First of all, Vapourware is the kind of crap that annoys almost everyone in the gaming community. It consist of countless “hype schemes”, delays and concepts. Now I will display my Wikipedia skills by pasting this description;
Wiki - Vaporware is a software or hardware product which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. The term implies unwarranted optimism, or sometimes even deception; that is, it may imply that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility.
So what are our most memorable pieces of Vapourware? Well the list could go on for pages-and-pages, so I will break this up into a series of articles that will span over the next few weeks. (Annoying? Yes. Making it an easier to write? yes.)
1 – The Phantom games system – Sh*t is supposed to come out the other end.
This vapourware first made its way into the public eye in 2002. after the start of a new company, Infinium Labs, soon announced that they will be releasing a revolutionary games system (strike 1).
When we first saw the Phantom in action we believed that there would be hope for this David going up against Goliaths like the Playstation 2 and Xbox. They even turned up for E3! However, this on-demand console slowly started fading into the background and soon it was 2004 (strike 2).
At this point Infinium labs had already announced the specs of the console as well as releasing a few images of the systems interface and styling. They had also announced that the console was still in development and that we would see it around the same time the Xbox 360 was set to be released… Then… Nothing. (strike 3 – Poof, it was gone). I-labs say that the console has been “delayed indefinatly”, translation from vapour talk – “We were talking sh*t from day one and we thought that we would go on with the whole shenanigan for 4-years…”
2- Starcraft Ghost – Where the hell was it?
Okay, we know that it was “only” in development for half of the time Duke Nukum Forever has been, but all we got for Ghost was a few trailers and some leaked footage. No matter how good it looked, it just kept fading and fading until Blizzard said “postponed indefinitely”… Postponed ? Sure…
3- The Red Star - Demo’s should come out with a game followingOne day I bought a copy of OXM, I upon inserting the disc into my Xbox I was pleased to see a demo of a game that I had not yet heard about. I pressed play and was pleasantly introduced to a game that had historic potential. I played the demo every day for about a month with so much excitement and enthusiasm. Then BANG. Cancelled. The maker of the game, Acclaim Studios went bankrupt (great timing). XS games and Jak of All Games picked up where Acclaim left off which we assumed was good news. Until they said those few painful words. “Only for Playstation 2”. So I bought it, played it, coastered it. The lesson here is don’t release a demo if your not giving us the game
4- Marvel universe Online – Just don’t…
As fans of the actual Marvel universe we were hyped to see that a MMO was being developed that plans to take history from 60 years of Marvel Comics as well as integrate current events in the comic books for the next five to ten years. “Wow” (no pun intended) is the first thing that came out of our mouths, closely followed by “good luck with that”.
The game was given the boot on February 11, 08 due to “an inability to compete with the current market”… Excuses, excuses…
5- Kill Bill – Greedy you say ?
Way back Vivendi Universal bought the rights to make a Kill Bill game, it was even available to pre-order *sigh*. But then VU said that no game was in or will be in development.
Say what? This left us thinking what the hell was the point of them buying a licence if they’re never going to use it? Unless we see a new, similar franchise from Tarintino (Kill Bob ?) I don’t think we will ever get to go Crazy on the 88 whilst listening to the flight of the bumblebee.
Check back on Monday for Part II… Or maybe I will hype it up so much and decide that I can no longer be bothered to release it because I am lazy…
