Those chaps at Unseen64 have done it again and unearthed another cancelled and forgotten game from the annals of history. This time it's Wii adventure Zblu Cops, which was based on a French comic book all but unknown in the west. The work of entertainment group Biodroid, this promising title used a cel-shaded visual style which remains eye-catching, even by today's standards.
Development began around 2008 with a projected release date of 2010. A mix between platforming and traditional adventure title, Zblu Cops was around 70 percent complete when the plug was pulled by the original publisher, and although there was interest in bringing it to market, the obscurity of the brand meant that no other distribution partner was willing to commit to the project. It's a shame because the game not only looks very decent, but it would also have given audiences outside of France their first taste of the comic series.
You can see the full story in the video below. Is this a title you would have been interested in back in 2010?
[source youtube.com, via unseen64.net]
Comments 18
why not just release still but change it up for the Wii U instead..
@PrinnyLink It was cancelled in around 2009.
They could have pitched it to Nintendo... If possible.
This looked like it could have been quite good, just a shame publishers have so much influence nowadays.
The style looks great, the gameplay.... a little slow. Still a shame.
... time to search a comic. Zblu Cops looks really interesting, so I hope I can find some more about it. It's kinda sad that publishers seemed to be too concerned with the publicity of the comic, the game looked promising enough by itself, and it might've even sparked enough interest in the actual comics to warrant a localization.
Oh well, it wasn't meant to be.
"all but unknown in the west"
Um, France is definitely "in the west"....
@MonsieurRosbif Not for British people... then France is the east and the west is the USA.
Yeah France is definitely "in the west". That's a cultural definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Cultural_definition
Looks like it had potential for sure.
If Kickstarter was around back then...
@MonsieurRosbif And even so, "all but unknown" is still the correct phrase to use, if a franchise/comic/game is only known in one country.
Titeuf for the DS also comes to mind...
I'm surprised Ubisoft wasn't all over this. Surely someone in a large french game publishing firm had an interest in the comics.
Guess my avatar is highly relevant here.
Knowing nothing about the source material, I still would have been very interested in this game. It reminds me a lot of the Futurama game.
The character designs and cartoon animation scenes look really great. Not entirely sure about gameplay, seems colorful enough, but as someone mentioned, perhaps a little slow paced.
@TheRealThanos That wasn't my point. The writer uses language that incorrectly implies that France is not "in the west". And Titeuf sucks.
@MonsieurRosbif "And Titeuf sucks." Tell me about it...
But although I understand YOUR point, my point also still stands. Since the phrase "All but unknown" means that this comic is (by and large) only known in France (bar the exception of the discerning comic collector that may know this) so it really isn't a wrong way of implying that something is only known in a single country (or a handful of countries, for that matter) so if you wouldn't mind I would really be interested in understanding how you see this as being incorrect.
So now we're spending quite a few words amongst the two of us on something that isn't even worth losing sleep over and also isn't incorrect to begin with. From a native English/American speaker's point of view, that is. And that is also why I am honestly curious as to how you appear to see that as such. I actually have quite a bit of experience on differences in points of view, being an American living and working in Europe, but no offense: this one I just don't see...
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