Slashdot Mirror
The Heartbreak of Canceled Games
Gamespot has a piece running today revisiting some of the late and lamented game titles that never made it out of the development phase. Though the article covers all genres, there are a depressing number of canceled Massive titles on the list. From the article: "You'd be hard pressed to find a game whose cancellation caused Xbox owners to shout "D'oh!" louder than True Fantasy Live Online. The ambitious game was slated to be the system's first MMO and it was being crafted by seasoned Japanese developer Level 5, whose resume includes such gems as Dark Cloud 2 and Dragon Quest VIII. The game had all the signs of being one of those special landmark titles for a platform--more than just a seminal moment in the console's software library. The game's ambitious use of Xbox Live, which would have been the most extensive use of the service in a game ever, was more in line with the level of sophistication seen in a PC game. Unfortunately, it appears that Level 5's ambition was what led to TFLO being shelved. The game's scope and rich experience presented a sizable challenge for both the developer and Microsoft within the given time frame."
What article like this is complete without:
Sam and Max 2 I feel cheated looking through that article without seeing S&M there.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
One word: :'(
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
Don't get me wrong, Halo was a great game, but way back in the day when Bungie was first talking about Halo, it was going to be this massive multi-genre game, having elements of an FPS, RTS, space sim, and possibly even RPG (though that was probably just hype admitedly). I can remember Battlecruiser3000-esqe usenet threads (minus Derek Smart of course) talking about how this game was going to revolutionize gaming as we know it, immerse you in a fully realized game world, make you toast in the morning and walk the dog.
Then all of the sudden, it was just another FPS. Well that turned out to not be quite true as Halo was anything but run of the mill, but you can't help but wonder what kind of game Halo would have been had the Bungie guys not got bored of Starcraft.
Half-Life for the Mac, goddamit. Sierra had the thing finished--but didn't go forward to releasing it, purportedly for marketing reasons. So I guess they prefer to lose their entire effort of porting it than spend another 10% to try to sell the thing.
You'd think that they could have at least released it as a download. No boxes, no distribution, no middleman. Make the game available as a paid-for download, put the word out to the Mac community, and let them purchase and download it electronically.
It sure as hell would have been better than what they did. At least if it was a downloadable game, they would have gotten something financial back rather than nothing, which is what they got!
The short-sighted nature of companies that do this sort of waste never ceases to amaze me.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The cancellation of the Mac version of Half-Life was what finally pushed me over to "The Dark Side" in June 1999. That and the fact that with Windows 98SE, finally there was a version of Windows that _began_ to be useable without jumping through too many hoops.
I really dislike this mentality. I enjoyed the original ninja gaiden games because they were hard. In fact when I think back, there were no games I can think of that were easy that I actually liked.
Hard games give you a sense of accomplishment when you master them.
As for the last ninja, I never understood what people saw in the game. Maybe I should pull it up on an emulator sometime, as an adult and try to figure it out.