Extreme makeovers
 

Throughout the years many games have appeared in which the final product looked (drastically) different from the previews. Examples I can think of are Donk (different main sprite, baddies and music), Lemmings 2 (no zoom-in/zoom-out mode in final game), Disposable Hero (different level lay-out) and The Blues Brothers (different baddie-sprites and level lay-out).

For my site I am looking for scanned previews of games that turned into something different. I am especially looking for early previews of Walker. I know that in CU Amiga and Amiga Joker screenshots were released where the pilot left the Walker and started to hunt for extra power-ups.
If you know any game that looks different can you give some information or put some screenshots here? Thanks. :)

Uridium was supposed to have a section where the Mantha got transformed into a robot and entered the dreadnought core in a side-view platformish shoot'em up action thingy fashion. There were pics of this in many WIPs

Alien Breed 2 had very gory piccies that were removed later in the game.

Speris Legacy started as a side-on kind of game!

And I can't think of any more right now.

AddamsFamily and a supposed second background scroller.

Also, AdidasChampionshipFootball was supposed to be the football game with biggers players sprites in history,.. but they released another game totally different.

Im not sure but, in ChaseHQ screeshots were a helicopter,.. but I guess in Amiga/ST versions I played there isnt.

The initial screenshots for Alien Breed 3D 2 used maps from the first game, and they looked fantastic. If only they'd kept them instead of creating the abomination the game turned into.

The first Breed 3D was released as a demo, which was completely different to the finished game. Different graphics, different enemies, different screen layout, etc.

An awful lot of magazines included screenshots from Elite 2: Frontier that were never included in the final game. There was a shot of Big Ben in particular that looks as if it was mocked up in a paint package, but was included in a variety of mags from different publishers.

The Chaos Engine was originally supposed to have 3 characters on screen.

Virocop was supposed to have a small tank as player sprite instead of the robot of the final version.

I bought DOGFIGHT by MICROPROSE because it was announced (in german printing magazine) to have a TWO-PLAYER Head to head "Dogfight" part...

and then I noticed it was not available in the AMIGA version... :(

Would have loved to "dagg,dagg,dagg" my best friend down ;)

this was so disappointing that I placed it on the top of my shelves - where it still stands today :crazy

In Worms, the characters were originally supposed to have glasses. That's what that little thing is that bounces around after you kill them.

? I thought they were cluster bombs left for mayhem?

Landmines

Well, that's what Andy Davidson told me in #worms years back. If you look closely, you can see the glasses pop off the head briefly when you fire a bazooka.

Have you got some scanned pictures of these WIP-games? I am really curious what the games would have looked like.

Has any of you actually played previews of the mentioned games? Lately I played the Dong-preview from an Amiga Format coverdisk. The game looked and sounded quite nice but only the boring gameplay has been retained in the final game.

sorry if this is a little off-topic, but..

can you get this weapon?? I never seen it.
http://www.thelegacy.de/pics/screen/s/Swiv_b.gif
http://www.thelegacy.de/pics/screen/s/swiv.gif

Yeah you can, in fact you can get a weapon that fires in all 8 directions (including backwards), just shoot at the item box for AGES. and I mean f-ing ages. It'll turn into a star! Grab it!

You need to shoot it EXACTLY 50 times. 51 and it's gone. Grab the star like KG said and enjoy :)

I don't think a game has undergone more of a change than Syndicate! It was almost a completely different game when it was first conceived! (It turned out fab, though.)

I discuss to include this kind of thing in the forthcoming aGTW site.
Even if it's not strictly related to "games that weren't" it's another interesting bit to see for any respectable amiga fan...

However, some other examples:

F1 Challenge: real sponsors painted on the signs
Overdrive: diagonal tracks (and not only the 90° or 180° turns)
Fire and Ice, Lethal Weapon: different main sprite
Jaguar (Core), Puggsy, Outrun Europa: the graphics was totally redesigned

Nice thread Tim.
Going off some old recollections, but recall a couple of Preview articles mostly from The One.
In one of the first "game diary" entries of Alien Breed II, a mention was made of the AGA version sporting a "sprite playfield" amongst the tech ideas, subsequently dropped. Ditto also was a mention of a possible driving section moving from one part of the colony base to another ala Aliens.

Cannon Fodder was originally talked about being a more RPGish approach to the soldier characters in terms of individual abilities etc.,but as discussed later by Jon Hare in an interview/preview, the idea was dropped for the subsequently more simple to control design in the finished game.

Btw, Akira, if I recall, I think those Uridium II sequence was an overhead perspective, & was made mention of in the first couple of diary entries of Andy Braybrook,(with mockups). And of course there was the infamous "controversial" dual-playfield version which he got up & running, but looked dull in static photographs being 16 colours,as opposed to the 32 colour non-playfield version.

If I also recall in a WIP of Kid Chaos (?), they dropped the original main character sprite,(I think at the behest of Ocean, was it?), & replaced it with the Caveman-like character wearing the jumper-ironically a source of criticism in the subsequent review!

I think I remember Revelation being fairly different in a demo from the retail game, like the story of opening a safe instead of a simple puzzle game, gfx changes etc.

screenshot from Walker:

That looks rather different doesn't it?