Unreleased Games 4 - Game Sack 

What are some unreleased games that you think are worth checking out?

The "smile" option in Fantasy Zone's "Weaponald's" isn't you smiling at the cashier; it's you asking for a smile from the cashier. I can't seem to find any solid details, but sometime in the 80s McDonald's Japan had a slogan/campaign with a tagline that translated to something like, "The smiles are free." Apparently some McDonald's restaurants here still have "Smile" listed on the menu for 0円. I haven't seen it but I don't eat McDonald's much and don't remember to look when I do. I did find some news stories about people ordering smiles for home delivery, and a video of some guys going into various McDonald's restaurants and asking for a smile (they usually got one with a clearly rehearsed response, so it must still be a thing at corporate). Anyway, I've seen references to this in quite a few Japanese games. One that comes to mind is visiting burger restaurants in River City Ransom.

Joe, once again you’ve saved us from boredom. Long Live Game Sack!!! ❤️

Man. Akira on the Genesis seems like it would have been pretty neat, especially at the time.

When I lived in the UK this was always my Sunday morning treat, now I live in Japan it's my Sunday afternoon treat. Doesn't matter where I am in the world, there's always GameSack, thanks Joe!

A beat 'em up without an elevator stage is like Gamesack without a Greendog! reference.

Space Fantasy Zone looks amazing, SEGA should have polished that game up and included it on the Genesis Mini.

I'm from the future. You look about the same in Unreleased Games 5.

SWEET, Sacks on the tube tonight.

hmmm that was a james brown sound clip in stone protectors he yells and says hit me maybe thats why it was pulled

Game Sack always gives me the feel goods.

That Akira game looks ambitious as all hell. Wow

No way the cantina theme the whole time?! That has to be a cruel joke.

Big respect Joe for keeping the random funnies at the end. I look forward to them every episode. Thank you.

Nice to see Game Sack still delivering content while we're all in quarantine.

Akira's vision is on another lever. Insane variety for a 16bit game.

23:15 Pretty sure the smile thing is a reference to "ordering a 0 yen smile" (smile kudasai). Not sure if it's still a thing, but it used to be on the menu at Japanese McDonalds and it's often referenced in Manga and Anime.

16:44 Complete with James Brown samples! 😂 I wonder if those were cleared?

4:45 You can actually swing across certain things while jumping. There are no impossible jumps. The game is playable completely from beginning to end, no cheats or debug features are required to do so.

If Greendog appeared in "Rise of Skywalker," it probably would have been a much better movie.

Not many people know but Virgin Interactive changed their name to Scored Interactive after they finally got lucky. Your move on bad jokes Joe.

“Let’s just get straight into it.” With that sort of confidence, you have to know that Joe does extremely well with the ladies.

That briefcase in the Socks game is a real thing. It's called the Nuclear Briefcase and it's carried with the president's staff when abroad in case the president has to authorize a nuclear strike while away from the White House.

I think Virgin's issue wasn't that dinosaurs were extinct. It was that scientists had just uncovered evidence that dinosaurs never actually played hockey, contrary to popular opinion at the time.

11:34 TETSUOOOOO! KANEDAAAA!

Love dis channel! It's great to see that both the SNES and Genesis being brought up...even after the split. Love you guys!

See, not even the makers of Greendog can make as game as good as GREENDOG!!!!!!!

Thanks for providing quality content during this tough time!!!

Wow that Wacky Races game looks pretty impressive. I would have liked to seen that 'fake mode7' used in other ways.

*Dragons Lair overview* “The goal is to make it to the end of the stage while still alive.” 🤔 This is why I love Game Sack. I swear Joe does stuff like that just to see if we catch it or not. Quality content. 👍😀

The soundtrack of Space Fantasy Zone is amazing. I listen to it every now and then

Great show Joe! Pity show of these games never saw the light of day. But with the advent of Dreams, with all the super talented creators, you never know!

Pretty deep cut reference for an unreleased Genesis game to include a nod to THX 1138.

Really interesting to see these titles. I found the Akira one fascinating having so many game types. Thanks for a rare look into gaming history.

I am sure its been mentioned a thousand times already, but Socks the Cat DID get an official release of sorts a few years ago via a Kickstarter. I say "of sorts", because there was apparently some confusion over if the person who bought the rights to the IP and the game rom actually did have the legal rights to it or not, though they assured that they did. It was released on a SNES cartridge and finished to a fully playable state by 2nd Dimension Games I believe.

Wasn’t Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill completed and released last year on SNES? I seem to remember hearing about it getting a kickstarter and releasing last year, saw some gameplays of the finished version as well.

That visual effect in the Mega Drive Akira game instantly reminded me of Ranger X, where they made those tunnels in the background (very early in the game) look three-dimensional in a similar fashion.

So many unreleased titles. It's fascinating how many were close to being released. But dang I had no idea there were that many 😶 Thanks for the awesome episode

I hope JOE, DAVE and your family are just fine amidst all this trouble were all facing now,and also thanks for the upload amidst all of this

The graphics look really good for Star Wars and the cantina theme sounds great in their unfinished states.

"The controls in Star Wars feel clunky." You mean, maclunkey?

16:07 Those are some wicked guitar harmonics on the SNES version. :)

Dynoblaze has Robocop vs Terminator music? Ah yes, as soon as I posted this, it comes up in the video. Yep.

That ending tripped me up! ;-)

That Space Fantasy Zone looks GREAT! Iwas lovin' the colors and the music. Gotta find that rom, dammit!😭

Best retro channel on RU-vid

16:45 can you just steal James Brown samples and stick ‘em in a game?

It would be awesome to see you do a retrospective on the software designer "Warp". "D" & "enemy Zero" are some of my favorite games of all time!

What a shame about the Akira game. After seeing it I would say it would make a good candidate for games that push hardware limits. Great episode!

I need more episodes of 'Left in Japan' to see games like Nekketsu Oyako, Ghost Chaser Densei, Two-Tenkaku, Night Striker, among others.

Another awesome episode. Thanks Joe.

Rumour has it Stone Protectors was based on the Olsen Twins.

I wasn't a fan of GEMS either, but I recently watched a short doc about it. It's a surprisingly versatile tool with many options and even the ability to record samples, but you really need to know what you're doing to use its full potential. And we have good GEMS soundtracks, Earthworm Jim 1&2, Cool Spot, Global Gladiators, Comic Zone, Disney games and many more. Doesn't change that many games with that sound tool sound terrible, but that's because the composers didn't know how to properly use it.

12:53 Scaling done via software since hardware support is non-existent. Movement is restricted to up or down so the scaling effect is easier to replicate without noticeable problems.

That wacky racers game looks really hard to play. Compared to Super Mario Kart, you can hardly see that far ahead of your kart.

Thanks. I needed this. I must have spent the past few days straight there watching the Game Sack Console Crunch episodes on an endless loop....

I've had Socks The Cat for like 15 years on cart, today I learned it's actually a repro of an unreleased game. Go figure!

SNES Richard Nixon is a thing I didn’t know I needed until now

Cooly Skunk has an English patch just throwing that out there.

I love that the subtitles say (Gamesack theme)

The characters in Stone Protectors are supposed to be glam-rock Trolls, but they honestly look more like Aztec royalty and nobility.

I can't imagine developing a game to near completion and being told by my publisher that we didn't have the rights to release the game. I bet the developers were livid.

Still my favorite show on all of RU-vid. I kinda miss Joe tho

Nice! Watch this when I get home.

Lives in Colorado, says stuff like "the word W starts with a D".... doesn't smoke pot.

The majoroty of the stuff in the Star Wars demo (like the music) are clearly placeholder elements. It looks more like a "tech demo" to see how a port of the Super Nintendo game would work on the Megadrive. Obviously that demo wasn't considered to be released as it was

Great episode! Thanks for sharing.

A beat 'em up game without an elevator stage is like Joe not mentioning obligatory parallax scrolling or Greendog.

16:45 I wonder if they licensed that from James Brown, or maybe he sued and that's why the Genesis version was cancelled?

4:19 "I did not have sexual relations with that portable nuclear missile-launcher" - Bill Clinton

God I love game sack and hope you guys never go away.

On that Star Wars game; looks like a lot of the palettes aren't set correctly in this early build

That ending, it was just priceless...

Game Sack was just recommended to me by a friend. You seemed famiIiar and I attempted to pinpoint where I recognized you from. It was film-tech. I like this show so far.

Thank you for another great episode of Gamesack Joe! Love from Norway

Love this show

Socks is the hero we needed but didn't deserve.

Greeeeedog! Love the recurring joke along with the Snatcher one lol I know this video is old but I keep rewatching all your videos. Keep it up cheers! 😎

did that skunk in a parachute just float around in a stage from Skyblazer?

I miss seeing Dave in the videos. Its been almost a year now. Where are our Dave comedies?

NICE. I've been binging 'Sack eps literally all afternoon and into the night, just trying to stave off the boredom of the apocalypse ... ... y'know, regular Saturday night stuff. Then BAM Joe drops a brand new sack. Thanks Joe 😅👍

Thank you Dave,

I really love Game Sack's " after credits " parts, I always watch Game Sack's videos to the end just to see those extra funny parts.

The excellent DF Retro has an in-depth look into the tale of Cooly/Punky Skunk and a bit more of the story of how the dump we have came to be. The ceilings and floors in the hover-bike section of Akira remind me how the objects had sides in Toy Story (MD), another great effect from the geniuses at TT. Seems Akira was super-ambitious, but multi-genre games always make me nervous 😬.

6:10 You take pleasure in Dead Cats. Well, I will say at least you always do manage to surprise me in the depths you sink to

I had some of those ripped Trolls. The memories bro

Thanks for the Easter episode!

Thanks for the new episode. Have a good Easter.

A Game Sack episode just isn't a Game Sack episode without mentioning GREEEENNNNN DOG!

3:50 that transition

I am happy that this episode got a release!

Really cool THX 1138 nod in the Genesis Star Wars game score section. Pre Star Wars George Lucas movie.

Weponald’s is the best unreleased joke

LOVE this series!

No, I think the people from the future will say, "Wow, he had hair!?"

That socks the cat game was probably a money laundering ploy

The Akira game looks pretty rad honestly. It looks like they were trying to stay true to the movie.

You forgot to mention that the flyer (which would probably have been the cover art) for Space Fantasy Zone was by Satoshi "Master of Breasts" Urushihara

Hell. Some programmers and artists for sure should felt frustrated after discover their work didn't get published but some others for sure felt relieved from shame.

That Wacky Races game makes me think there could have been a pretty decent port of Power Drift on the Genesis. And the animation on that dinosaur game was really cool.