6. Crank from Crank the Weasel
Planned for PS2 and cancelled

Just in case you thought you missed it, Crank never got released. Someone at Midway saw sense and realized if the legendary publisher was going to survive it had to stop making Freaky Flyers, Dr Mutos and Havens and either base their characters on real people (like Chow Yun Fat in Stranglehold ) or let other companies do the designing for them (like Epic and Unreal Tournament 2007).

Crank was a 1940s-styled weasel: the kind of idea most people joke about over coffee before sitting down and getting on with the serious business of designing a proper character. The developer said his visual style was supposed to reflect the work of cartoonist Tex Avery. What they failed to mention was it was based on designs reclaimed from strips of paper found in Tex 's shredder.

Amazingly, gaming encyclopedia IGN summed up a preview of the game in August 2002 enthusing, "Crank is quickly becoming one of the bright spots of 2003." Shortly after, it was cancelled.