I'm somewhat of a hoarder when it comes to old media, books, film, magazines, music, whatever it may be. Hell, I don't have a method of playing VHS tapes any longer yet I still keep the damn dusty things, despite the fact that I have most all my VHS films on DVD as well.
That being said, it's always interesting to look back, and it's especially interesting in the case of video games. I was flipping through old issues of PC Gamer and I noticed that a few games were entirely different in their original incarnations.
In many cases, games would often be entirely scrapped and rebuilt, in other cases, different teams would take over and the game would take a completely different direction. A few examples could be the original Team Fortress 2, or titles such as Prey.
Beyond that, there are also several games that were almost released, or at the very least, were hyped up before their release. Any X-Com fanatic remembers The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge, which promised to be a next-generation X-Com, developed by many people from the original X-Com team.
Team Fortress 2
This one was actually pretty interesting, in a preview from 2000, PC Gamer noted some details regarding the game that are pretty weird to look back on now.
-Voice communication was touted as a pretty big feature, obviously it wasn't as widespread back then (although it definitely was used to a lesser degree). It's weird to think that games such as Fireteam were considered pioneers back then, simply because they utilized voice communication.
-There was also supposed to be lip-synching for voice communication, so your player model would actually mouth what you were saying through your mic. An interesting idea, but it seems pretty useless and entirely negligible even aesthetically.
-There was a morale system in place, huddling around the Commander would improve morale, and there was also a "Coach" class would supposedly would be used for the purpose of improving morale.
-The players had a text-to-speech interface which was fed by an audio-bank of thousands of sound files. This was supposedly so that players wouldn't have to repeatedly voice repetitive commands.
-An RTS style game-mode that the article didn't go into much detail about.
-Players would be "driven" into a map by vehicles, including APCs and Jeeps.
-Obvious differences such as the more realistic graphical slant and more of a focus on squad tactics.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6d59xvzm30[/youtube]
The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge
I was pretty excited for this one. Developed by Mythos Games, with most of the developers from the original X-Com, it was supposed to be pretty much a remake of UFO. Humorously enough, the title was pretty much killed by one of our all-time favorite gaming companies, Bethesda. After being worked on for a few years, Dreamland was shaping up nicely and looked to be forming into something that could deliver on its promises. Bethesda however, promptly lobotomized the game by the year 2000 and restarted development. This was part of a pretty big Bethesda publishing blow-out, I remember a few other titles such as Storm (never released), Sea Dogs and a few others being on the lineup and hyped to a good degree.
However, after Bethesda restarted development it seemed like progress was being made in a very slip-shod fashion, so they dropped funding along with the game itself. Dreamland was picked up by Titus Interactive and ultimately axed, since by that point it had turned into nothing but shit.
Apparently the project eventually turned into one of those new UFO games, Aftermath or whatever, but since those are complete crap they're not really all that important.
Some cool things that were to be included in the game.
-Full destructible environments. Yes, this was in UFO Defense, but the level of destructibility in Freedom Ridge was impressive, there were shots of bricks tumbling from buildings and the destruction was pretty uniform and seemed far more dynamic that the simple tile replacements of its predecessor.
-The game was the reverse of X-Com in that it took place after Earth had been invaded by an alien force. There was likely to be a slight diplomatic element as you could apparently seek out other alien and human allies.
-Going along with the story, you were tasked with having to rebuild your forces, this meant research (A la UFO) and rescuing other humans, procuring armaments and ammunition, and so on. Because the Earth had been taken over, you couldn't simply purchase more equipment and stuff, you had to scavenge it, more troops meant rescuing prisoners.
-There was a first person mode for surveying through your troops' perspectives as well as to aim weapons manually.
-Plenty of vehicles were to be included, new vehicles could also be researched.
This kind of stuff always fascinates me. Because of the nature regarding the marketing of games and the hype-generation process that goes behind it, there's always a lot more stuff floating around about prototypes, alphas, earlier versions or incarnations, and titles that were just plain canceled.
I'm interesting in seeing how much interesting crap we can dig up from the past regarding these games that never were, or almost were.
That being said, it's always interesting to look back, and it's especially interesting in the case of video games. I was flipping through old issues of PC Gamer and I noticed that a few games were entirely different in their original incarnations.
In many cases, games would often be entirely scrapped and rebuilt, in other cases, different teams would take over and the game would take a completely different direction. A few examples could be the original Team Fortress 2, or titles such as Prey.
Beyond that, there are also several games that were almost released, or at the very least, were hyped up before their release. Any X-Com fanatic remembers The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge, which promised to be a next-generation X-Com, developed by many people from the original X-Com team.
Team Fortress 2
This one was actually pretty interesting, in a preview from 2000, PC Gamer noted some details regarding the game that are pretty weird to look back on now.
-Voice communication was touted as a pretty big feature, obviously it wasn't as widespread back then (although it definitely was used to a lesser degree). It's weird to think that games such as Fireteam were considered pioneers back then, simply because they utilized voice communication.
-There was also supposed to be lip-synching for voice communication, so your player model would actually mouth what you were saying through your mic. An interesting idea, but it seems pretty useless and entirely negligible even aesthetically.
-There was a morale system in place, huddling around the Commander would improve morale, and there was also a "Coach" class would supposedly would be used for the purpose of improving morale.
-The players had a text-to-speech interface which was fed by an audio-bank of thousands of sound files. This was supposedly so that players wouldn't have to repeatedly voice repetitive commands.
-An RTS style game-mode that the article didn't go into much detail about.
-Players would be "driven" into a map by vehicles, including APCs and Jeeps.
-Obvious differences such as the more realistic graphical slant and more of a focus on squad tactics.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6d59xvzm30[/youtube]
The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge
I was pretty excited for this one. Developed by Mythos Games, with most of the developers from the original X-Com, it was supposed to be pretty much a remake of UFO. Humorously enough, the title was pretty much killed by one of our all-time favorite gaming companies, Bethesda. After being worked on for a few years, Dreamland was shaping up nicely and looked to be forming into something that could deliver on its promises. Bethesda however, promptly lobotomized the game by the year 2000 and restarted development. This was part of a pretty big Bethesda publishing blow-out, I remember a few other titles such as Storm (never released), Sea Dogs and a few others being on the lineup and hyped to a good degree.
However, after Bethesda restarted development it seemed like progress was being made in a very slip-shod fashion, so they dropped funding along with the game itself. Dreamland was picked up by Titus Interactive and ultimately axed, since by that point it had turned into nothing but shit.
Apparently the project eventually turned into one of those new UFO games, Aftermath or whatever, but since those are complete crap they're not really all that important.
Some cool things that were to be included in the game.
-Full destructible environments. Yes, this was in UFO Defense, but the level of destructibility in Freedom Ridge was impressive, there were shots of bricks tumbling from buildings and the destruction was pretty uniform and seemed far more dynamic that the simple tile replacements of its predecessor.
-The game was the reverse of X-Com in that it took place after Earth had been invaded by an alien force. There was likely to be a slight diplomatic element as you could apparently seek out other alien and human allies.
-Going along with the story, you were tasked with having to rebuild your forces, this meant research (A la UFO) and rescuing other humans, procuring armaments and ammunition, and so on. Because the Earth had been taken over, you couldn't simply purchase more equipment and stuff, you had to scavenge it, more troops meant rescuing prisoners.
-There was a first person mode for surveying through your troops' perspectives as well as to aim weapons manually.
-Plenty of vehicles were to be included, new vehicles could also be researched.
This kind of stuff always fascinates me. Because of the nature regarding the marketing of games and the hype-generation process that goes behind it, there's always a lot more stuff floating around about prototypes, alphas, earlier versions or incarnations, and titles that were just plain canceled.
I'm interesting in seeing how much interesting crap we can dig up from the past regarding these games that never were, or almost were.
