50th Issue Special: The Lost Games

6 Comments

OXM is 50 issues old this month. Looking back through them, you can see the triumphant rise of new franchises (like Gears of War), the slow decline of others (like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith) and the crashing failure of still more (like Hour of Victory.) But there are also a surprising number that just faded away. Let's look back at issue 1 and some of the games featured within that never made it to shop shelves.

Even Clive Barker couldn't make this scary.

Demonik
Status: On Hold

Remember Clive Barker's Jericho? That FPS didn't completely suck, but the horror writer is notoriously hit and miss when it comes to games and movies. We revealed Clive Barker's Demonik back in our very first issue in 2005.

You were going to play as a body-hopping creature known as a 'Demonik' who could possess human enemies and turn them against one another. I think a body-popping creature would have been more fun.

An ability to use different Biblical plagues as a weapon sounded entertaining, but the first screenshots revealed nothing more than a plague of mediocrity. For a more terrifying Clive Barker experience, watch THIS instead.

Huxley, we don't really want it anymore.

Huxley
Status: On Hold

Reasons why this could have been good. 1) It uses Unreal 3 engine. 2) It's an FPS with thousands of players in one game. 3) It's loosely based on Aldous Huxley's controversial novel Brave New World.

Reasons why Huxley will probably be a disappointment. 1) It was announced over four years ago and will be staler than a packet of crisps you found down the back of the sofa. 2) It looked even rougher. 3) A closed beta (for PC) was launched earlier this year. Pending that test, the Xbox 360 version was put "on hold". Check back with us in 2014 to see if it's out yet.

Advertisement:

Avalon
Status: Studio Closed

Not a single screenshot was released for the racing title Avalon. Climax Brighton started work on an Xbox 360 prototype way back in 2003.

The studio eventually transformed into Black Rock Entertainment and then started work on the rather good Split Second. The world is now a much happier place. The end.

Nice sunglasses! Shame it's not at all sunny.

Frame City Killer
Status: Officially Cancelled

Namco deserves a lot of credit for admitting its third-person action game was cancelled. So many other developers just brush their games under the carpet, hoping no-one will notice.

Frame City Killer was an open world shooter, an early console exclusive that actually looked like it had potential. You played an assassin in an unnamed Japanese city. Sounded cool, although it certainly wasn't going to win prizes for its graphics. The hit man looked a lot like George Michael. Ironically, we were starved of open world games back in 2005, and now they're everywhere.

Fancy a bit of blue on blue combat?

Dog Tag
Status: MIA

Funnily enough this military FPS featured a team of special ops so inept that they actually end up fighting friendlies. To be fair, the said friendlies were probably going to turn out to be possessed or under the control of a mad scientist. It still sounded dumb.

The game was squad-based and let you control four different soldiers at once. They probably took one look at GRAW and decided to give up right there. Developer Diezel Power adhered to the time-old adage, "if at first you don't succeed, put zombies in it."

Hey, you can actually buy this one soon!

Diabolique - Licence to Sin
Status: Redesigned

One game that escaped the fiery pits of torment was PlayLogic's third person shooter, Diabolique. If you thought the title was stupid, the hero of the game was a secret agent called Dark Eaville (I shit you not).

The 'exciting' news is that the game was completely reworked and will be released this month under the title Infernal: Hell's Vengeance. The bad news, it's still absolutely diabolical. You can read my review in Issue 51 of OXM.

Tim Burton probably would have liked it.

The City of Metronome
Status: Seeking a Publisher

There really aren't enough good adventure games on Xbox 360, so Metronome could have filled the void. If only the game could find a publisher, but no-one wanted to pick it up for release, and developer Tarsier Studios went on to make the successful Rag Doll Kung Fu instead. According to Tarsier, the game is "still in development."

The only piece of art released so far. A child's drawing.

John Carpenter's Psychopath
Status: Not even started yet

Psychopath, a pretty straightforward name for a survival horror. This was meant to be part of a multimedia franchise - a comic, game and movie all released at once. As with so many Hollywood dreams, this one is still looking for a studio to make it happen.

It's all gone quiet, although Director Todd Farmer (My Bloody Valentine 3D) is at the helm. He recently told Darkscribe Magazine, "There are lots of rumours out there, but it's still happening. It's coming out as a comic this year...We want to own it." Somehow, I won't feel convinced it has happened until I see it in the bargain bin at Blockbuster.

That's all for now, but I'll be looking at some more of the games that time forgot in the coming weeks, including Possessed, Uwe Boll's Tunnel Rat, Haze, Fear & Respect and many more.

Ben Talbot