Unreleased Games 4 – Game Sack

(Game Sack Theme) – Hello and welcome to Game Sack.

I've got some more gamesthat were being made but never released to show you.

And I don't think I needto say more than that do I? Not for this episode, let'sjust get straight into it.

(upbeat bouncy music) First up is Star Wars on the Genesis from Sega Interactive.

And you do know what elseSega Interactive made right? That's right, Greendog! Anyway, this game ismostly based on the 1992 Super Nintendo game called Super Star Wars which was made by Sculptured Software.

It's unknown if thisgame would've been called Super Star Wars, or maybe Mega Star Wars or just even, Star Wars.

It wasn't in development for very long, starting in late 1992, and getting canceled pretty early in 1993.

The version here is dated January of 1993.

When you power on the gameyou get a black screen which allows you select any of the game's seemingly 10 billion levels.

It only feels like that though, because some levels like the Sandcrawler are divided up into four or five levels.

You play as Luke Skywalker.

Button C jumps, button B is your blaster, and button A is your light saber, which of course you have way before you even meet Obi Wan Kenobi.

The blaster is weird as it doesn't fire unless you hold down both the B button and the direction you want to shoot in.

Otherwise your bullets justwon't fire when you press B.

If you switch to playertwo in the menu screen you can play as Han Solo, he doesn't get to use the light saber, and his blaster isassigned to the A button, while B does nothing.

He's a pretty useless character here.

Since this game is so early, it's not surprising that alot of the levels are empty or not even included yet.

And what is in here is also pretty clunky.

The control is quite slippery.

I tried a ton of times to make it across these floating rocks.

Remember in Star Wars when Luke had to jump across the floating rocks? Anyway, I just couldn't do it, but it probably doesn't help that what I need toland on goes off screen every time I jump.

A lot of the bosses are in here, and some of them even look pretty cool.

Most of them can't be touched, though there's one or twothat you can actually damage.

The graphics are prettybad if I'm being honest.

They are a far cry fromthe Super Nintendo version.

Perhaps that's why this was canceled.

Maybe Sega just didn't want to look ridiculously weak in comparison.

We all know that theGenesis can do much better graphics than this.

It's like they were tryingto use as few colors as absolutely possible.

What's interesting, is thatthey were even planning on including the landspeeder Mode 7 stages in some fashion.

But what they have going onhere, just isn't the same, or even good.

They hadn't gotten any sound effects into the game yet by this point.

The music in the first couple of stages isn't even from StarWars which is interesting and frankly, quite refreshing.

Unfortunately, most of thestages play the Cantina Theme over and over again, and itdoesn't sound good at all.

(“Cantina Theme”) There's an option to watchthe cut scenes in the menu, but if you try it, it just fades out and returns you to the screenas they're not in here yet.

It's really interesting to see that they were attempting this port, but probably good that this was canceled.

The Super Nintendo original wasn't exactly a stellargame in my opinion despite having excellentgraphics and audio.

So why make a versionwhere the only things good about the original are ruined? This isn't even as good as Greendog.

(“Cantina Theme”) Next up is Socks he Cat Rocksthe Hill for the Super NES.

Socks was former presidentof the United States Bill Clinton's cat.

This is officially licensed, and the Clintons actuallysetup a company called Presidential SocksPartnership Incorporated to handle all of this.

Anyway, some bad guys sneakinto the White House at night and steal a portablenuclear missile launch unit, and Socks just happens tobe hiding inside of it.

Wow.

You know, maybe theClintons canceled this game because that scenariodoesn't make them look good even in a stupid game like this.

Just waltz into the White House and steal a portablenuclear missile launcher? Doesn't exactly instill mewith a lot of confidence.

Anyway, now you're roaming around and you have to save the world.

Socks controls horribly.

He can jump, slash with his claws and run.

The X button toggles the HUDfrom the top of the screen to the bottom and vice-versa.

You can jump a littlefurther when you're running, but to do that, you needto hold down the A button while jumping with B, notexactly easy or fun to do.

There are some jumps that are absolutely impossible to make.

So you think in orderto get by this section you need to go back andtake the upper route, then you find out thatit's also impossible to get to the upper route, and this is only the secondpart of the first level.

The only real way toget up there is to cheat and use controller twoto move Socks around.

But as it turns out, there'snothing good up there anyway.

Instead you need to use that same trick to move Socks across the large gaps.

Even this cheat move is messedup as you might get stuck behind walls with no way out ever.

The next level, you'reoutside fighting the press and even protesters.

These guys take a lot of hits to defeat and if you touch anythingyou immediately lose a life.

Of course, you have ninelives since you're a cat but if you lose them all, then you have to continue.

You do get to fight H.

Ross Perot, who uses his pointingstick to try to get you.

Even Richard Nixon is a bossand he calls in airstrikes to drop bombs on you.

Supposedly, Ted Kennedy is a boss in here driving around on a bridge, but I just couldn't get there.

There's a ROM that has adebug mode to switch levels, but I couldn't get saiddebug mode to work at all.

If this game were finished up, I'm sure it would be far more playable.

I'm not sure it would betremendously good though.

However, I am fascinated that this game was actually being madein the first place.

I like cats a lot, butthis prototype is so bad that it actually makes me take comfort that the real Socks has beendead for a long time now.

This is Dyno Blaze onthe Genesis from Virgin developed by Bonsai Entertainment.

By all appearances, this was gonna be a sports themed beat 'em up.

And it was originallyplanned to be released for Christmas of 1995.

There's not much to this prototype sadly.

Some things don't evenentirely fit on the screen yet.

You can try to select acharacter at the beginning but it's all an illusionas you'll end up playing as the top left dino.

Anyway, you're on rollerskates like DJ Boy and you're armed with a hockey stick.

Everything in here is extremely early.

Enemies will usually keep regenerating until you move onto to the next area.

You can do this wheneveryou want by pressing Up and C at the same time.

The collision feels non-existent when you're fighting the enemies, but you are doing damage.

The sprite looks like theycould've been really cool had the game been finishedbecause they're using the same Digicel technologythat was used in Aladdin.

The music is placeholder andis all from the Genesis version of RoboCop Vs Terminator.

There was also a Sega CD version, and even a 3DO version of this planned, but everything was canceled.

I guess maybe they found outthat dinosaurs were extinct.

Yeah, I know that was bad.

Still I think this mayhave had some potential but Virgin certainly didn't believe in it.

(upbeat electronic music whichmakes you feel like RoboCop) Okay, some interesting games so far, but this next one really stinks.

Okay, that was bad.

First, Virgin finding outthat dinosaurs were extinct and now this, think myjokes are getting worse, is that even possible though? (energetic bright music) Do you like mascot platformers? Well, then you might enjoy Cooly Skunk which was in development by Visit for the Super Famicom and Super Nintendo.

You play as a really cool skunk out to spread your flavor ofjustice on the entire world.

It's pretty typical, you can attack with yourtail as well as jump.

The entire game is in Japanese, but that shouldn't hinderyou much if at all.

Many of the levels havean item you can get which you basically ride.

Like a pogo stick to bounce on or a snowboard to snowboard on.

Many enemies leave behindstars when you kill them and there are other stars to collect throughout the level as well.

Once you get 100 of theseyou're granted an extra life.

This doesn't matter at all though as you have unlimited continues and there are absolutely nocheckpoints in the stages.

So go ahead and ignore these stars, but the one thing thatyou'll absolutely need are the apples.

You can only take two hits before you die and you'll die a lot.

The apples will restore your life bars, so the next hit won't kill you.

The game is pretty tough, but with unlimited continues, it doesn't take verylong to learn each level.

The graphics are mostly fantastic and I love the colors that are everywhere.

The music is pretty well done too.

Sadly this one was neverable to find a publisher as it was late in the console's life, and both the PlayStation and the Saturn were all the rage inJapan, so this got canned.

What's interesting is that this was a demo for Nintendo's SatellaviewOnline System in Japan.

Someone had downloaded itand saved it to the cartridge as they allow you to do until you overwrite it with another game.

This was found in a store in Japan with the same still on it.

It was quickly purchased anddumped for the world to play.

As some of you alreadyknow or have guessed, this game was reworked andpublished for the PlayStation as Punky Skunk from Jaleco.

It plays mostly the same here, with some slight graphicaland audio improvements.

That, and the stages are mostly different.

Still, the Super Famicom gamefeels pretty much complete, though I haven't beenthrough the entire game.

And honestly, even though it's not bad, it's not a game thatwill really make you feel like putting the time in.

The PlayStation game overallis the better version but even that one is far from outstanding.

I'd say it feels more at homeon the Super Famicom here than it does the PlayStation.

It's certainly betterthan a lot of the trash that did make it to the market.

(smelly electronic music) Here's Akira on the Genesisfrom Black Pearl Software.

This one was set to bepublished in 1994 by THQ.

You think that a classicmovie like “Akira” which was all the rage back in the day would have a bunch of gameson lots of different platforms but no, it only exists on the Famicom and the Amiga CD32.

This Genesis version was shaping up to be something interesting as the designers clearlyhad some lofty ambitions.

You can select from severaldifferent stages on the map and it's announced if youplay as Kaneda or Tetsuo.

– [Announcer] Kaneda.

Tetsuo.

Kaneda.

Kaneda.

Tetsuo.

– [Joe] There are manydifferent types of gameplay here like the motorcycle stages.

Here you can punch in either direction.

Sadly there are no enemies to punch here and you can't complete anyof the stages in this game, but I do like the four layers of scrolling buildings in the background, that looks pretty cool.

The control here isn't the greatest but it feels workable enough.

Then there's the hospitalstages where you play as Tetsuo wandering around gettingitems and the such.

You can even blow people to pieces with your evil hand shots.

These stages take a bit to get used to, because you need to hold down the C button and then press Left or Rightto turn in that direction.

And it's easy to get confused as to what direction you're facing.

After that, you get someplatforming acton with Kaneda.

You need to collect the pillsand take out the bad guys.

He doesn't control fluidly at all.

It works, but you can tell that the guys over at Black Pearlprobably have never played too many platformers.

Again, the game isn'tcomplete, so honestly I can't throw too muchshade at them for this.

Next up is the hover bike scene where you fly around the sewers.

You destroy bad guys aswell as pick up items to keep your bike flying and shooting, since neither your fuelor ammo are unlimited.

This area really impresses me at least, what it does with the visuals.

It honestly looks liketexture mappped polygons are used for the floors, ceilings and walls, that's not what they are, but it's an amazing effect nonetheless for a 16-bit console.

And I'm not quite surehow they pulled it off.

Sadly, playing thisstage isn't fun at all, because everything looksthe same and there's no map.

Then there's this isometric stage which pretty much glitchesup within a few seconds and I can't really get anythinginteresting to happen here.

There's even a beat 'em upstage where you play as Kaneda and the enemies are floating down on you.

Again, this is far from finished.

The last stage appears tobe a one-on-one fighter between Kaneda and Tetsuo, but this is all thatever happens right here.

Most of the time, there's no music or sound but there's some in thesound test if you listen, and a few stages actuallydo have some music.

They use the GEMS sound engine, so it doesn't soundtremendously impressive.

What is impressive thoughis that there are scenes from the movie that precede most stages.

They're small but they're very well done especially for a cartridge game.

Rumor has it that this was due to arrive on the Sega CD as well.

All in all, I would have loved to play a finished version ofthis, had it happened.

(farty GEMS music) This one is called Stone Protectors and is from Vic Tokai andEurocom on the Genesis.

It's based on a repulsivetoy line and an animated show of the same name.

It was the evolution ofthe Troll Dolls toy line that absolutely nobody wanted.

Anyway, a powerful crystalhas been shattered, pieces of it are sent out to Guitar Center and it turns normal peopleinto troll looking superheroes and they're actually okay with this.

Of course, they're allin a band or something and you know it's just gottabe the raddest band ever! This one is a beat em up, and as a game, it's honestly, not horrible.

You can select from fiverepugnant characters to play as.

Each of them controlsand feels very different.

Most of them have a special attack which is done with StreetFighter type inputs.

These can be difficult topull of in a game like this.

Often the attack is music based like this.

(real saxophone music.

.

.

or not) The game feels like anarcade quarter muncher.

The enemies keep coming and coming before the screen lets you advance and the stages certainly aren't short.

Not only that, but there are 10 stages which honestly, is alot for a beat 'em up, so you'll likely get boredbefore you reach the end, unless you really like games like this.

And yes, of course there area couple of elevator stages.

I can't imagine a beat 'emup without an elevator stage, that might even be illegal.

This game did see a releaseon the Super Nintendo.

And the Genesis version holdsup pretty well in comparison.

The graphics are verycolorful on both versions, with lots of parallax scrolling.

Some of the scrolling canbe pretty weird though.

The Genesis only misses outon a few transparency effects here and there, not really a big deal.

The music doesn't soundsas good as it does on the Super Nintendo version.

But neither game has very good music.

The Genesis soundeffects are better though as they don't live in ahouse on Reverb Street in Reverb City in theState of Reverb, USA, on Planet Reverb.

(bright electronic music) (whooshing) (thudding.

.

.

with reverb) This game feels very very complete.

It even got an ESRB rating, yetit was still never released.

You know what's weird though? The Super Nintendo versionwhich actually was released never received an ESRB rating, oh well.

This is a slightly aboveaverage beat 'em up with disgusting lookingcharacters that nobody likes.

(okay-ish electronic music) So many of these games areshowing a lot of potential, especially Akira, whichcould've been great if they had the guidance of people who actually played games.

I know, I know, I said I couldn't throw a lot of shade their way, and that's true.

Anyway, I have threemore games to show you.

Did you know that there was gonna be a version of Wacky Races on the Genesis from Eden Entertainment and Virgin? Well, here it is.

This is a kart racing game, which obviously takes itsinspiration from Mario Kart.

In fact, it pretty much playsexactly like Mario Kart, though it does kind offeel like a budget title in a few ways.

But hey, look at the graphics.

I like how they pulledoff a Mode 7 play style without Mode 7.

Instead polygons are used anda simple dithering pattern is applied on top of itto give it some texture.

It's still pretty impressiveas the game takes place in the same kind of 3Dspace that Mode 7 offers over there on the Super Nintendo.

You can choose from a lotof different Wacky Racers, but it doesn't show any stats, so you can't tell if one set of characters is better than anotherset at any given thing.

To me, they all feel asif they play the same.

As you race, you collect the letter W.

Did you know that Wstarts with the letter D, I don't know what I just thought of that.

Anyway, these are the itemsand weapons that you can use.

What's cool is that you cancollect a bunch of them, and then cycle between themby pressing the C button.

Actually, you have to do this if you wanna use any otherfeature besides hopping.

That's right, you needto cycle to the weapon you want to use each and every time.

Honestly though, it's not worth it since the items aren't very exciting.

Maybe this feature justwasn't finished yet or at least I hope it wasn't.

Otherwise, the control isdecent but it can be tough to take some of the sharper corners, and there are no brakes orpower slides that I could find.

There's also a battle mode where you need to damage opponents more than you get damaged.

These battle games tend to end pretty fast and take place in very small arenas.

And yes, the game features a two player split screen as well.

Overall, I'd say that thegame feels mostly complete.

The sprite glitch up a bit here and there, and there's still some morework that needs to be done.

Most of the music isactually from the cartoon so if you're a fan, you might enjoy it.

(frantic electronic music) There is one incredibly stupidthing about this game though.

And that is that they madeit to nearly 100% complete before Virgin realized they didn't have a properlicense for Wacky Races.

Pretty crazy, but at least the game can be enjoyed these days onemulators and flash carts.

(Energetic electronic music) You may have thought that the Genesis got a port of the sidescrolling Dragon's Lair game.

Well, it did, but it was never released.

Here it's called Dragon'sLair: The Adventure Continues, and it was gonna be published by Taito.

This is a port of the Super Nintendo game, and for all intents and purposes, it's surprisingly close.

You run around with your sword, and you have two subweapons that you can get, a dagger and an axe.

Like in the Castlevania games, the dagger shoots straight ahead, whilst the ax flies in an arc.

Of course, neither of them go very far.

You can't use your swordwhile you're jumping which is frustrating, but you can use the subweapons at any time.

Your goal is to get to each stage's exit whilst still being alive.

Eventually you'll make it to a boss stage.

Connecting all of these stages is a large map that you can wander around.

Meaning that you can replay any stage you've been to if you want.

And honestly I don't knowwhy you'd want to play any of these stages.

I have to admit that I'venever enjoyed playing the Super Nintendo version, and I don't care for this one either, there are some differencesin the graphics, such as the missing transparencies, as well as the scaling androtation that just aren't here.

But like I said earlier, it's still pretty close.

Some things have evenbeen enhanced, slightly.

For one, it feels a lot brighter than the Super NES original in most areas.

And a lot of areas featuresome foreground scrolling that's unique to this version.

Speaking of that, thereare a couple of stages where the foreground gets in the way, and you can't see what you're doing and you need to guesswhere the safe places are.

I guess the designers thoughtthat this would be fun.

Spoiler, it's not.

The game feels completeand if anyone knows why it was canceled, well, they're certainly not telling anyone else about it.

I don't care for this gamemuch, so it doesn't bother me.

But still, it's competently made.

So the fact that it wasn't released is unfortunate for everyone else.

(ominous electronic music) Lastly, here's Space Fantasy Zone for the PC Engine CD-ROM/TurboGrafx-CD-ROM from NEC Avenue.

This combines elements ofSpace Harrier and Fantasy Zone into a single game.

Space Harrier says rightfrom the start of the game that it takes place in thesame universe as Fantasy Zone.

– [Announcer] Welcome tothe Fantasy Zone, get ready! – [Joe] So a game likethis feels pretty natural.

This game was being made inthe legendary year of 1991.

I actually remember seeingit previewed in magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly.

You control Opa-Opa whois the sentient spaceship from Fantasy Zone, ashe flies into the screen like Space Harrier.

The enemies are from both games though mostly from Fantasy Zone.

The bosses however, areall from Fantasy Zone.

It's pretty fast, and theenemies and their shots can be tough to avoid.

However, this game is still pretty easy.

That's because unlike bothSpace Harrier and Fantasy Zone, you don't die in one hit here.

Each time you kill anenemy, you earn some cash.

The good news is, is that youdon't have to collect coins like in Fantasy Zone, it'sjust automatically deposited into your low yield savings account.

After each stage you stop byWeponald's to beef yourself up.

No pun intended, ifthere's even a pun there.

Here you can level up, which makes you shoot faster without a turbo switch.

You can also buy sub weaponsand other special things.

And even extend and refill your life bar.

I always try to make sure mylife bar is as full as possible and that's the key to this game.

Oh, and you can also smile at the cashier.

She won't give you a discount though.

Since this game is unfinished, if you press the Selectbutton while you're playing, you skip the rest ofthe stage and are taken straight to Weponald's toprepare for the next stage.

You really shouldn'tneed to do that though since this game doesn'tput up a huge challenge unless you really crank up the difficulty.

The bosses are really funto fight in a 3D viewpoint but they are all piss easy.

The control is greatand you can even reverse the up and down pitch if you want to, but I didn't need to.

I love the graphics inthis one for the most part.

The artwork and the colorsare all outstanding.

I really like seeing differentaspects of both games recreated here.

The only thing I thinkthat needs improvement is the animation of objectsapproaching from the distance.

They probably need aboutthree or four times as many frames of animation.

As it is now, objectsseem to bounce up and down as they approach, as therejust aren't enough frames for each object at different sizes.

Fortunately, this doesn'taffect playability.

The music is great, with themesfrom both games combined.

Unfortunately, there areonly two different themes as you play, and even those two selections are nearly identical to each other.

You can definitely feelhow unfinished this game is when it comes to theaudio, as on some screens the music will just stop.

At the time, Sega was getting ready to release the Mega-CD in Japan.

It's possible that thishad something to do with the cancellation of thegame, though it isn't certain.

An official reason hasnever been disclosed.

It's still worth playing if you're a fan of either of the games that it's based on.

I'm actually kind of sad thatthis one wasn't finished up and granted a release.

(bright electronic music) There you go, that was nine games that never saw an official release.

So, would you have played anyof them had they come out? And if you haven'talready, be sure to go back and watch the three previousUnreleased Games episodes.

If you're from the future, be sure to watch the futureepisode on this subject too.

Actually, you're probablyhere from that episode.

I bet I have a lot moregray hair in my beard and less hair on my head in that one.

Anyway, what are somegames that I have missed in at least, these first four episodes? Let me know, in the meantime, thank you for watching Game Sack.

(Game Sack Credits Theme) Today is a red letter day, because I'm gonna playa Super Nintendo game on my Super Nintendo, let's do it.

Hey, what's going on here, it doesn't fit, I can't get it in! Wait a minute, you'renot a Super Nintendo, you're a Super Famicomfrom the far away land of Japan in disguise! No wonder my SuperNintendo game won't fit.

See, watch this.

A Super Famicom game won't normally fit into an American Super Nintendo.

See, told ya.

And you, you're not a slowass 50 hertz PAL Mega Drive, you're a U.

S.

NintendoEntertainment System in disguise.

My life, it's full of lies! That's okay though, just as long as my U.

S.

Sega Genesis is real, I'm good.

Uh-oh.

.