Hideo Kojima is many things: ingenious game developer, enigmatic personality, avid film buff. .

Given all the dirty secrets strewn throughout the series, it's a wonder how Kojima and his team weren't being marched into the HR department on a regular basis. To show you what we mean, we've gathered some of the most incredibly not-safe-for-work moments from throughout Snake's many missions. Whether you're viewing these lewd bits in this article or in-game, just pray that nobody suddenly walks in on you, or there will definitely be a loud chime and a red exclamation mark over somebody's head.

There's a part near the end of MGS3 where you have to lead Eva through a dense jungle toward freedom, but if you hit her with a tranquilizer dart, she'll fall asleep and have some rather vivid dreams, starring her and one Naked Snake. Bonus NSFW: During this gameplay sequence, you can pop into the Cure menu and take a glance at Eva's medical history. One of the items on the list is a breast augmentation, which you'll probably notice if you rotate her X-ray model around.

Each of the members in the Beauty and the Beast unit is both glamorous and terrifying. After destroying their mechanical form, they shed their armor to reveal a gorgeous runway model clad in a skin-tight latex suit who hunts you down like a demon from a Japanese horror flick. But if you don't neutralize the boss within a few minutes, you're both transported to an all-white room for three minutes, and it's here that the Beauty will actually pose for photos if you equip your camera. It's bizarrely exploitative, even for Metal Gear - especially when Drebin recounts their sordid backstory for you after you take them out.

Quiet's manner of dress certainly leaves little to the imagination, and The Phantom Pain at least wearing a handkerchief and ripped fishnet stockings in the Afghan desert is a proper outfit for a sniper. When you recruit Quiet and visit her in her cell, you'll find her lounging around, most likely with her top undone as she sunbathes on her cot. Sometimes, she'll shower, just kind of… standing there and rubbing herself as the water falls from the spigot, then kneeling down and slowly splashing around in the puddles. Again, there's a reason for it, but, uh, yeah.

The soldiers of the Metal Gear Solid universe are easily distracted - whether it's a noise they hear in the distance, or a box lying on the ground, they'll probably break from their patrol and take a look. That goes double for the, erm, "gentleman's" magazines you can leave lying around on the ground. Plop one on the ground with its centerfold visible, and once the enemy's got it in its sights, you've got a good few minutes of uninterrupted sneaking.

Whether you're a high-school student or a hardened terrorist occupying Big Shell, it can be nice to cover up the cold, dreary metal of a locker's interior with an image of someone you find attractive. Snake will sometimes stumble on posters of bikini girls when hiding out in MGS2's lockers, and switching to the first-person perspective ensures that it's all up in your face. If you continuously zoom in and out, you'll hear the gooshy squelch of a 'kiss', the controller will start to gently vibrate, and Otacon will scold you on the codec with a good bit of shaming. The embarrassed, mouth-agape look on Snake's face says it all.

In keeping with series tradition, the sword-combat-centric spin-off Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance has images of voluptuous women plastered in the most random places. Now, one of the main hooks in Revengeance is Blade Mode, which lets you rapidly slash Raiden's sword at any angle you choose. And these pin-up posters just happen to be covered in yellow "KEEP OUT" tape, arranged just so to make it look like the women are naked underneath; slicing it away reveals that these models are in fact wearing bikinis. And in one instance, trying to cut the clothes off a cardboard cutout instantly replaces it with another cutout of the same woman, now dressed in leather. The hell?

In Metal Gear Solid 4, Rosemary is assigned by Campbell to be Snake's go-to psychological counselor and can be called for advice at any time by codec. What Rose doesn't know is that someone seems to have upgraded her bra with player-controlled.

Seriously, what is up with her shirt? Are there buttons missing?

The individual levels in VR Missions are mostly benign - sneak through here, defeat these Godzilla-sized soldiers, what have you - but eventually you can unlock a Photography mode, which lets you voyeuristically take pictures of 3D models of Snake's assistant, Mei Ling. Complete more missions and you can inch ever closer in the virtual space, so you can take better photos. Yay?

Oh, MGS2: when you go off the rails, you sail right off a cliff in a blaze of glory. Near the end of the game, Raiden ends up captured and strapped to a torture device, with all of his possessions removed - including his sneaking suit. Raiden is freed from his confines, but without clothes, Raiden must cover his shame with his hands. His typically sweet cartwheel jump is now the stuff of nightmares, his legs splayed out wide as he flings himself through the air.

You can't be too careful in the world of Metal Gear Solid 3. Spies, double-agents, and double-double-agents lurk around every corner. In this world of constant deceit and deception, how are you supposed to know who to trust? Colonel Volgin knows the answer: crotch check. If you think someone might be a spy - or is perhaps impersonating your silver-haired boy toy - give their . Any impersonator isn't going to know what the hell to do in such a situation, as poor Naked Snake discovered leading up to MGS3's famous torture scene.

Snake's Octo-camo in MGS4 is incredibly versatile, allowing him to blend into his surroundings and hide in plain sight. This includes a set of ruined statues early on in chapter one. Simply climb up on the pedestal, hold the triangle button, and Snake will blend into his surroundings by pretending to be one of the statues - tastefully covering the exposed genitalia of the carving next to him. Do this a couple times, though, and that penis will break right off. Art doesn't last forever, especially art found inside a warzone.

POOP JOKES! Oh boy, who here doesn't like a good poop joke? Certainly not Kojima, which is why we have Johnny Sasaki, aka "Akiba" which is Japanese for "Dude what poops in barrels." Seeing this poor man make a mess in his pants time and time again invokes the old adage: first time is funny, second time is silly, third time is how the hell do I skip this cutscene? And just like Quiet's convenient excuse for her wardrobe, Johnny also has a totally-legitimate-reason-guys for his spontaneous fecal discharge that clearly couldn't have been handled any other way.

In the caves of the original Metal Gear Solid, equipping the box at the right time can lead to a wolf… relieving itself on Snake. Now, thanks to Snake’s new scent, the wolves treat him as one of their own. MGS2 ups the urination ante by forcing Raiden to sneak past a soldier who's micturating over the railing directly above you. As Campbell puts it, "sneaking missions are called wetworks for a reason, after all."

One of the primary players in Peace Walker's complex plot is Paz Ortega Andrade, a 16-year-old high school student who gets mixed up in the international espionage that seems to follow Snake wherever he goes. During the cutscene when you first meet Paz, you're given control of the camera and unexplained x-ray vision, letting you zoom in to glimpse this underage girl's undergarments for absolutely no reason. Later on, during the Extra Ops 67 mission (codenamed "Date with Paz"), you can hide under the cardboard 'Love Box'; Paz will eventually ask to join you under there and do God knows what while the box rocks back and forth. Alternatively, you can use CQC to cop a feel while Paz is admiring the ocean, at which point she'll rightfully slap you to the ground. Jesus Christ, Kojima. You literally just made your main character a pedophile.

As of right now, the list of Xbox 360 games that people want to be playable via the Xbox One's backwards compatibility boils down to a popularity contest. 'Letting the fans decide' is one of the easiest ways to make a gigantic corporation like Microsoft feel more personable, and thousands of gamers have jumped at the chance to vote on the .

But then there are the games sitting at the bottom of the colossal totem pole that is the Xbox 360's library, all of which are sitting at 115 or fewer votes at the time of this writing. According to the vote tallies, these are essentially the least-wanted games ever made for the Xbox 360 - or perhaps just the least-known. In fact, there is absolutely no way you've heard of all of the following games. And in some cases, that's a damn shame, because a few of these oddities aren't half bad, or are even legitimately great. The rest, well... at least 100 or so people in the world would be happy to see them make a backwards-compatible return.

Considering Yo-Ho Kablammo was universally panned and has what is perhaps the in existence, you have to wonder if its few votes didn't all come from just one person. The game itself looks like a 99-cent shovelware mobile game that took a wrong turn on its way to the iTunes storefront and ended up on Xbox. There it plagued unsuspecting consumers - who were seduced by the monkey on the cover and its axe-murderer-esque eyes - with a banal, ship-to-ship combat game that makes you want to throw yourself overboard.

When the best part about your football game is the halftime marching band minigame, you have a serious problem. Such is the fate of Black College Football Xperience: The Doug Williams Edition for Xbox 360. This is less of a football game and more of a train wreck happening in slow motion. As our own Richard Grisham noted in his review, "There are missteps galore, including magically teleporting footballs, brain-dead blockers and tacklers, even obvious mathematical errors in the stats. Sadly, BCFX simply isn’t anywhere near ready for the big time."

If you've never seen professional badminton, it's pretty amazing. It's sort of like watching professional ping pong, except the 'ball' - or rather, shuttlecock - is constantly 10-feet up in the air. Then you have two people down on the ground swinging their rackets around as though a swarm of angry bees just broke into the arena. It's hard to see how you could improve upon this already amazing sport, but Blazing Birds gives it the old college try by replacing the players with what appear to be robot eagle heads mounted on unicycles. This is a great idea to be sure, but ultimately wasn't enough to mask another mediocre sports game.

Before we dive into the rules of Wits Wagers, take a look at for the game. Why did Hidden Path make the characters look absolutely horrifying? Just look at those all-too-realistic heads on top of those cartoon bodies. And that one with the clown face, it's the stuff of nightmares. Wits Wagers is a trivia game in which every question can be answered with a number - for example, "How many feet wide is an NFL football field?" Players take an educated guess, and the one who's closest to the actual answer without going over <(i>Price is Right style) is awarded points. If you don't know the answer, you can bet on someone else's answer with the hopes of sharing in their windfall. Just make sure you don't bet on the clown.

Petanque is an extremely French-sounding name for an extremely French-sounding sport where you throw balls at other balls from really far away. To my uncultured, American sensibilities, it reminds me of horseshoes, except you want your horseshoe to land as close to the stake as possible without touching it. So it's a really passive-aggressive form of horseshoes. This may sound simple enough, but Obut Petanque 2 fills the screen with so many gauges, meters, and other graphs, you'd think you were flying a fighter jet instead of throwing metal balls at the ground.

If you've seen the 1997 horror flick Cube, then you already know how lethal these shapes can be. Death by Cube is filled with killer cubes that shuffle around on four legs and explode into giant puddles of blood when you shoot them - because video games. You control a tiny, laser-shooting android who can collect various power-ups to change between spread shot, homing shot, and other weapon types. But the most exciting weapon has to be the reflector shield, which soaks up enemy fire and returns it in a giant, glorious shotgun blast of bullets. Think Robotron: 2084, but the robots bleed all over the place.

Holy Hell, based on that title alone how was this NOT the most amazing game on the Xbox 360? Let's break this down: 'CellFactor' could mean anything, but 'Psychokinetic Wars' screams giant battlefields with wacky powers. And that's what this Unreal Tournament-inspired FPS was going for, complete with a female robot named Bishop who can throw objects with her mind. Oddly enough, this is the third game in the CellFactor series, the first two being glorified tech demos designed to showcase Ageia's physics processors.

Planets Under Attack brings all of the joys of planet-on-planet violence without the hours-long complexity of, say, Planetary Annihilation. In this real-time strategy game, you control a cluster of planets and construct swarms of ships to go forth and colonize other planets in your glorious name. Of course, the other players are trying to do the same thing, which means occasionally building giant, world-cracking death rays on your planets to keep others at bay. Giant lasers aside, each of the game's three races - humans, robots, and aliens - has its own unique abilities to fit your playstyle. And while this game almost certainly won't find a new home on Xbox One, you can check it out on Steam.

Everyone who voted for this game is a hero, because 2009's Tornado Outbreak was shuttled into obscurity as soon as it left the assembly line. You control Zephyr, a wind elemental who takes the form of a teeny, tiny baby tornado (seriously, it's like the size of a chicken). Growing in size means sucking up rocks, feathers, fences, trees, houses, and everything else in sight until you're a rampaging twister leveling entire city blocks. There's also a fully voiced and surprisingly fleshed out backstory establishing Zephyr, his wind warriors, and how he's actually on a quest to save the Earth (by knocking your house over).

This game's Wikipedia entry matter-of-factly states "Marlow Briggs, a smokejumper who wields ancient Mayan powers, must prevent an industrialist from becoming a primeval Mesoamerican deity and destroying the world." Whow! Hold on there, cowboy, that's a lot to unpack. Smokejumper? Mayan powers? Ancient Mesoamerican deity? Solid Snake on his best day couldn't puzzle this one out. Thankfully, Marlow Briggs is terested in being a fun, B-movie action game than, you know, making sense. The guy runs around wailing on people with a double-bladed scythe and sweet tribal tattoos. Who needs logic?

Blood Drive takes the opening to Dead Rising 2, switches out motorcycles for cars, and makes a surprisingly well-realized vehicular combat game out of it. Had this game been released circa 1999 for, say, the original PlayStation - featuring the hit single Dragula - developer Sidhe would've been king of the world (instead of moving on to Rugby League 3 on Wii). It mixes car-on-car violence with an endless horde of zombies shuffling around the arena, which supplies the blood part of the Blood Drive equation. Think Mad Max in the post-zombie apocalypse.

When you sit down to make a first-person shooter involving the President, the secret service, and terrorists, that's a responsibility. From Metal Gear Solid 2 to Metal Wolf Chaos, video games have a time-honored tradition of building fun and/or crazy experiences around the commander-in-chief. But Secret Service doesn't come close. Despite playing a secret service agent for the President - which, in video games, could potentially be the most exciting job ever - the most secret service-y thing you do is shoot people while wearing a suit. And that's not even fun, because this game plays like a bad Call of Duty knockoff.

If you never had the pleasure of owning one, Madballs are among the quintessential 'gross-out toys' that were all the rage in the '90s: spherical, freaky foam faces that really don't do much besides sit there and look weird. In a moment of bizarre serendipity, someone on the Madballs marketing team saw a perfect opportunity to incorporate the toyline into a sequel to Babo Violent 2, a freeware twin-stick shooter populated by globes with guns. Shockingly, Madballs: Babo Invasion isn't half bad for a budget arcade shoot-'em-up, especially in four-player co-op. And the XBLA version lets you do something that the Steam port never could: let you roll around as the disembodied, weapon-wielding head of your Xbox 360 Avatar.

In some parallel universe, .

When it comes to peculiar first-person shooters with outlandish character designs and off-the-wall aesthetics, Xotic is right up there with Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath and Zeno Clash. Your primary weapon resembles a gigantic fly's head, and each level evokes the feeling that you've just dropped acid at a black-light bowling alley. Rather than shooting up everything that moves, your primary objective is to score points by popping colored orbs with your icky bug-gun. You do eventually get to take potshots at some incredibly freakish enemies, including deranged cyborgs and metallic-skinned mutants. There's a lot more style here than substance, but Xotic's trippy take on the FPS archetype is certainly unique.

Virtual billiards is nothing new, and most people can appreciate the simple satisfaction of lining up a geometrical shot to sink a ball in a pocket. But Inferno Pool needed something to really set it apart - so it tossed out the smooth felt of a pool table for the grit and grime of industrial metal. For reasons unknown, you've decided to enjoy a game of eight-ball in the break room of the local foundry, which is just as dingy and rusted-over as you might imagine. The attempt at making Inferno Pool feel like regular billiards' older, edgier, street-smart cousin is rounded out by some generic techno and a ridiculous announcer with gravelly, Unreal Tournament-style callouts like "BANK SHOT!" or simply "INFERNO!" to pump you up for all the intense pool action.

If you're a fan of Japanese arcade obscurities - and really, who isn't - then you might've heard of Magical Beat, a competitive puzzle game that's like Tetris, Lumines, and Beatmania combined in one. By dropping colored blocks in time to the music, you can rain down trash blocks on your opponent while enjoying some incredibly dope beats. All that is to say: Magical Beat is amazing, and you should absolutely pick up the PS Vita port. Alternatively, you could seek out 0D Beat Drop, which is pretty much the exact same game with Avatars instead of pixelated caricatures. There's a reason these games are so similar: they're both made by Arc System Works, who you probably know as the maker of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue. In either case, you're going to have a good time - I guarantee it.

While we're on the ever-popular topic of Japanese rhythm games (see: previous slide), here's Beat'n Groovy, the Westernized version of Pop'n Music. If you've never had the pleasure of plunking some change into a colorful, cartoony Pop'n Music arcade cabinet, it's essentially the kid-friendly version of the rhythmic button-tapping from Konami's own Beatmania series. Problem is, those games are only available in Japan, and Beat'n Groovy is a poor stand-in for the genuine article. At a glance, the cutesy visuals and screen layout look the same, but upon closer inspection, you'll find all the ugliness of a Western artist trying to imitate the anime style and coming up short, landing somewhere in Bratz territory. Also, playing with a standard 360 pad just can't replicate the magic of Pop'n Music's nine-button, Fisher-Price-looking controller.

To round out this trifecta of forgotten Xbox 360 rhythm games, we've got Go! Go! Break Steady. This oddity adapts the smooth, physically demanding moves of breakdancing into a juxtaposition of simple rhythm gaming in the vein of Gitaroo Man (where inputs randomly fly in from off-screen towards a central node) and the colored-ball-blasting of Zuma. It's a strange mix, to be sure, but the gameplay's perfectly satisfactory, and it's hard not to appreciate the hand-drawn animations and funky art style. Plus, you can play as a breakdancing grandma wearing Bruce Lee's iconic yellow tracksuit.

But wait... HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER! It wouldn't be a proper XBLA music-game-hybrid fracas without this absolutely absurd rhythm-fighter. As you might've guessed from the title, all the action revolves around Snoop Dogg, legendary West Coast rapper and master of all things marijuana-related. It's likely that Snoop wasn't the only one who was high out of his mind when this game idea got greenlit, seeing as its blend of one-on-one brawls and a confusing knock-off of Elite Beat Agents is laughably abysmal. Oh, and at the time this game was released, its star was actually going by Snoop Lion, which kind of - that is, completely - diminishes the point of having 'Dogg' in the title.

Game developer James 'DJames' Goddard (not to be confused with the Olympic swimmer of the same name) has some legendary projects under his belt. The man's intimately familiar with fighting games, given how he currently works on the new Killer Instinct, had a hand in developing combat for a bunch of classic Capcom beat-'em-ups and modern Blizzard games, and even created Jamaican kickboxer Dee Jay while working as co-lead designer on Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting. But he's also got an Asteroids-style space shooter on his resume, courtesy of Shred Nebula. This is an incredibly colorful, hectic, 360-degree shmup that was sadly ignored, given that it was released just after Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2. If you're enjoying the recent indie standout Galak-Z, Shred Nebula might be right up your asteroid-blasting alley.

Not to be confused with the excellent bloodsucker RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, this Masquerade may or may not actually exist. The Xbox Marketplace claims that this cel-shaded beat-'em-up was released on June 30th, 2015, yet there's next to zero information and not a millisecond of footage of the game to be found across the great plains of the Internet. From the look of what few screenshots are out there, you play as either a blue jester dude or a thief dudette (seemingly ripping off the equally obscure Pandemonium! on PS1), beating back the burly, make-up-caked legions of the evil Clown Army. This game has vaporware written all over it, yet Microsoft's site shows that 103 people have voted to give it life on Xbox One. And frankly, I find that hard to believe.

Here's another example of 'fans' 'voting' for a game they never even got to play. If you search for "sledge hammer xbox" on YouTube, you're going to find way, way too many videos of smarmy, privileged white kids smashing video game consoles. But you might also stumble across for this eccentric combat-racing game, which is chock-full of big rigs outfitted with missile launchers and rocket thrusters. Despite your instincts telling you otherwise, there's an inherent, kitschy charm to Sledge Hammer's grimy, low-budget visuals, goofy arsenal of arcade weaponry, grunge-tastic soundtrack, and the animated portrait of your burly driver in the upper left at all times. Alas, it was never released, and you can't exactly resurrect something on Xbox One when it never truly lived in the first place.

"Point-and-click detective adventure" is probably one of the last things you might think of when mulling over a name like Red Johnson's Chronicles. Unfortunate title aside, this is an intriguing (albeit mediocre) puzzle game starring Red, a ginger, trenchcoat-wearing private eye, in a modern noir take on Professor Layton. The game itself is rather clunky, but it's got a unique art style, what with the grandiose scale of the generic Metropolis city and frequent switches to a black-and-white aesthetic. If nothing else, it's one of the few games in existence to have a QTE for a high-five-to-fist-bump transition, which surely must count for something.

I know we've had some fun perusing these long-forgotten 360 games, but listen... . There is, in the world right now, a kart-racing console game that lets you race as everyone's favorite pop culture icon: Shrek. And if, for some unfathomable reason, you'd want to be anyone but Shrek, you've got plenty of DreamWorks-themed options, including the lively animals of Madagascar, the Seth Rogen-voiced blue blob B.O.B. from Monsters vs. Aliens, and the adorable Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon (who looks ridiculous when jammed into the driver's seat of a go-kart). The drab course layouts and generic power-ups can't hold a candle to anything in Mario Kart, mind you... but then again, Shrek.

Every gamer that ever played knows the unique agony that accompanies falling at the final hurdle. Whether that means popping your clogs within sight of a checkpoint or being brutalised by a near-dead boss monster - gamers know that no defeat hurts worse than that which was so very nearly a victory. At times, managing your hype for an upcoming game can feel little 'game-like' in and of itself. And just like a game, the prospective title that tests our patience, only to disappear mere weeks from release always stings that much more.

Today's big list of stuff looks at ten games that made it all the way to within spitting distance of release, only for outside factors to quash their drop. Some are sure to inspire a profound sense of longing, while others remain fairly unknown - some deservedly, others less so. These then, are ten titles we oh-so nearly came to play. Enjoy.

What? - A massively multiplayer RTS title set within the Dune universe. Players would have chosen between three dynastic groups - the soldiers, traders or mercenaries - and proceeded to carve out their own small empire on Arrakis. Interestingly, the game wasn't to be helmed by Westwood Studios (they of Dune 2 fame), but rather by their predecessors at Cryo Interactive, i.e. the same team that produced the Dune adventure game.

When? - Work on the project was shut down during the title's alpha testing phase, in which a functioning build of the game is put through its paces. Hardly the finished product, but with the vast majority of its workload now behind it

Why? - Developer Cryo Interactive entered bankruptcy in July of 2002. The studio had previously bet big on the success of its other Dune-related property - a third-person action title named Frank Herbert's Dune. Sadly, the game flopped, ultimately costing the studio the opportunity to complete its more ambitious MMO cousin.

What? - A third-person action-RPG similar in many respects to the Mass Effect franchise. In addition, the game was also said to feature a heavy emphasis on base building, forcing players to scout out an infested structure in order to toughen up their stronghold. Think of it as a quasi-survival sim, akin to the central predicament of the second Alien film. Oh, and just to add insult to injury, the game was also being developed by genre stalwarts Obsidian, creators of Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity and South Park: The Stick of Truth. Yeah, it was probably going to be good…

When? - Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart has stated that Crucible was in such an advanced state that it almost appeared ready to release. His colleague Chris Avellone took a slightly less advanced view of the project, arguing that the title only appeared so close to completion because of special efforts made to debut a demo. In either case, Crucible was undoubtedly well into development by the time Sega pulled the plug.

Why? - Sega decided to de-clutter its portfolio -meaning either that the game was costing too much to maintain value, or that the publisher was worried about overexposure. Whatever the reason, Crucible ended up canned. A shoddy stroke of luck for any developer, but one made infinitely more aggravating by the titles Sega chose to press ahead with. 2010's AVP proved to be a thoroughly average adventure, whilst the less said about Aliens: Colonial Marines, the better. Bad call Sega.

What? - An enormous team-based multiplayer title set within the Star Wars universe. Unannounced and unreleased, details on the game remain sketchy, however a small number of interesting titbits have emerged. With Pandemic Studios choosing to move on, development duties passed to Free Radical Design - home to the outrageously entertaining TimeSplitters series. Leaked pre-alpha footage indicates that the studio was working on a fully-fledged storyline, disparate elements of which may have been repackaged into the PSP exclusive Elite Squadron.

When? - According to Free Radical founder Steve Ellis, Battlefront 3 was 99% complete when LucasArts jettisoned the project. An anonymous source would later claim that the figure actually stood at around 75%, prompting Ellis to publically deny the allegation.

Why? - Prior to its acquisition and subsequent shutdown by Disney, LucasArts had commenced upon a widespread company shakeup. As Ellis and co-founder David Doak tell it, Free Radical went from being told to 'think bigger', to cutting back every conceivable cost. Doak would even go so far as to name the project's second set of executives as "psychopaths", intent on the franchise's failure. According to Ellis, the official reason given for the game's cancellation was a lack of necessary marketing funds. The anonymous source meanwhile claimed that the studio had repeatedly missed deadlines and was even redistributing assets onto its other projects.

What? - An ambitious MMORPG project announced back in 2002. Developed by Level-5 (of Dark Cloud and Ni No Kuni fame) True Fantasy Live Online was designed to take advantage of a then-fledgling Xbox Live. Servers would have held around 3000 players apiece, with fully-integrated voice chat between parties.

When? - Level-5 President Akihiro Hino stated that "the world of TFLO was already complete" at the time of the game's shock cancellation. The title was scheduled to enter Beta testing soon thereafter, with a speculative Japanese release date of autumn, 2004.

Why? - Despite its advanced state of completion, TFLO failed to live up to Microsoft's standards. Several overly ambitious features, including widespread voice chat proved tricky to accomplish, fraying relations between the developer and its publisher. Given that the game had already received plenty of positive buzz, TFLO might well have transformed the fortunes of the Xbox brand in Japan. As it is, the game would wind up as a painful reminder of MS's failure to crack that market.

What? - A controversial 4-player beat-em-up title. Thrill Kill combined Mortal Kombat with Manhunt, boasting blood and guts gameplay alongside fetishistic visuals.

When? - Thrill Kill was completed and ready to ship.

Why? Having acquired the property as part of its takeover of the Virgin US label, EA opted to cancel Thrill Kill's release. It was felt that the game's deliberately controversial nature jarred with that of the EA brand. In addition, the company also forbid the title to be sold on to any other publisher, effectively killing off the game. Fortunately for fans, the finished title was soon leaked online, making it one of the more readily available games of that sort. Activision would later utilise the Thrill Kill's engine to create Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style, X-Men: Mutant Academy and its sequel Mutant Academy 2.

What? - Remember the Gizmondo - Tiger Telematics' failed attempt to crack the handheld market? Colors was to be that machine's first 'killer app' - a gang-based third-person shooter with GPS player location. Strangely, the game also allowed players to indulge in seedy prison sex (participants would receive early release)… I just can't imagine why it didn't succeed.

When? - Leaked copies of the game suggest that Colors was all-but complete at the time of its cancellation.

Why? - The Gizmondo became the worst-selling handheld of all time, bankrupting Tiger Telematics and putting and immediate stop to all games then in development.

What? - A tactical action game boasting numerous RPG elements. Black9 took its inspiration from the Deus Ex series, positing a cyberpunk world divided between warring cartels. Former Taldren Inc. developer Erin Hoffman argued that the game was so very "special", that it may even have changed the lives of a small portion of its players. High praise indeed then.

When? - Hoffman stated that the game was around 85% complete at the time of its cancellation.

Why? - According to several parties involved in the Black9 project, publisher Majesco proved to be an overly demanding and highly unprofessional partner. Having already released two commercial flops - including the critically acclaimed Pyschonauts and the supposed franchise starter Advent Rising - Majesco was beginning to feel the pinch. They in turn put to squeeze onto Taldren, demanding 'crunch time' level working hours throughout the entire life of the project. Hoffman claims that the studio rallied to hit these targets but was still denied promised funding. Later, - again according to Hoffman - two programmers were surreptitiously 'lent' to the project so as to steal the game's source code. This was allegedly done in order turn the game - a property wholly owned by Taldren Inc. - over to a brand new developer. With the near-complete title in its possession, Majesco would then attempt to lure key personnel away from the studio, at which point the team chose to shut its doors rather than to let Majesco win. Later, many of the Majesco executives involved in the Black9 botch were ousted by the company's shareholders, with Hoffman herself describing the modern publisher as 'a very different company'.

What? - A realistic, tactical FPS based on the Second Battle of Fallujah, aka the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war. Developer Atomic Games intended to create what might best be described as a 'survival-terror' game, in which the player never feels wholly safe from attack. Long stretches of agonising tension would be broken up by moments of breathless, violent confrontation, echoing the real-life experiences of many soldiers involved in the battle.

When? - An 'insider source' speaking to IGN claimed that work on the game was completed sometime in late 2009/ early 2010.

Why? - Given the recent nature of the events depicted, many commentators found the game to be in poor taste. When word of this controversy reached publisher Konami the company responded by dropping the project entirely. Atomic Games was subsequently unable to secure a new publisher and later released a large number of its staff. However, studio president Peter Tamte remains committed to the project, confirming that 6 Days was still in development as recently as 2012. The game's current status is unknown.

What? - After 16 years of annual releases, EA opted to retire its NBA franchise in 2011. However, just two years later the brand was back.

When? - EA's big comeback made it to the figurative post-season before being abruptly cancelled just weeks ahead of its proposed release.

Why? - EA exec Andrew Wilson stated that the game was simply not ready enough to hit its scheduled release date. Instead the company would take another year to develop a truly "great" experience. NBA Live 14 went on to receive some of the worst review scores in series history. Ouch.

What? - A sprawling space-based FPS title. Human Head's vision for the game featured an amnesiac U.S. Marshall named Killian Samuels - abducted from the earth and now plying his trade as a galactic bounty hunter.

When? - Former Human Head developer Jason Blair described the title as a 'full game', denying claims made by publisher Bethesda that Prey 2 was merely "a demo" at the time of its cancellation. Project Director Chris Rhinehart has also stated that the title was close to reaching its alpha stage, with most of the game's major elements already in place.

Why? - How long have you got? The saga of Prey 2 is a sad, strange and complicated one, so let's just stick to Human Head's involvement. Having developed the first game in the series, HH teamed up with Bethesda Softworks to publish its ambitious sequel. However, by 2013 the developer had been completely removed from the project, with Bethesda citing an overall lack of quality for the shuffle. For its part, the scorned studio remained proud of its efforts on the game, with many senior devs pointing to internal politics as reason for the changeover. Prey 2 was officially confirmed cancelled in October, 2014.