Credit: Bullfrog Productions
| 20 | Dungeon Keeper 3: War for the Overworld |
If you ever played the Peter Molyneux Dungeon Keeper games that put you in the role of a bad guy ordering around monster minions to protect his evil dungeon from handsome blonde heroes, you know why this cancellation was sad. Though Molyneux was gone from Bullfrog Productions by then, I still trust it would’ve been a worthwhile game. Supposedly it was booted in favor of theHarry Potter and Lord of the Rings games. Why can’t we ever have nice things?
Credit: Nibris
| 19 | Sadness |
Psychological survival horror game Sadness was one of the earliest titles announced for the Wii. No playable build was ever released during the four years it was in development, which steamed a lot of clams in the industry, but isn’t this just the perfect title for a Nintendo fanboy to have on his shelf? Plus, a Slavic mythology-inspired tale set in pre-WWI Ukraine about a woman protecting her blind son from bizarre enemies and narcolepsy, nyctophobia (fear of darkness), and paranoid schizophrenia sounds way good to me.
Credit: T-Enterprise
| 18 | Rendition: Guantanamo |
“It’s time to fight back.” So went the slogan for Rendition: Guantanamo, which could have been an awesome game about America kicking ass in Cuba, but was in fact the story of a prisoner taking some kind of revenge on the place. Rumors flew that developer T-Enterprise was in cahoots with Al-Qaeda, and though they insisted that their Guantanamo was run by mercenaries and no American military personnel would be killed in the game, political pressure caused the game to be canceled.
Credit: Track7
| 17 | Theseis |
Theseis wasn’t canceled because it is terribly hard to spell and reminds everyone of writing long papers for college—it can’t help that it was Greek. Nay, the current-gen game was canceled because it was too awesome. It’s about two modern-day Greek journalists who have a paranormal website and go treasure hunting. Mythological characters start coming out of the woodwork, giving it a God of War meets Tomb Raider kind of vibe. In all honesty, though, judging from what material we had it was probably too ambitious for the developer’s stature.
Credit: Activision
| 16 | True Crime: Hong Kong |
The Asian-flavored sequel to Grand Theft Auto: Snoop Dogg was ready to go this year but Activision put the kibosh on it because they don’t release anything outside of an established franchise that has been profitable in the past 24 hours. If you buy Call of Duty every year and nothing else, you are part of the problem.
Credit: Ubisoft
| 15 | Killing Day |
What was Killing Day about? I’m not sure, but it sure looked like a hell of a lot of fun. The highly-detailed shooter looked this good in 2005—damn, we wanted to bust up this marble statue hella bad and swim all up in those blood spurts. Now if Ubisoft someday puts out I Am Alive, about surviving an earthquake that destroyed Chicago, and doesn’t officially cancel it, I can probably forgive this.
Credit: Majesco
| 14 | Demonik |
The team behind BloodRayne and horror master Clive Barker were going to join up to bring youDemonik, but it never got off the ground. The most of it you’ll ever see is in Grandma’s Boy, as the genius game a stoner develops during his free time from his job as a game tester (that’s how you know this is fiction). It really looked bad, but there’s a part of me that just loves Grandma’s Boy. A shameful part.
Credit: Nintendo
| 13 | The Legend of Zelda: Mystical Seed of Courage |
The world’s entire stoner population would have bought this Game Boy Color game based on the title alone and you know this, Nintendo. It was supposed to be the third game in the Oracleseries, alongside The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. It was in development by Capcom but canned when there were problems with the three games interacting with each other.
Credit: Capcom
| 12 | Mega Man Universe |
So Capcom was developing Mega Man Universe for Xbox Live and PSN, and all of a sudden Keiji Inafune (important man: co-designer of Mega Man and producer of the Dead Rising andOnimusha series) up and quit. Then the game was canceled. What happened? Was it to punish him? Did it just suck? Clearly something happened between him and Capcom we’ll never know about, but I still want to play this weird game that let you design your own levels and customize characters based on Mega Man 2. LittleMegaPlanet?
Credit: Lionhead
| 11 | BC |
BC was an ambitious Molyneux title (I guess that goes without saying) about a caveman just trying to get by in a world filled with dinosaurs and extinct beasts. Like Turok, but with weapons like poison plants, avalanches, and clubs replacing sweet future guns. I don’t know what this particular picture is showing from the game, but take a look at those cave-boobs!
Credit: WB
| 10 | Dirty Harry |
You can’t call yourself a man if you haven’t seen the Dirty Harry movies. If you have, you knew how hyped everybody was to play the game based on the legend, featuring Clint Eastwood reprising his role. It would have been released for PS3 and 360 in 2007, but alas, our punk luck had run out.
Credit: Square Enix
| 9 | Gun Loco |
Gun Loco was a weird-ass Square Enix game about a prison planet run by the inmates. Naturally, they splinter off into groups and are constantly fighting each other. Originally based on a line of designer toys, 360 exclusive Gun Loco just bit the dust in the past few weeks. Why does everything we love have to die?
Credit: HeadFirst
| 8 | Call of Cthulhu: Destiny's End |
Another survival horror game that was never given the wings to fly, Call of Cthulhu: Destiny's Endwas planned as a sequel to the most excellent and sadly neglected Call of Cthluhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Two modern characters were going to return to the mysterious town of Innsmouth, which has been in ruins for the past 80 years. It would have even have co-op gameplay with co-op fighting combos! And then they went bankrupt.
Credit: Nintendo
| 7 | Star Fox 2 |
Star Fox 2 was going to be the direct sequel to the best thing ever, the original Star Fox on the SNES. There were going to be two new lady characters, even: Miyu, a lynx, and Fay, a poodle. We haven’t had a new proper Star Fox in a long time, by the way, Ninty!
Credit: Irem
| 6 | Disaster Report 4 |
I love the Disaster Report series, where you have to help people escape from a city devastated by natural disaster. I was so happy that a fourth one was coming out, if only for Japan—it can always be localized! And then the 2011 earthquake and tsunami happened. The game, which was supposed to come out the day before (!) but happened to be slightly delayed, is now cancelled for obvious sensitivity reasons.
Credit: Disney
| 5 | Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned |
Who wanted a Pirates of the Caribbean action RPG? Okay, bear with me, I know it sounds like huge bomb material but this game actually looked seriously awesome. It would have been likeFable (you know, before the sequel sucked) or Dragon Age on land and sea, with you having the option to make protagonist Captain Sterling good or evil. Best of all, it featured an original plot unconnected to the movies. Unfortunately, Disney cancelled this and made the Tron: Evolutiongame instead. That was an awful, awful choice.
Credit: Factor 5
| 4 | Factor 5's Superman |
Look at this screenshot of Doomsday and tell me that Factor 5’s Superman wouldn’t have done for the ruined Superman video game franchise what Batman: Arkham Asylum did for the ruined Batman video game franchise. You can’t do it, can you? Well, Factor 5 was developing for Brash Entertainment, and Brash went out of business and took the rights to the DC characters with them. So long, Supes game. You were barely even worked on but already you looked awesome.
Credit: Namco
| 3 | Frame City Killer |
Oh, mah god, this would have been so cool. Basically it was Hitman set in the future East Asian Frame City, where deadly new age drug Visual Acid is king. You’re an agent undercover as an assassin pulling off plenty of hits in your quest to eliminate the terrorist behind the Visual Acid syndicate. You also have amazingly cool Heavy Rain sunglasses. Really, Namco, you have time for Ridge Racer 75 but not this?
Credit: Nintendo
| 2 | Earthbound 64 |
I don’t need to explain to you that EarthBound for the SNES is the best RPG ever, do I? Well, I certainly hope not, because I will bare-knuckle brawl with any nerd that says otherwise. And it won’t be a sexy girl brawl, it’ll be the kind without make-up where I bite. Earthbound 64, otherwise known in Japan as Mother 3: Fall of the Pig King was cancelled for the Nintendo 64 after, reportedly, the team had trouble with the transition to 3D graphics. It was later remade in classic 2D style for the Game Boy Advance, but do you think we got it in America? Noooooo.
Credit: Cryptic
| 1 | Marvel Universe Online |
DC Universe Online made it, but Marvel Universe Online never did. Well, it kind of did. You knowChampions Online? That used to be Marvel Universe Online. It needed to be drastically changed in 2008 when, according to an anonymous source, Microsoft and Marvel fought over character licenses. Do you see a pattern here? We lose a bunch of good things to stupid corporate squabbling.
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