The Games That Weren’t begins with a foreword by David Crane, Pitfall’s creator. In it, Crane talks about the challenges with video game preservation given the obsolescence of gaming hardware. He acknowledges recent efforts and credits emulation in helping to preserve games that gamers enjoyed in yesteryears. However, he asks, what about those titles that reached completion but never got published? How can we save them for posterity?

The Games That Weren’t is a phenomenal effort by its author Frank Gasking at preserving, in print, such unreleased games. Gasking’s ongoing efforts has been documented on The Games That Weren’t online archive since 1999 and this book is a physical manifestation of his endeavor to research and share information about unreleased games.

Spanning over 600 pages, this book not only covers over 80 games across console generations spanning 40 years (from 1975 to 2015), but also includes interviews with the people behind some of those games and insights about why they weren’t officially released. It’s quite eye-opening to learn why some ambitious games, even from popular franchises, never became available to gamers.

  

Across those lithographic printed pages, I kept learning new details that I wouldn’t find elsewhere. For instance, I discovered that Capcom once planned to demake the first Resident Evil on PlayStation for the Game Boy Color, complete with a third person perspective. However, the project was deemed too ambitious and Capcom pulled the plug. Then there’s Half-Life for the Dreamcast, a game that this version’s developers were very proud of and was extremely close to getting released, but didn’t hit shelves since SEGA announced it would discontinue the console.

And it’s not just the games that weren’t that are featured here but also the accessories and consoles that couldn’t be. You’ll learn about the Atari Game Brain from 1978 that was cancelled as Atari focused on its newly-released 2600 console. Another hardware mentioned in this book is The Phantom console from Infinium Labs. Announced in 2003, this console would focus on digital games, rather than physical ones, to download via an internet connection well before this was the norm. Following numerous delays, Infinium Labs ran out of funds and cancelled the project. Frank Gasking also includes an interesting piece of information about the Lapboard, a peripheral that was intended for the Phantom, and actually got released in 2008.

  

In addition to the individual games’ and hardwares’ untold stories, most entries in the book come with high definition assets in the form of in-game screenshots, design documents or concept art that might not have been made publicly accessible until now. If such assets aren’t available, The Games That Weren’t goes the extra mile by including artists’ interpretation. An example where this is the case is with The Terminator for the NES. The game wasn't released due to cultural differences between the Japanese developer and the US product development team. No assets seem to be available but the book includes an artist’s impression of the game’s title screen based on a screenshot shown in Nintendo Power magazine. 

Out of the 80+ games featured, you will eventually come across those you’ve never heard of before like Blackjack for arcades or Creation from Bullfrog Productions. However, the author shares how the development of such unreleased and unheard of games paved the way for some future, more well-known (and released), titles.

  

Gasking’s tremendous effort in making this book informative and entertaining is undeniable. It’s a real joy to dive into the book and discover intriguing details entry after entry. The book’s value is further accentuated by Bitmap Books’ trademark print quality. After having reviewed other books that they published like The Unofficial SNES Pixel Book and Game Boy: The Box Art Collection, I have come to expect a certain quality from their books and The Games That Weren’t doesn’t disappoint. Published in a hardback edition with edge-to-edge high quality lithographic print and featuring sewn binding, this book looks and feels like a premium product that will enhance any bookshelf. And while with other books Bitmap Books didn’t include a bookmark ribbon, they didn’t miss to include one with The Games That Weren’t and it makes tracking of your progress so much better.

The publisher also says that The Games That Weren’t features a “special fluorescent ink” and it indeed gives the pages a unique look. Each page has a relatively minimal, yet informative design with each entry starting with the game/hardware title, followed by a brief reason why it didn’t reach store shelves and information about the year involved, the developer and relevant platform.

One simple, yet very handy, page design of every entry notes whether a game is available to play or not. Some, like Star Fox 2, were released decades after being cancelled, while for others, like the author puts it in the entry for the unreleased yet playable Tetris DS developed by THQ, “you can experience for yourself - if you know where to look that is”. With the explosion of retro gaming handhelds or the rising popularity of handheld gaming PCs, such a book and its wealth of information can serve as a reference regarding what game to try next that you haven’t heard of before but looks right up your alley. I have myself spotted several such games that I wish to try on emulators, especially with titles released well before I was born or on consoles I never had the chance to own.

 

With my review so far, I haven’t brought up any complaints because it’s really hard to find any with The Games That Weren’t. The book quality is premium and its content is not only intriguing but also important. I am myself an ardent supporter of any video game history or behind-the-scenes works but The Games That Weren’t feels more important than any of the other similar books I’ve read since it documents a segment of gaming history that would otherwise be easily lost with time.

Sure, in 630 or so pages, not every unreleased game on every platform can be included but it will prove hard to find what has been represented in this work elsewhere. And since the unreleased games covered stop at 2015, I can only wish that Frank Gasking releases follow-up volumes to cover more unreleased games in more recent years.

Given how captivating I find its contents, an issue I have is that this 600+ page-long, 170mm × 210mm book isn’t really the most portable one out there. While it helps that I’m mostly indoors due to the pandemic, having this book split in paperback volumes could make it more convenient to read while commuting. With such an option, Bitmap Books could have included a sleeve to neatly store all the volumes in. Actually, a sleeve, like the publisher included in its other books, would have been nice to further enhance the book’s presentation while on display.

On the plus side though, as is customary with every Bitmap Books purchase, you will get a PDF copy of the book which you can read on your phone/tablet. While this can address the portability issue, a PDF copy wouldn't beat the feeling of reading the physical book, especially since it's been so well made and designed.

For £29.99 at the time of writing, The Games That Weren’t really feels like a steal and I can’t recommend it enough to any gamers reading this (or anyone in the gaming industry for that matter). Personally, I’m not a fan of scored reviews as I think reviews should be read in their integrity to help the reader make a more informed decision. I have also never given full scores but I’m willing to make an exception for this book to highlight the importance of this work.