World Scariest Police Chases, Test Drive Cycles, TTB and Max Payne for Dreamcast

Does anyone have more info about them?

World Scariest Police Chases- Announced in 1999 for PC and Dreamcast and it was playable E3 2000 for PC Only, it was released in the end only to the PS1 in 2001, appearently the game that Assembler was looking once that was called COPS (no images found) ended being this PS1 game, the sequel got cancelled and an alpha build was leaked in 2013/2014.

Test Drive Cycles -Years ago some of the discs were found, LeGit sold his in 2006, and other user had lended one of his three copies to dreamcasthistory (an extinct site/forum), VasilyDC has one and an youtube user called hi has another, like it was stated once, it's just tech demo, the PS1 version was found by PlayStation Museum and it was in an very complete state.

Take the Bullet (TTB due to the word limit on the thread title) - An on Rails shooter that it was actually announced in the Dreamcast early life and it was meant to be released in Xmas 1999, but it missed and in 2001 it was still being promised, at the time, the developer Red Lemon was acting as an 2nd party to SEGA, an also according to one of the devs, the main character Jack Travis had his face modelled after Steve McQueen. While looking for info about Max Payne for Dreamcast someone said that TTB was being shown in a few images in the extinct dreamcasthistory forums after one saying that he probably saw Max there, the images are probably the ones that are in Unseen64.

Max Payne - It was stated by Take Two press that the port would be only developed after the PC version went gold, since the game only got gold in June/July 2001 the Dreamcast was dead already, not sure if was Borman that said that a Katana Devkit was at Remedy once but all they did was a Tech Demo, while others said that Remedy didn't even had a Devkit.

 

These have all been discussed in detail here many times...

Two of them are known to exist - Test Drive Cycles and Take The Bullet - We've seen pictures of both and discs have changed hands (in the case of Test Drive Cycles quite a few times...) Take The Bullet remains with the one person who posted pictures online over at DreamcastHistory. I can't remember the story but I'm pretty sure the owner of TTB had no intention of ever releasing it, not then.... and we can assume not now, either.

There's one more physical copy of a game that's exchanged hands over the years and that's 'Heroes of Might and Magic 3' which Legit owned and then sold on (I believe to Vasily) Years ago Vasily told me he'd release them eventually but that was years (and years) ago and doesn't look likely.

We can only hope someone else finds copies of TTB and HoMaM3... otherwise they should probably be considered lost as of 2015 - I don't see either Vasily or the guy who had TTB ever releasing them - they may not even have them anymore.

I believe Max Payne on the Dreamcast was debunked here a number of times, possibly even by someone who was working at Take Two on the other ports of Max Payne at the time. I'm confident that one really doesn't exist from my hazy recollections of what's been reported over the years.

 

My friend worked at Remedy, he said it was only run on PC Hardware, there was nothing done on Dreamcast.

 

I know that is not mentioned on this thread...but does anyone have new information about Soul Reaver 2 Dreamcast ?

 

not much was done of SR2 on dreamcast before it was moved to ps2 http://www.thelostworlds.net/SR2/Soul_Reaver_2_for_the_Sega_Dreamcast.html

 

That thread title, I almost got a heart attack...

 

A Worms Pinball seems to exists too. I do not know who but someone said he owns a copy. I have to search the forum to find some more details.

 

True that.

TTB was 40% completed and in the hands of a private collector. The most he would do for the public he's already done. That would be show screenshots of the game in action, which arnoldlayne covered (amazing name by the way).

Also as Jackalus has stated, nothing was done for DC Max Payne. Pretty sure less work was done on that than GTAIII for the DC. Personally I'd be more interested in finding a working copy of Agartha. Love Frédérick Raynal since Alone in the Dark 1992 was IMO a masterpiece.

Pretty sure Worms Pinball was practically completed.

 

I forgot about Worms Pinball - that's been sold here (years ago) in the marketplace and a year or two back someone said they had it and posted info here... it was never released but we can safely assume at least two copies are out there in the wild.

That makes three games/tech demos on GD-Rom that are known to exist.

 

But surely a beta must exists. The question is...does somebody has it? or it rests on a devkit in some storage room in the Crystal Dynamics offices...

 

CONFESSION TIME:

Back in college, I had a close friend whose brother actually worked at Team 17 as a tester and network code programmer. Since he knew me and felt satisfied that I was a reputable forum member with quite the private collection of prototypes that had never leaked through my copies, I was offered the chance to own one of two possible Dreamcast titles. Not really being interested in Worms Pinball and yet to discover just how rare this was, I settled for a "promotional" build of Armageddon that seemed virtually identical to the retail version, only with an incomplete box design - my understanding is that it may have been specially created to preview the game at a trade event. Sadly, just last year I was forced to sell this rarity for a much lower price than I had been expecting, but at the time I needed the money quite badly after being laid off from my biggest-earning part time job at the time. As part of my agreement with the buyer, I didn't make a personal backup of this, although I did later receive the retail edition of World Party for nothing as well, plus I got to know about the development of what was then still known as Worms 3, intended to be published by Activision. Good times... (and thanks, AC!)

 

Hey anthaemia did you hear anything about JSRF running on dreamcast in your college days? I know the games was released on the original XBOX in 2002,but wouldn't

have sega did some work of the game on the dreamcast( maybe a few beta levels).

 

AFAIK Team 17 is a german company that has zero to do with sega.

 

I seem to recall Team 17's offices being on the outskirts of Wakefield just a few miles from myself right here in the UK, though I've also read that they later relocated to the city centre. To be honest, I've no idea whether or not they're still there because I lost touch with a few of my contacts not long after this. One thing I do know is that Sega became involved with the company when Activision pulled out of publishing Worms 3, which was heavily promoted around 2002. Offering to fund its development (supposedly because the Dreamcast era management wanted to avoid the same situation as on the Saturn, which received very few Team 17 titles by comparison), Sega was responsible for distributing what became Worms 3D in Europe, with various other companies handling its release overseas. In fact, I'm fairly sure that Team 17 was even given the opportunity to sign on as one of Sega's so-called "1.5 party" providers behind closed doors, only the negotiations fell through because it would have meant abandoning the highly lucrative PC and PlayStation markets.

As for Jet Set Radio Future on the Dreamcast, I think this was one of the many games that later found its way onto the Xbox once Sega gave up its hardware division. I'm writing this without access to all my original notes, but to the best of my ability, here is a list of the other various titles known to have started production with the intention of appearing on Dreamcast, only to eventually be completed for rival platforms, including the systems they were made available for:

Sega GT 2002 (Xbox)
Gunvalkyrie (Xbox)
Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox)
ToeJam & Earl III (Xbox)
Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox)
The House Of The Dead III (Xbox)
Super Monkey Ball (GameCube)
Beach Spikers (GameCube)
Shinobi (PlayStation 2)
Virtua Fighter 4 (PlayStation 2 - Dreamcast version cancelled after preliminary tech demo research)
Sonic Heroes (PS2/GC/Xbox/PC - first announced in 2001 as Sonic & Knuckles RPG for the Dreamcast)
OutRun 2 (original Genki prototype, cancelled due to AM2 taking over production)
Knight 'N' Knight (planned Clockwork Knight sequel, intended for GameCube then cancelled)

 

At first I thought you were talking about the Activision PS1 title Armageddon ported to the DC. Then I realized how dumb I was haha.

I wonder how that original OutRun 2 would have played.

 

Gunvalkyrie certainly has a beta, there are screenshots and videos that proves it http://www.gamershell.com/static/screenshots/0/7048/144460_full.jpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zyeBm1z__E
Hope someday it gets leaked. May be Anthaemia, or someboy else here have valuable info.

ToeJam and Earl we all know that got released in 2013.

i would love to watch at least a screenshot of that OutRun Genki´s proto on DC. Same with that VF 4 Tech demo (i´m 100% sure that DC can handle a decent version of the game, may be with visuals downgraded even compared with the PS2, but still graphically impressive).

Sega GT 2002, Super Monkey Ball, Panzer Dragon Orta and Shinobi would be important aditions to DC Catalogue, and i think they would make the commercial system´s life last a little bit longer in US and Europe...How close could they take the DC hard with those titles? specially with Sega GT 2002 and Panzer Dragon?

For me personally, it would be remarkable, if someday i´m able to play the betas of Soul Reaver 2, Scud Race, Gunvalkyrie on my DC...Hope someday i´ll be rich, hahahaha, just to buy that builds to whoever owns them (no matter the price) and release them all to everyone...

In other hand...is still too far away the day that the homebrew scene can develop a 3D engine that can take advantage of the entire DC hard (and beyond)? may be with that we can all finally play on our DC custom versions of that games that were cancelled, and lotta of newer things too...

 

Scud Race for Dreamcast is a pretty mystery, Anathemia, what about the things that you did find about the game since the Supercar prototype?

Anyway, the Dreamcast port was only know in 2004 thanks to Jolly Roger, but it was running in a early Devkit, I think it was dated back in September 97, it was the SET 2.1 IIRC, appearently that tech demo was made by Core Design (Fighting Force deal?), but it didn't got too far. I've heard that the possible reason was because the BPR was turned into FIA in 1997.

 

I really wish I could post my findings on the "SuperCar" prototype (along with two other little known AM2 projects from around the same era), but all of the media and research notes are stuck on a computer that's currently out of commission - I really wish I could do something sooner as it's forced me to significantly delay quite a few other plans as well.

Core Design was indeed responsible for that Dreamcast tech demo of SCUD Race, but it was first documented in early 1998, although media didn't surface until years later. I'd never considered licensing issues with the BPR becoming the FIA as a reason why this conversion never happened, although it would at least explain why only the tracks were able to be featured in OutRun 2. Also, this could be the answer behind why an arcade sequel never happened outside of the Plus upgrade...

Speaking of OutRun 2, Genki started working on this as Daytona USA 3 for the Dreamcast, only for AM2 to suggest they changed the intended series when Daytona 2001 failed to achieve the success of the original. I seem to recall that United Game Artists were also asked around this time to consider another Sega Rally sequel, but for similar reasons (and Tetsuya Mizuguchi turning his back on the racing genre to complete K-Project, AKA Rex), this remained on the back burner until the original's 10th anniversary.

I've mentioned this before, but Virtua Fighter 4 never got past the preliminary technical research stage, even though I fully agree that a scaled down port would still have been well within the Dreamcast's capabilities. My guess is that Yu Suzuki either unrealistically wanted to hold out for hardware that could flawlessly reproduce the NAOMI 2 standard of visuals after what happened to VF3 or he was made a good offer by Sony. On the other hand, was his heart really still in the VF series at this point or were the switches back to the second game more the growing influence of those who would soon take over direction of the franchise?

 

I wish that tech demo from Jolly Roger was leaked, someone here also have one, without textures though, didn't someone post a video on YT saying that A goes foward and Z goes backward?

Also, was the Saturn version really developed or it never got past the concept stage?

 

I'd have said that SCUD Race never made it beyond the conceptual stage on the Saturn, but on the other hand it's known that Core Design were contracted to produce something before they were given the chance to develop the Katana tech demo. Also, let's not forget that rather than just being a piece of planned hardware that never went any further than the drawing board, the Eclipse upgrade reached the point where a working prototype existed - this was more than likely a series of PC components designed to emulate the intended final cartridge design once this could be scaled down to production size. Despite the rumours of both SCUD Race and Virtua Fighter 3 being in development for this, neither was produced by AM2 since nobody at Sega of Japan even knew what the Eclipse was until the powers that be rejected supporting this in favour of a standalone next generation solution. In the past I've seen Core Design linked to this particular version of SCUD Race, though it's also been claimed they were looking to port Tomb Raider II (which is unlikely when you consider that Sony had already paid for console exclusivity). I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there was able to make the rolling SCUD Race Dreamcast tech demo into a playable single track, although I've no idea if the physics and controls were ever implemented. Still, just look at what is being done right now with the Resident Evil 2 prototype and various builds of Sonic Xtreme, both for systems far harder to program from the perspective of a homebrew coder who may not have access to full source material... we should cross our fingers!

P.S. Did you know that for a very brief period, AM2 was reportedly converting VF3 to the M2 as a planned launch title?