Unreleased & Unfinished Games Thread

[TL]

Jest is a cancelled 96-megabit Nintendo 64 platform / action game that was in development by Curved Logic in 1997 and it would have been published by Ocean / Infogrames. In the game we would have played as a joker named Jax, who has to work his way up to full jesterhood. There would have been many crazy levels set in the land of Humourous, from hellish underground caverns to misty docksides, with a gameplay probably similar to Mario 64 or Rayman 2. Jest had a beautiful graphic for its time and its own style, but sadly something went wrong during the development and Curved Logic had to cancel the game, before closing down and to vanish forever.

http://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/04/jest-n64-cancelled/

[align=center:1k0tm5z2]Jest Nintendo 64 Beta Unreleased Game[/align:1k0tm5z2]

[onthinice]

Never heard of the game before now but you had me at 96-megabit. That is old school flaunting the size of the cart. Brings back memories of the 16-bit console battles.

[TL]

It reminds me a bit of Pandemonium on the PS1/Saturn.

[onthinice]

Never played Pandemonium either. But will check for a review.

[TL]

Dream Team Basketball is a cancelled sport game that was in development in 1996 by Anvil Incorporated and it would have been published by US Gold / Eidos Interactive for the Playstation. For some reasons the game was never released, but a playable beta version 70% complete was preserved by the PlayStation Museum:

The Dream Team concept: a basketball game where you pit the 1996 USA Men's Olympic Basketball Team against other countries. All of America's top basketball stars are in the game: Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Scottie Pippen, ...etc. On paper this game sounds like a sure winner. Anvil Incorporated and U.S. Gold Sports through Eidos Interactive were to bring this concept to the PlayStation in time for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.

http://www.unseen64.net/2013/06/19/dream-team-basketball-psx-cancelled/

[align=center:3anyk3t7]DREAM TEAM Basketball WORLD EXCLUSIVE PS1 Video![/align:3anyk3t7]

[TL]

Jeff's Shoot'Em Up is a tech demo for a top-down shooter in the same vein as Smash TV or Alien Breed, that was developed by Iguana Entertainment (Aero the Acrobat and Turok) to test the SNES capabilities. The demo was titled "Jeff's shoot'em up" probably after Jeff Spangenberg, Iguana (and later Retro Studios) founder. In this prototype enemies can't harm the main character,every path lead to a dead end and sound is absent. Also in the introduction the spaceship that is zoomed in/out and rotated don't appear correctly.

This demo was made available by the nice guys at Nintendoplayer. For a more detailed description please read their article.

[align=center:2du0oxrj]Jeff's Shoot'Em Up [SNES - Demo][/align:2du0oxrj]

[onthinice]

Dream Team Basketball is a cancelled sport game that was in development in 1996 by Anvil Incorporated and it would have been published by US Gold / Eidos Interactive for the Playstation. For some reasons the game was never released, but a playable beta version 70% complete was preserved by the PlayStation Museum:

The Dream Team concept: a basketball game where you pit the 1996 USA Men's Olympic Basketball Team against other countries. All of America's top basketball stars are in the game: Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Scottie Pippen, ...etc. On paper this game sounds like a sure winner. Anvil Incorporated and U.S. Gold Sports through Eidos Interactive were to bring this concept to the PlayStation in time for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.

http://www.unseen64.net/2013/06/19/dream-team-basketball-psx-cancelled/

[align=center:e8rx5gag]DREAM TEAM Basketball WORLD EXCLUSIVE PS1 Video![/align:e8rx5gag]

Great concept and bet this would have been fun to play. I remember a similar game for the Genesis by EA. Not sure it was ever a Mega Drive release. I believe it was called Team USA.

[TL]

Yes Ice, Team USA was for the Genesis, I have it actually. Its just a reskin of their popular NBA games.

[Minerals]

A video has emerged of the unreleased Donkey Kong Racing for Nintendo Gamecube.

This was due to be a sequel to Rare's Diddy Kong Racing on the N64, with the vehicles in this version being substituted for animals instead.  Players would be able to swap animals during the race, which would let you smash through obstacles or gain better handling based on the animal's size.
The game was unfortunately shelved when Microsoft brought Rare in 2002.

Donkey Kong Racing [GameCube 2001 Tech Demo] UNRELEASED!

[TL]

I am soooooo gutted about this one! 

City Heroes is a cancelled beat 'em up that was in development by Korean company Samsung Electronics for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis. Thanks to an article at Hardcore Gaming 101, we can read that the game was almost finished, but sadly because of some problems with the country's censorship system, City Heroes was never released.

[align=center:ezsftcij]   

   

   [/align:ezsftcij]

http://www.unseen64.net/2011/06/30/city-heroes-mega-drive/

[Minerals]

looks like a decent SoR style game, shame it never came out

[TrekMD]

That sucks.  It does look pretty good.  And it was almost complete! 

[TL]

Dyno Blaze is a cancelled beat 'em up that was in development by Bonsai Entertainment for the Genesis / Mega Drive, Mega CD and 3DO in 1994 and it would have been published by Virgin. A playable prototype of the game was somehow leaked online in 2008, in which you can try a series of (almost empty) levels where to move your rollerblade-dinosaur to fight enemies with an hockey stick. The levels are incomplete and bugged but it's possible to go through them waiting for a bit at the end of the area and pressing the jump button.

A weird Dyno Blaze proto was seen at the Video Game History 2008 expo in Monza (Italy), organized by our friends at Games Collection. In the VGH2K8 proto you can just see a rolling demo of the game's menu (without any gameplay) and a strange graph for a medicine know as "Lotensin" by CibaGeneva pharmaceuticals. We dont have any clue about what this all means, so if you have a good explanation feel free to share it!

The 3DO version was in development by Alexandria Inc but sadly after some months of work the lead background artist died from an illness and the game was soon canceled not long after. The 3DO port had better graphic (as you can see from the scans below, found by Celine in Game Fan #95 and Cd Consoles magazines) and animations, almost like a cartoon.

http://www.unseen64.net/2009/08/06/dyno-blaze-genesis-mega-drive-cancelled/

[align=center:3p43m15l]Dyno Blaze [Early Prototype - Genesis / Mega Drive][/align:3p43m15l]

[Shadowrunner]

A beat 'em up starring a hockey stick wielding dinosaur? Sign me up 
Too bad it got scrapped, the 3DO could have really used a game from that genre!

[TL]

Sonic's Edusoft is a game for Master System developed by Tiertex and published by U.S. Gold for the Sega Master System. No one knew anything about this game until an anonymous person created a Wikipedia page with information on the license, this individual turned out to be one of the programmers. Later, with the nickname "the programmer" gave some information about the game in the forums SMSPower.

Development started in 1991, soon after the release of the first Sonic game nd before the beginning of the programming of the second. This game is considered the first title not developed by Sonic Team not absolute and the first featuring the blue hedgehog to be published. The game was tested in a primary school and was really well received (it was designed for children under 5 years).

Sega was aware of this title, but the use of Sonic was not approved and the game was not published. It is established that is not a fake, the program said that sooner or later will create a website that explain everything in the game, but not right now for personal reasons. The ROM of Sonic's Edusoft was leaked in April 2008.

http://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/11/sonics-edusoft-sms-unreleased/

[align=center:w3k007j1]Sonic edusoft speedrun - by ashthedragon[/align:w3k007j1]