Many games never make it to retail shelves or digital stores. Companies go bankrupt, hit legal trouble, or just plain cancel the game because it wasn't working out. This week we'll look at five canceled games that looked like they had potential and touch upon what went wrong. Titles like the critically acclaimed Super Meat Boy that were canceled on WiiWare or the upcoming release of the long-delayed Duke Nukem Forever will not be included, as one game was released for the Xbox 360 and PC and the other is actually coming out soon.

Halo Chronicles

Peter Jackson's Halo game was a hot topic for a few years but much like The Hobbit it never happened. Chronicles was supposed to be an episodic series to hit the digital marketplace but in 2009 the plug was officially pulled. According to Jackson it would have been more theatrical than other Halo games. Speculation had it to be similar to Metal Gear Solid's approach to game and movie balance. Ultimately it was the movie collapsing that led the project to end and the team shifted and started a new project ODST.

Red Faction B.E.A.S.T.

Beast was a Wii exclusive being developed by Locomotive Games for THQ. The game was a third person shooter and was in development the same time Guerrilla was for PS3 and X360. Beast had a look very similar to that except destruction was caused with a two handed gun. Control would have been entirely with the Wiimote and would have made use of the under utilized Motion Plus. In 2008 THQ shut down Locomotive and Beast was buried with it for good.

Bonk: Brink of Extinction

Bonk was a great platformer that had a lot in common with Kirby in it's style of power-ups. Both Bonk and Kirby wear headgear to demonstrate what power they currently have. Game play revolved around a small bald cave boy smacking enemies with his skull. This new version was set to have a double jump, a floating move, and quite a few power-ups like ice. Brink of Extinction was a digital release set to come out in 2011 until Konami bought Hudson, the tsunami hit and all of Hudson's projects were canned.

You can hear the soundtrack streamed for free HERE.

Bob's Game

Robert 'Bob' Pelloni was the infamous star of his own tragic spiral into insanity. He claimed to have spent five years and 15,000 hours developing Bob's Game. Robert wanted Nintendo to let him release it commercially on the Nintendo DS and claims he rejected several publishers advances to pick it up. What was true or not was never clear but the actual game looked like an early Game Boy Advance title with cluttered design. The game was never released and only a few short clips were ever seen. The most famous image from this entire scene is not the game itself but Pelloni collapsed in his destroyed room in defeat.

Street Fighter IV Flashback

Backbone Entertainment provided some solid ports and remakes for Capcom like Mega Man Anniversary Collection and Wolf on the Battlefield 3. So when Street Fighter IV was in development Backbone's failed game pitch was a 3D fighting title much like the EX series. The game would have a mode called Ryu's journey that had players travel in a free roaming 3D environment and reliving a retelling of his story thus far. Ryu would fight but also learn new attacks along the way. The cast would have had the original 12 plus Sakura, a ninja from Ibuki's village and Cammy under her original codename of Killer Bee. Whether this would have been a digital release or retail was unknown but Capcom declined to accept this project probably because it sounds as good and detailed as IV was.