) and possibly a few more people from the original team started to work on this new concept, that would have featured Joanna Dark’s sister: Velvet.

The relationship between Joanna and Velvet was never fully detailed in Perfect Dark, but Velvet is a playable character in the coop and multiplayer modes, and she is also unlocked from the start to be used as a bot in single player. We can assume that early work on Velvet Dark begun in late 1999 as in january 2000 Rare filed the trademark for the title and later in february 2000 they even registered the domain name for www.velvetdark.com.

Velvet Dark would have been a third person stealth / action game and not a first person shooter as the original Perfect Dark, as Rare wanted to expand their franchise in different genres, especially when such games as Metal Gear Solid and Symphon Filter were super popular on the Playstation. At the time Nintendo wanted to publish cool third person action games for their 64 bit console, so much that in mid 1999 they announced the Tomb Raider inspired RiQa, a collaboration project with Bits Studios that unfortunately never seen the light of day. Rare were also interested in explain more about Velvet’s mystery and her backstory, other than to take advantage of their new Vicon 8 optical motion-capture system that would have been ideal to use for a realistic third person game.

Unfortunately not much was done Velvet Dark before its cancellation: a design doc and some concept arts / renders were made but in the end the project was not green lighted for full development. A photo of the cover for Velvet’s design doc was shared on Twitter by Gregg Mayle in July 2015 and it was marked with the date 30 October 2000. If our speculations are correct, the small team at Rare spent about 1 year on Velvet Dark and many gameplay elements were already detailed.

From the design doc index we can read that Velvet would have use some kind of “serum” to gain new abilities, maybe something similar to the “Nectar” featured in Haze by Free Radical Design, the studio composed by a few former Rare employee. There could also have been squad-based strategy elements (probably an evolution of the bot commands used in Perfect Dark N64) and a possible GameBoy / GBA compatibility. As a spinoff and spiritual sequel to GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, multiplayer was also considered for Velvet Dark.

In August 2000 Nintendo officially announced their GameCube at Space World 2000 and one of the tech demos shown at the event was a 3D rendition of Joanna Dark, implying that a new FPS by Rare was already planned for the new console. Even if some work on Velvet Dark was undertake at least till October 2000, we can assume that the game was not developed further because they decided to switch all resources to create the new Perfect Dark Zero, a popular FPS needed to be successful in the American market. A third person action / stealth game was not Rare or Nintendo’s priority anymore. Rare’s last game for the Nintendo 64 was then Conker’s Bad Fur Day, released in March 2001.

Videos:

 

The post Velvet Dark [N64 / GameCube – Cancelled] appeared first on Unseen64: Beta, Cancelled & Unseen Videogames!.

This year marks the Zelda franchise's 30thanniversary. In honor of this moment, YouTube user A Dantorio made a video compilation of multiple Zelda moments. Truly, this video is a telling tribute to what The Legend of Zelda means to its fans. The video, though short, is well made and does a great job of summoning up a feeling of nostalgia for those who have played the games before. The narrative of the video is simple, but effective, and has a positive message behind it... 

Der Spielkonsolen-Hersteller Nintendo hat kürzlich Smartphones und Tablets als Plattform für seine Spiele entdeckt. Nach Miitomo bringt das japanische Unternehmen jetzt auch Animal Crossing und Fire Emblem auf die Mobilgeräte. Im Herbst soll es soweit sein.

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Themen: Nintendo, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Pikmin 4, The Legend Of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, Yoshi's Woolly World, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Pokemon Omega Rubin/Alpha Saphir, Super Smash Bros. 3DS/Wii U, The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo

Oldschool shmup Raiden V is launching 11th May exclusively on Xbox One in Europe, North America and Asia, developer Moss has announced.

This will be the first new entry in the quarter century old Raiden series in nine years.

Raiden V launched in Japan in March where Xbox One users could import it so long as they didn't mind the language barrier. Given that all the basics are explained on the game's website, that likely wouldn't pose a problem for many. Still, setting up a Japanese Xbox Live account may have been too much of a bother for some.

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The simulation game factory that is Kairosoft continues to crank out new games to the iOS platform in the West, with the latest being Pocket League Story 2 [Free] which has just arrived this morning. It's a sequel to their 2012 fan-favorite release that had you putting together your own soccer team and then training them and making them into the top team in the world. Being a Kairosoft game it wasn't just about the team either, as you had to build a stadium to play in, a training facility for your team to practice at, sell merchandise to fans, and all those other little responsibilities that go along with managing a major sports team.

Pocket League Story 2 offers all that and more, including new features like weather conditions, penalty shootouts, and more. However, the major new feature here is online multiplayer, so you can actually pit your team against those of your friends. It uses a Nintendo-like friend code system with support for up to 10 friends. It seems like a pretty neat feature, especially if you have some buddies or find people in our forums who are really into Pocket League Story. If you were a fan of the first or are curious about this sequel, give Pocket League Story 2 a download. It's free with a one-time IAP of $4.99 to get rid of ads and enable landscape play, so there's no reason not to check it out.

Unfinished games get cancelled all the time. Practically every month we hear about a game being shelved for one reason or another, be it lack of funds, disinterest from the publisher, tortured development, or any number of other reasons (hello Silent Hills). But why would someone decide to cancel a game after it has already been completed? 

It may seem like a really strange thing to do, but over the years just such a thing has happened more than a handful of times. These following games were either already complete or mere weeks away from going gold when, for a variety of reasons, they were cancelled.

 

Star Fox 2

What? - The original Star Fox is a beloved classic and spawned a series that has become one of Nintendo's most recognisable franchises, even if it hasn't really been a priority for the company. Star Fox was basically an advertisement for the 3D capabilities of the SNES and its Super FX-chip, which enabled games on the system to use actual 3D polygons. Still, that didn't stop it from being a great game as well.

Following the great critical and commercial success of the first game, development of a sequel for the SNES began almost immediately. Yet it wouldn't be until 1997 that fans would get their hands on another Star Fox game. Star Fox 2 was supposed to have been released in 1995 for the SNES, but after the game had already been completed and was ready to be shipped out, Shigeru Miyamoto decided to cancel the release altogether.

Why? - The reason behind the cancellation of Star Fox 2 is simple. Miyamoto wanted to focus on the company's soon-to-be-released new home console, the Nintendo 64, which at the time was slated for release in late 1995. Miyamoto was afraid that releasing Star Fox 2 would take too much attention away from the new console due to the game's high quality 3D graphics. As a result it was never actually released.

Now, here's the sad part. The release of the N64 ended up being pushed back to mid-1996, meaning that if Star Fox 2 had come out when originally intended there would have been at least a year before the N64's release. This meant that, in hindsight, cancelling the game was entirely pointless because the game would never have conflicted with the release of the new console anyway.

Incomplete builds of Star Fox 2 have since appeared and can be found and played, but the finished product has never seen the light of day.

 

Thrill Kill

What? - One of the more famous games that went unreleased despite being finished, Thrill Kill was a fighting game that was developed for the Sony PlayStation by Paradox Development and was meant to be published in 1998 by Virgin Interactive. It was hyped as the new Mortal Kombat and was an ultra-violent fighting game that allowed up to four people to play simultaneously.

The violence and sexual themes depicted in Thrill Kill attracted some controversy prior to the game's release but, despite this controversy, development was completed with every intention of it being released. Then, just weeks before the game was supposed to be shipped out to retailers, it was cancelled.

Why? - Thrill Kill was basically the victim of corporate restructuring and concern over its violent nature. In the summer of 1998 Electronic Arts bought Virgin Interactive and the rights to all of the company's games. EA immediately reviewed all of the games that it had just acquired and Thrill Kill was put on the chopping block, with the publisher noting that it had no intention of releasing such a “senselessly violent game”.

Because EA deemed the game to be so highly offensive and potentially damaging to its own reputation it was simply locked away without there ever being a plan to sell it or even pass it on to another publisher.

Looking back at the game today most people would find the controversy surrounding it quite silly; the violence and sexual content being rather tame and childish by modern standards. Despite this, the game has never been officially released in any capacity, although ROMs of it do exist online that can be played through emulators.

Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans

What? - An adventure game set in the Warcraft universe was originally scheduled for release in 1998 and would have told the story of Thrall. Prior to its cancellation the game had been in development for over a year, and all of the puzzles, environments, voice acting, and most of the animation work was already complete. However, Blizzard was still somewhat unsure about the title's prospects for success.

In 1997 LucasArts had released The Curse of Monkey Island and announced that its next adventure game, Grim Fandango, would use a 3D engine. As a result some people within Blizzard felt the game had become too dated during its development. Finally, just a few days before E3 1998 Blizzard announced that it had cancelled the title, despite it having already been completed and marketed. 

Why? - Officially, Blizzard stated that Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans did not meet the company's quality standards, but rumours concerning other reasons being behind its cancellation began to circulate almost immediately. The adventure game genre had been on a downward slope for some time by this point in time, and many thought that the real reason behind the shelving was a mixture Blizzard's low sales expectations and the genre seemingly having moved beyond its 2D origins.

Fortunately, for those interested, a playthrough of the beta version of the game can be found on YouTube quite easily. As a curiosity, the animated sections of the game were actually completed by the same studio that was responsible for the infamous animated sections in the Zelda CD-I games.

 

Propeller Arena: Aviation Battle Championship

What? - Propeller Arena was a flight simulator that consisted of quick deathmatch-style dog fights in limited arenas, with up to four players fighting each other. It was developed by Sega and meant for release on the Dreamcast in 2001. There's not much else to this one really - it was completed and set for release in late 2001, but it got cancelled in September. 

Why? - Two reasons. Firstly, the Dreamcast was on its last legs at the time, having already been discontinued several months prior to this, which meant that projected sales for the game were very low. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the game had the unfortunate fate of being an air combat simulator that was set for release very soon after the September 11th attacks. Practically overnight the subject matter of the game had become incredibly sensitive and this played a large part in prompting Sega to pull the plug on it in its entirety.

Propeller Arena was simply a victim of poor timing, both in terms of the life cycle of the console it was supposed to be released on as well as in too closely being associated with tragic real life events.

Star Wars: Battlefront 3

What? - An enormous team-based multiplayer shooter, and the intended third instalment in the Star Wars: Battlefront series. Star Wars: Battlefront 3 was developed by Free Radical Design (TimeSplitters series) between 2006 and 2008. The game had already built up a fair amount of hype as rumours of its development had been circulating for some time.

Unfortunately, in October of 2008, Free Radical announced that it had lost the rights to develop Star Wars: Battlefront 3. At the time of its cancellation the game had been in development for over two years and, according to the co-founder of Free Radical, Steve Ellis, it was effectively complete by that point.

Why? - Several years after the projects cancellation Steve Ellis said that the game was shut down because LucasArts couldn't spend enough money to advertise it.

LucasArts in general was going through a widespread company shake-up, and according to Ellis and David Doak this changed how the company thought about game development. Suddenly they were being told to cut back costs in every way possible, whereas in the past the idea had been to “think bigger”.

True Fantasy Live Online

What? - An MMORPG that was developed by Level-5 for the Xbox between 2002 and 2004. True Fantasy Live Online was an exceptionally ambitious project for the time and was set to feature servers that could hold up to 3000 players each, as well as fully integrated voice chat between parties (something that had never been done before on such a huge scale).

According to both Microsoft and the president of Level-5, Akihiro Hino, the game was effectively finished by the time of its cancellation. Indeed, it was set to enter beta. The tentative Japanese release date was Autumn 2004, which was basically few months after it was cancelled.

Why? - Various different factors led to the game's eventual downfall. Level-5 was very inexperienced working with online network coding and had trouble properly implementing voice chat - a feature which Microsoft demanded be included in the game so that it could market Xbox Live. Microsoft grew frustrated at the lack of progress on this front and the relationship between the two companies quickly became extremely strained.

Following True Fantasy Live Online's cancellation Akihiro Hino said in an interview that one of the main reasons behind the cancellation was the poor relationship between the two, which was in large part a result of Microsoft's inexperience in working with Japanese developers. He also implied that the split between the two wasn't exactly amicable.

This cancellation was especially unfortunate as it could have very well changed the fortunes of the Xbox in Japan for the better. Now, it simply stands as a reminder of the whole brand's failure to succeed in the Japanese market.

Six Days in Fallujah

What? - Probably one of the most famous games on this list, Six Days in Fallujah was a tactical third-person shooter based on the second battle of Fallujah during the Iraq war. The developer, Atomic Games, intended to create a realistic depiction of the event and accordingly the player would never have felt entirely safe from attack.

Six Days in Fallujah was in fact the idea of actual soldier who had taken part in the battle, who after returning from Iraq asked the developer to create a video game based on their experiences. Atomic Games actually described the game as more of a survival horror game than a traditional shooter. It was meant to create a setting as close to what the actual soldier had gone through in the battle. Long periods of tension broken up by sudden bursts of violence and fighting.

Why? - Six Days in Fallujah was mired in controversy pretty much from the moment it was announced. Both advocate groups and a number of soldiers felt that it was in bad taste to take such a recent conflict - one that was still actually going on - and turn it into a video game. As a result of the controversy the game's original publisher, Konami, decided to distance itself from the project.

Atomic Games was ultimately unable to secure a new publisher, despite the game being complete by late 2009/early 2010, and had to let go of most of its staff. According to the president of Atomic Games, Peter Tamte, Six Days in Fallujah is still intended to be released at some point in the future.

Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors

What? - An adventure/platform title created by Penn and Teller that consisted of various different mini-games. Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors was made with the intention of enabling the player to mess around with their friends in different ways using the various mini-games. It was set to release in 1995 on the Sega CD.

By far the most famous out of all the mini-games is Desert Bus, which has the player driving a bus from Tucson to Las Vegas. The feat takes 8 hours in real time and afterwards the player is rewarded with a whole point. And then you can drive the bus all the way back. Desert Bus was created in response to the moral panic that surrounded violent video games at the time, with the intention of creating a game that was as inoffensive as possible in every way imaginable.

Why? - This one is very simple. By the time Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors was completed in early 1995 the Sega CD was pretty much dead as a platform. In addition, both the title's developer (Imagineering) and publisher (Absolute Entertainment) went out of business before it could be released. After that, Penn and Teller were unable to find another publisher that was interested in acquiring the game and releasing it on a dead system.

Fortunately, this cancellation has a bright side to it. The comedy group LoadingReadyRun has been running a yearly charity video game marathon called Desert Bus for Hope since 2007 and has raised over $3 million for Child's Play by playing Desert Bus. So, at the very least, Penn &Teller's Smoke and Mirror's has achieved a certain measure of fame and in the process helped raise a lot of money for charity.

Conclusion

There's not too much commonality between the various games that have been cancelled even after being completed. They can be found on just about any platform, from any era, and for any genre. The sad part is that many of these games will never get a chance to make their mark on the industry, however small it may have been in some cases. On the upside, at least they will never be completely forgotten thanks to their infamy, as well as various internet archives and articles like this one.

Occasionally, some of them may even be released years after they're completed. Wonderland Dizzy was originally developed for the NES in 1993 for example, but wasn't released until October 2015 when the creators of the game found the source code and released it for free as a browser-based title, so I guess there is still hope that many of these games will one day be released in some form.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this look at some of the more obscure titles in video game history.

Thrill Kill cosplay banner credit - Akiomi.

Full Article - http://www.vgchartz.com/article/264161/8-completed-games-that-were-never-released/

Obwohl vor wenigen Sekunden die Aufnahme des kommenden Spieleveteranen-Podcasts #79 (mit Mick Schnelle, Roland Austinat, Winnie Forster, Heinrich Lenhardt und Jörg Langer) zu Ende gegangen ist, wird es mit dessen Veröffentlichung noch einige Zeit dauern.

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Admittedly, not all of us have the warmest memories of the ’90s – it was, after all, the decade of Right Said Fred, the backwards jean craze and alcopops. But if there was most definitely one brilliant thing about that decade, it was the technology.

We were reminded of that when we saw this pretty cool infographic from the online discount code specialists at MyVoucherCodes. The site’s list of 13 nostalgia-inducing pieces of ’90s tech includes iconic games consoles like the Sega Mega Drive, original PlayStation and Game Boy Color, but also such other how-could-we-possibly-forget tech as the Tamagotchi, Nokia 5110 and CD Walkman.

Take a look at the complete infographic below.

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