QOTW: It’s not “lost” as such since it’s available online but I’ve read the first draft script to George A Romero’s cancelled Resident Evil adaptation. It’s… not great. It’s mostly faithful to RE1 but even if it had released we’d still be looking back at it among the list of bad game adaptations.
You can find it online, but Chumbawamba's "Jesus H Christ" album has never been officially released because of having lots of uncleared samples. They released an updated version but it doesn't quite have the magic of the original.
QotW: Only one of these I remember seeing is when a version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine with the CGI special effects not done showed up on torrents before the movie's release.
I bought a GBC multicart and found that it came with the unfinished port of Resident Evil. To its credit, the game is surprisingly playable, but it's also easy to see why it was abandoned, as it was clearly a little too ambitious for the Game Boy Color hardware.
I owned a copy of Manhunt for ps2 which was recalled here in Australia after about a month on shelves, I think I gave it to a mate when I upgraded to the next generation late and didn't have the backwards compatible ps3.
When I was 18, I managed to score a ticket to E3, and flew there on my own dime (had to do some coverage for a small Game Boy web site as a part of it). Got to play the entire N64 demo of Dinosaur Planet, which was amazing. Also pretty sure I got to play Eternal Darkness on N64, too
During my brief time in the enthusiast press, I visited Amazon's Seattle headquarters to go hands-on with a game called Breakaway. It was a 4v4 hero brawler inspired by soccer - if I were describing it today, I'd say it was a bit like Overwatch with a ball instead of a payload.
I enjoyed what little I played, and it seemed well-designed and ready for release even though it was still in Alpha. This was right after Amazon had purchased Twitch, so they were trying to develop a game that would be entertaining to watch as well as play.
I believe there was at least one public test, but Breakaway was put on "indefinite hiatus" a month after I saw it, and officially canceled six months after that. I have no idea how many other people got to experience the game as I did. I thought it had a lot of potential, even in the early stages.
I remember I was seated next to a reporter from Time magazine and another actual print journalist from one of the Nordic countries. Neither seemed to know why they were there, and I doubt either wrote anything about it. My 7-year-old preview is one of the few pieces of evidence it ever existed.
Something else comes to mind, & it's an experience I'm sure I've shared with at least Chris and Mikel. Every year, there's a pinball/arcade convention called California Extreme, where collectors gather to show off their prized cabs & pins. There're always a few unique or prototype games displayed.
QotW: it's only partially lost media but I saw the dub of Evangelion 1.0 at a convention about 15 years ago. All existing versions are the 1.11 director's cut with finished/new special effects so a bunch of the dub has alternate takes by the actors to match the changes.
Got a few:
1. I've lived most of my life in the northern San Diego area, and as such as a kid my house also received some Los Angeles stations, including FOX 11, which was the home of King Koopa's Kool Kartoons for the brief time it aired. I had to wait many years for clips to prove it was real.
I am happy more of it has trickled onto the internet over time and am amazed a full episode still hasn't been found. It still feels super bizarre that this official spin-off of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show happened at all, let alone in just one market (as large as it is.)
2. I never got to play Mega Man Universe, but I did see the trailer and have promo art and a foam mega buster, both signed by Keiji Inafune, and a picture with him. (In a similar vein I have a promotional ECTO-1 plate from when Activision was going to publish Ghostbusters: The Video Game.)
3. The old Toho monster movie THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (re-cut in the U.S. as HALF HUMAN with new footage) has been effectively buried by Toho, probably due to some less-than-sensitive portrayals of certain indigenous Japanese folks, but someone uploaded it to the Internet Archive!
4. SHIN GODZILLA's brief run in U.S. theaters had a lot of extra, perhaps extraneous, text on screen, which in my opinion enhanced the gag whenever something was introduced or someone had their title changed and a bunch of text was thrown on screen. This missing from the home video release.
5. TOO MUCH COFFEE MAN: THE OPERA, which has some song clips on YouTube, is "lost" in the same way most live theater is, but I got to see it during its small premiere run at San Diego Comic-Con.
The closest I have is a copy of the TTRPG "C⁰ntinuum". I think it was a single print run. It's not even officially available as a PDF. I got a hold of one of the creators once, who politely told me that without the other creators cooperation, nothing can happen, and he refuses to talk about it.
Comments
1. I've lived most of my life in the northern San Diego area, and as such as a kid my house also received some Los Angeles stations, including FOX 11, which was the home of King Koopa's Kool Kartoons for the brief time it aired. I had to wait many years for clips to prove it was real.