Hellraiser
Platform: PlayStation
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami

The Basics

According to EGM's West Coast editor, Wataru Maruyama (who participated in the project as an artist), the Hellraiser game was loosely based on the movie by the same name, and would have revolved around the goal of your character collecting "charms." Although the license would suggest fairly gory creatures with chains and piercings, the development teams were told to let their imaginations run amok and create whatever they thought the creatures should look like. The only prerequisite was that the characters needed to resemble whatever their assigned names were. The only character that had to be drawn exactly was Pin Head.

WHAT HAPPENED?
Maruyama explained why the game apparently wasn't picked up: "According to the developer, Konami pitched the game and the Hellraiser people didn't bite or wanted too much money. [The developer's] not entirely sure. A small attempt was made to change the game enough to avoid lawsuits, but the whole project was scrapped. [The developer] didn't know why Konami looked for artists here [US] since development would have taken place in Japan. As legend goes, it was slated for Japanese PC (probably 9801 series) and as a Super Famicom title."

Incredible Idiots in Space
Platform: PlayStation
Publisher: ASC

The Basics

Incredible Idiots in Space was to be a comedy adventure complete with talking toilets and other such slapstick touches. Thirty-six different alien life forms would have participated in the game and you would have been able to select your own dialog when talking to them. IIIS would have supported two players.

WHAT HAPPENED?
According to ASC's Jayson Bernstein, the reason that game never made it past alpha was because ASC didn't really believe that the PlayStation market was ready for a comedy game. The humor was very Simpsons- like at the time, and could probably be compared to South Park now. However, while the market may be there now, the game would definitely not meet today's technological standards that we currently see on the PlayStation.

Island of Dr. Moreau
Platform: PlayStation
Publisher: Psygnosis

The Basics

The Island of Dr. Moreau might have been a bit like taking a field trip through H.G. Wells' brain. Psygnosis never said much about the movie-to-home-game, other than offering enthusiasm-building lines of description such as "Manbeasts yearn for the warmth of fresh blood. And it's yours they can smell. Feel the fear as it grows inside." But we do know that it was to be a 3D action-adventure game with real-time rendered characters and hi-res FMV backgrounds. The FMV would've included real actors in motion-captured sequences.

WHAT HAPPENED?
It's said that the French developers made the game look gorgeous, but the playability wasn't there, so Psygnosis scrapped the project.