Mario Takes America (lost build of cancelled Philips CD-i edutainment game; 1992-1994)
Magazine article about Mario Takes America.
Status: Lost
In 1992, Toronto-based developer Cigam pitched a CD-i game featuring Mario to Philips, who were impressed and funded the game.
The game was to be an educational game featuring Mario visiting various locations in the United States, Mario Takes America.
Premise
In this game project, Mario arrived in New York and traveled across the country in various vehicles to reach Hollywood so he could star in a feature film. It was to use full-motion video footage, some of which was already recorded, featuring shots taken from helicopters, cars, and speedboats. It used 2D sprites and animation, inspired by the recent Mario television cartoons.
In case of the developers couldn't use Mario anymore, sprites and sequences depicting Sonic the Hedgehog as well as original characters named Metal and Heavy were produced and coded into the game as "backups."[1]
Cancellation
The video footage taxed the CD-i's memory greatly, and performance was poor. Philips ended up being unimpressed with the progress the developers were making and cut funding.
Cigam cancelled development and went bankrupt.
Lost Material
All the game's assets were repossessed by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.[2] The developer who revealed most information on the game has two VHS tapes of footage but he won't release any footage he owns without permission from the late producer Howard Greenspan's family.
Gallery
Images
Screenshot of the 2D "Hollywood Sign" stage of Mario Takes America.
Videos
See Also
- BS Super Mario Collection (partially lost Satellaview broadcast versions of compilation platformer; 1997-1998)
- Mario Artist (lost builds of unreleased Nintendo 64DD games; 1999-2000)
- Mario's Castle (lost build of cancelled game on Nintendo's "Project Atlantis" handheld console; existence unconfirmed; 1995-1998)
- Mario Demo (lost Virtual Boy tech demo; 1994)
- Mario's Face (lost Nintendo DS tech demo; 2004)
- Mario Motors (lost build of unreleased Nintendo DS racer; early 2000s)
- Mario Kart XXL (lost Game Boy Advance tech demo; 2004)
- New Super Mario Bros. (lost early builds of Nintendo DS 2D platformer; 2004-2006)
- New Super Mario Bros. Mii (lost Wii U tech demo; 2011)
- Super Mario 128 (lost build of cancelled GameCube/Wii game; 2000-2006)
- Super Mario 64 (partially found Spaceworld '95 demo of Nintendo 64 3D platformer; 1995)
- Super Mario Bros. 3 (lost Japanese prototype of NES platformer; 1987-1988)
- Super Mario Bros. (lost Commodore 64 port of NES platformer; existence unconfirmed; 1986)
- Super Mario Disk Version aka "Super Mario 64DD" (found unreleased Nintendo 64DD port of 3D platformer; 1999)
- Super Mario Galaxy (lost beta builds of Wii platformer; 2006-2007)
- Super Mario's Wacky Worlds (found prototype of cancelled CD-i game; 1993)
- Super Mario Kart R (partially found pre-release version of "Mario Kart 64"; 1995)
- Super Mario RPG 2 (lost pre-release version of "Paper Mario" Nintendo 64 role-playing game; late 1990s)
- Super Mario Spikers (lost build of cancelled Wii volleyball-wrestling sports game; 2007)
- Super Mario World: Mario Attack (lost Japanese arcade game; 1996)
- Super Mario World (partially found early build of Super Nintendo platformer; 1989)
- Super Paper Mario (lost build of unreleased original GameCube version of Wii side-scrolling platformer; 2006)
External Links
References
- ↑ Mario Takes America thread at ASSEMbler Games. Retrieved 05 Oct '15
- ↑ Unseen64 article on the game. Retrieved 05 Oct '15