Lost and Found

I've been doing some Google Archaeology (TM) today and have discovered some intriguing stuff...
I know I've mentioned the Dreamcast version of Half-Life in the past (see Profile), but according to Wikipedia - the online encyclopaedia, there was another pretty decent first person shoot 'em up destined for the Dreamcast...Halo!

It's true - go here to see for yourself. I loved the original Halo on the Xbox - it was one of the greatest games I've ever experienced. Halo 2 was aaalright, but not as impressive as the prequel in my extremely humble opinion. This is pure speculation, but I suspect that the DC version of Halo was cancelled (if indeed it ever got past the planning stage) due to the failure of the system - but to be brutally honest, the move from the DC to the Xbox was probably the best thing that could have happened to it. As much as I adore the Dreamcast, I just can't see the hardware being able to produce as smooth, seamless and graphically astounding title as the Xbox did.

Anyway, Wikipedia is worth checking out if only to glimpse some of the other titles that never emerged. Further to those, I remember being pretty excited about the Dreamcast's answer to Goldeneye - Take The Bullet (top left). I read about it in a mag...then nothing. Another such game was Picasso (bottom left), a cat burgler simulator with impressive graphics and interesting stealth elements...but alas, that too vanished without a trace. How appropriate...

Finally, what the hell happened to that good looking truck racer 4X4 Evolution?! Answers on a postcard.

3 comments:

Ross said...

Yeah, I first heard about Picasso in 2001. It was planned for the DC, then the Playstation 2, then the Gamecube, and then I never heard anything about it. Worse yet, the game company who was supposed to bring us the game, Pro Designs, website has turned into fashionsource.com (the url for the old companies site was prodesigns.com, but it redirects). Oh well.

Tom Charnock said...

Yeah, It actually took more that a few entries in the Google window to find the screenshot of Picasso on the main screen. They were going to release another impressive looking game - a powerboat game like Hydro Thunder with cracking visuals, but that sank too (groan). Try Promethian Designs too.

Anonymous said...

4x4 Evolution came out in the States if that is any help