Angel Studios, Now Rockstar San Diego, Worked On A Game With Miyamoto

Before making Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar San Diego was an independent developer called Angel Studios. They created the Smuggler’s Run series for Rockstar and prior to that they were working with Nintendo.

Angel Studios developed Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr. for the Nintendo 64, which Nintendo published and handled the N64 Resident Evil 2 port. Here’s another interesting tidbit – Angel Studios was also working with Nintendo of Japan on projects directly with Shigeru Miyamoto. At least one game was in development between 1996 and 2000, but was ultimately unreleased.

Introducing Buggy Boogie. The game, as explained in an interview with a former developer, had vehicles that would eat other vehicles and adopt their powers. Kind of sounds like Twisted Metal meets Mega Man with Miyamoto’s guidance. Miyamoto checked out the game, but didn’t feel it was "fun" and asked Angel Studios to can the project in favor of a fantasy golf game. You can see what remains of Buggy Boogie here.

Even though the golf game and Buggy Boogie never came to pass, Nintendo of Japan Miyamoto worked with Angel Studios for over five years.