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Daily updates on video games and popular culture, along with Australia’s grooviest gaming podcast.
Welcome to the Black List, our regular retrospective on the week in games.
On MONDAY, we took a look at the new trailer for Rock of Ages, the forthcoming turn based action game from the creators of Zeno Clash.
On TUESDAY, Katauri Interactive impressed us by spotting a non-existent gap in the market for their fantasy themed MMO Royal Quest.
On WEDNESDAY, we considered conflicting reports regarding the status of WarDevil, Ignition Entertainment’s long awaited sci-fi action game.
On THURSDAY, we brought you the latest on Homefront, Tribes Universe, Doom and more in nanoBITES our ongoing feature devoted to small but important news items.
On FRIDAY, we brought you tales from Monster Island, the Irrational Games blockbuster that never was.
Thanks for reading.
Erin Marcon (@ErinMarcon)
Editor
They said it couldn’t be done… and they were right.
Irrational Games has lifted the lid on an unsuccessful internal pitch dating back to 2001. According to the proposal, Monster Island would have challenged players to control either a gargantuan beast or the defence personnel responsible for bringing it down. The game was to include 20 original monsters along with the capacity to generate custom creatures. A key feature of the game would have been its fully destructible environments.
The pitch was authored by studio founder and BioShock creator Ken Levine. In true Hollywood style, the document makes allusions to other successful brands, including Black & White, Power Stone 2 and Rampage. The latter, with its colossal monsters and destructible cities, is perhaps the obvious influence.
Despite the studio’s impressive pedigree as a PC developer, Monster Island was mooted for a console release. Having said that, the pitch document does refer to PS2 development as “a pain in the butt”, which may partly explain why Irrational went on to make Tribes: Vengeance for PC instead.
The images displayed here were produced by Irrational for a recent Monster Island retrospective and did not accompany the original pitch.
