The Best Games Never Published: A Visit to the Video Game Development Hell

It's a sad fact of life in the video game industry that many titles never see the light of day - even those games that are essentially finished and ready to launch. TwitchGuru takes a look at some of the best games never published and explores the depth of development hell.

Yeah, Stalker is just another Duke Nukem Forever. It was supposed to be released like when? 3 years ago? I hope it does actualy get released.

Here's one that ticked me off. Sierra's Babylon 5 game. Yes the TV show had horrific acting, but the storyline was great as were the special effects. I'm part of a dying breed that loves space combat sims. Tie-Fighter, Wing Commander, in that order. I even have a retail-shrink wrapped copy of the original X-wing which is worth absolutely nothing. So as you can tell, I love space combat sims and couldn't wait for this game. The inertial control system looked like a much needed (and overlooked) aspect of space combat sims.

Then Sierra canceled it.

Fortunately you can download a similiar title called I Found Her. It's fun, and features that spiffy inertial control system. It's also tough to fly.

Six months ago... in the grand scheme of delays it's not all that bad. At least they're still showing us new stuff.

A couple of honorable mentions IMO that should have been noted:

Sonic Crackers (Sonic 4 for Genesis)
MechWarrior 5

you can count me on the list for those who would have picked up Sim Mars


As for Nintendo Wii Download releases...I might pay for some of the NES+SNES games—3rd parties and non North American releases only tho. I can pick up anything else for $1-$10 (CAN) at my local flee market. NES and SNES alike.

Personally its the first system i have ever concidered rushing out and buying. Now that they are charging for ALL downloadable games... i think i'll wait it out and see what happens.

I have one and it sucks arse. I can't get rid of it though; its retro-ness is too powerful for me.

That wouldn't be "The Wizard", with Fred Savage would it? That movie sucked harder than Monica Lewinsky with a vacuum cleaner.

Yeah it is.

Here's a clip for those that don't know what we're talking about.

Arrgh make it stop MAKE IT STOP! His mullet is blinding me! Bad means good! He is totally radical!

Help me! The retroness is trying to take over my body! Musn't...buy...Hypercolour...t-shirt.
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Phew.

P.S. exarrkun, I believe PREY is slated for a September release. Starcraft ghost was "indefinitely delayed".

Fallout 3.
I've been waiting many years for a third installment of the Fallout series.
Last I heard, Fallout 3 was supposed to be under development by Bethesda using the same engine as Oblivion. But I haven't heard anything recently about that.
The first Fallout was classic. If you've never played it, the concept was that your character was one of a few survivors in a fallout shelter. You are tasked with leaving "The Vault" in search of a replacement water chip for the vault's water purification system. This entails a search of the nuked out wasteland of the former United States of America, while defending yourself against giant irradiated scorpions, alien critters and the mutated remants of humanity.
Fallout 2 was buggy but still a great deal of fun.
I'm not sure how well the Fallout franchise would translate to the first-person format of the Elder Scrolls Series (Fallout 1 and 2 were both third-person and combat was turn-based) but I'd still like to give it a try.

Unless, the version I played was just a very long demo, that game actually was released. I miss those old click and move games

Actually Starcraft Ghost is not a sequel to startcraft. Blizzard hasn’t even announced that!

Actually Starcraft Ghost is not a sequel to startcraft. Blizzard hasn’t even announced that!


yeah but it's in the same universe, isn't it??

Yes it is in the same universe but if what I remember is correct it was a action game developed for the x-box. No PC strategy game based on the starcraft universe was ever announced (i.e. excluding the first one).

On the other hand considering that the starcraft universe is a rip off of the warhammer 40k one, all we need would be a second expansion of Dawn of War with the Tyranids as a playable race, and we would have a better alternative to starcraft.

I was talking about the sequel to the original, which was a terrific game and was a tremendous hit for Lucas Arts.
They announced on 2002 "Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels" which was going to be the "3D" sequel, eight years after the original release, and out of the blue they announced by a press release on August 7th 2003 that they "didn't want to disappoint the fans" so they were discountinuing the development. They disappointed the fans after all

http://www.lucasarts.com/products/ [...] /press.htm

http://www.lucasarts.com/press/releases/81.html