The Dreamcast Junkyard: The Games That Never Were: Episode 8

We've dutifully shared Pcwzrd's fantastic The Games That Never Were series here at the 'Yard ever since it first hit YouTube, and the reason for this is twofold. First, the videos are a fantastic insight into the Dreamcast titles we were promised back in the day, but for whatever reason we never got the opportunity to sample. Second, Pcwzrd works his ass off on this series and we feel they deserve more views. And while we're on the subject of videos that deserve your eyes to be cast over them, go and watch Dreamcast Hub's latest video review of Puzzle Fighter 2X here.

Back to the matter at hand though. The Games That Never Were is a series focused solely on the multitude of games that were promised for Sega's final console but were never released for public consumption. As Pcwzrd explains in the intro, there were a staggering number of projects in the works when the plug was pulled on the Dreamcast and many of these were either switched to other platforms or simply cancelled and lost to the fiery mists of development hell, never to be seen again.

Hellgate. Image credit: Unseen64

I make no secret of my obsession with cancelled games, and I'm forever scouring awesome sites like Unseen64; and my favourite part of reading old magazines is undoubtedly searching for the slightest mention of an unreleased Dreamcast game, no matter how vague the reference. With this in mind, you can probably see where my love for this series stems from!

In episode 8, Pcwzrd takes a look at such canned beauties as vehicular action adventure Hellgate, a 3D continuation of the Streets of Rage series and Akolyte, a 3D platformer based on mythologies from the ancient Greek, Norse and Egyptian civilisations. This game was of particular interest to me when I saw it mentioned in magazines of the era as I was studying Classics at the time, and was keen to see how much the developers embellished the (already ridiculous) epic tales of antiquity.

Perhaps the most interesting here is Sega's planned arcade-to-home conversion of Emergency Call Ambulance, a game in the vein (intravenous?) of Crazy Taxi, but where ambulances were substituted for cabs and accident victims were substituted for lazy, fat gits who wanted to be taken two blocks to the nearest Pizza Hut. This particular game was reportedly intended to be part of an arcade compilation comprising other titles based on the exploits of the emergency services (including Brave Firefighters, and titled Real Life Careers). Considering the ease with which the Dreamcast handled Crazy Taxi et al, these conversions probably wouldn't have been much of a problem for Sega to pull off. Enough from me, here's episode 8 of The Games That Never Were:

Thanks once again to Pcwzrd for putting this together. The previous episodes can be viewed by visiting Dreamcastic Channel on YouTube or by following the links below. Also, be sure to check out his other endeavour Dreamcast Live - the net's premier information source for getting back online with your Dreamcast; and for keeping up to date with Luke Benstead's DreamPi, new online competitions and regular tournament nights.