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| Article of the Month: Games that Never Saw the Light (Part 2) (Nov - Dec) |
| In this months article I will discuss games that because Sega going 3rd party and stopping Dreamcast production never saw the light of day. The reasons vary from fearing low sales; poor quality to 9/11 but one thing is the same they were never released. Page: 1 , 2 , 3 Half Life Half Life, the ground breaking FPS for the PC, was a hit when it was released in 1998. Half Life follows the story of a scientist named Gordon Freeman. As you prepare to conduct an experiment in a under ground base in the desert called Black Mesa, something goes wrong. Releasing aliens to infest the facility. Not only that but the government is trying to cover it all up and that means killing all the people who might spread the word as in you and anyone else who has survived. Also the game was to contain the PC add-on called Blue-Shift. Blue Shift is based around a Black Mesa security guard. The add-on consisted of 27 new missions, which would have greatly added to the games replay value. At first the game was to contain a online game play but as time pasted Sierra decided to release it without it most likely to make it so they could get the game it self out as fast as possible. But to make up for not having their first Half Life with online game play, Sierra started development of a second Dreamcast Half-Life dedicated to online multiplayer for release in the first quarter of 2001. But when the first one wasn't released on time this game was put on the back burner and might not have even been started. It was rumored to contain Opposing Force and Counter Strike. But why was it cancelled: In February 14, 2000 Sierra and Valve announced their smash PC hit Half Life was going to be ported over to the Dreamcast. The first of the two games was going to be released in Q 4 of 2000. Then in November of 2000 came the reports that the first game was still not done. Sierra said nothing until it was announced it would be released in June 2001. Then the wave of rumors saying it was going to be cancelled based on some real facts, certain retailers had Half-Life for Dreamcast removed it from their catalogs. Then they released the pain full news "Sierra regrets the cancellation of Half-Life for the Dreamcast due to changing market conditions.". Sierra felt that canceling the game would be less costlier than putting it out on the market. There is some reason to the decision; other than first party titles, the sales of third party Dreamcast titles had been rapidly decreasing to the point where even the Capcom was unsure of releasing Capcom vs SNK 2 in the US. It�s was an outrage that they let people think it was going to be released for so long. While it was possible to have another publisher publish it, the Dreamcast was to far gone at that time and no one would. And not only did Dreamcast fans miss out but Prima printed thousands of strategy guides for it, only to see it was not going to be released. If there is any good news from this is that an un-finished version of the game was released on the net and can be found and downloaded. The following are pictures from the game (Click Here for more photo's): |
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