Retro|Spective 204: Cancelled Games - Sonic Xtreme

[Neon Ignition]

Scalebound is a game that went away but never actually went away and I wish it would. I know some a passionate about Platinum's output and when they make something sing they really do but at no point at all did Scalebound ever sound like or look like a game that was set to actually be good. Even in the gameplay from the late stage version it looks dull as dishwater and I have zero doubt it would have bombed despite how starved XBO was for exclusives of note. MS really should just rule a revival out to draw a line under it, Platinum too as frankly the concept was more than they could handle and likely always will be especially as the market for such games grows narrower.

[dataDave]

The game can only be as good as the team behind it. I heard somewhere that one of Kamiya's key guys (combat design engineer, had worked on stuff like Resi 4, VJ, Godhand, Bayonetta, MGR:R, TW101, etc.) left the company after Transformers was done.

There is a lot going on with the demons in Bayonetta 3 that I'm betting were salvaged from Scalebound. It's not a bad system, but it's not too great either and gets in the way of a Bayonetta game being a Bayonetta game. I think with the right direction under a separate IP it could have done well enough. The 'remote control / fire+forget' triggers come into play nicely on TW101, especially when stacked over one another to multiply damage output and scoring.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 36 - Agent
What happens when the Titans of the industry Rockstar finally meets a project they can't overcome? Agent was first teased back in 2007 as a Cold War era caper that Sony had paid to be exclusive for the PlayStation 3. Development ran and ran however and as the generation ended the resource requirements for Grand Theft Auto IV's development, followed directly by Grand Theft Auto V, began to increasingly swallow up the companies staffing and the project slowed to a crawl. In 2018, as another generation reached its later stages, Rockstar abandoned the trademark with only a few sneaked out screenshots to show for its existence publicly.




Always a concept you were Cold to or another victim of how inefficient Rockstar has become?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 37 - P.T
The last piece of software Konami and Kojima would put out was a teaser of what the developer was planning as an attempt at restarting the Silent Hill franchise. Played from first person, the demo saw you repeatedly explore a corridor as things grew increasingly more horrific. It was hugely popular but once relations between Kojima and Konami fully broke down the project was shelved.



Did you enjoy P.T and was it the direction you wanted for Silent Hill?

[wakka]

Yeah, I really enjoyed this. It was really cool, really creepy, and I'd have loved to see what Kojima would have done with a Silent Hill game.

I played it at a mate's house, at night, lights off (like kids at a sleepover ) and a third guy that was there was so scared that he sat facing away from the screen, refusing to look at it, anxiously smoking out of the window

EDIT: With Agent, like so many of the games in this thread, you have to assume that as much as it was a victim of scheduling and the resource demands of the GTA franchise, the in-progress game simply hadn't been all that great. With much better prospects in the form of GTA IV and V, it's no surprise they canned it.

It probably would've been a pretty cool game, but I don't imagine it would have been something earthshakingly brilliant.

[gunrock]

Love the idea of the Dirty Harry game, looks a bit like a 70s art style version of NMH.

[ZipZap]

I forget exactly how it plays-out, but the part where you keep hearing "look behind you" then you turn around and the monster grabs you was terrifying! The next time down the corridor I was walking sideways with my back to the wall. After turning off the console I still felt like there was someone behind me for the rest of the evening. It's a shame all traces of it have now disappeared as even without the completed game, it was a nice stand-alone product.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 38 - Whore of the Orient
Thanks to its title the game immediately gained notoriety and was set to be the next project from the makers of LA Noire and would utilise the same facial capture technology that still marks that game apart from its peers. The game was to be set in 1936, in Shanghai and would have effectively been another open action adventure game but the publicised stories of unethical working practices during the development of LA Noire dogged the team and funding was a continuous issue until the project ultimately fell apart.







As the closest thing to an LA Noire follow up, does it seem like it was headed in a worthwhile direction?

[Asura]

I like that it failed, just because they gave it a provocative title to try and garner news headlines.

Sometimes it's nice when someone engaging in that bull**** gets a slap in the face, as they so deserve.

[Neon Ignition]

I've never once read anything about the game that comes close to explaining the title

[Neon Ignition]

Game 39 - The Getaway 3
Sony moved into the PS3 generation and one of the first projects revealed to be on the way was another entry in their in house GTA like franchise, The Getaway. The London based franchise was set to return to the capital and a trailer was produced purely as a visual demo for the new system. Three years into production though, Sony pulled the plug and focused the staff on popular cheaper fare such as Singstar and Eyepet.







Do you wish Sony had delivered a third dose of the franchise?

[Hirst]

Given how long it took them to knock out the first one, it would probably still be in development to this day.

[Neon Ignition]

RS204 finally slows to its conclusion with one final game...

[Neon Ignition]

Game 40 - Sonic X-treme
Developed for two years, the game was the project everyone expected to arrive early in the Saturn's life - the next true Sonic game. Sega wanted a title that would showcase the possibilities of its new hardware and so the decision was made to merge the 2D gameplay of the series with the 3D visual possibilities of the system. The game would see Sonic attempting to recover six magic rings from Robotnik on behalf of new female character Tiara *sigh* Boobowski in an adventure with four playable characters and storylines. The other three characters were later dropped to focus on Sonic but internal battles led to a last minute order to restart development with only months remaining till release, and the result was a project falling apart and staff becoming severely physically ill which continued until the game was axed and as such the Saturn never saw its own Sonic entry. At the time only a brief snippet of gameplay was shown showcasing a fisheye lens style view but later a prototype version leaked online. STI, the developer, was disbanded after the project was axed.







The game went through hell but was the core concept ever something that looked like it could lead to a worthy Sonic mainline sequel?

[wakka]

First time I've seen that extended footage of the game, very interesting.

Honestly, it looks awful. I don't think there is any way that this would have been good. They made the right call in cancelling it.