Our friends at Time Extension have come up with a great find. A few days ago, the YouTube channel Higenekodo posted a video of Vertexer, a futuristic racing game cancelled by Taito in 1993.

It's always a special moment to come across videos of cancelled games, especially at such an advanced stage of completion as the one below. It's hard to imagine what the reception would have been like if this game had been released on an arcade terminal. Would it have been a minor revolution? A flop? We'll never know.

But let's not forget the quality suggested by this video, which is reminiscent of F-Zero. Vertexer offers an excellent 3D rendering thanks to its meticulous sprite management: the depth effect, the colours and the fluidity leave you dreaming.

The staging is also very well done, with neat menus (the ship is used as an ATH to select your race), as well as interactions with the other drivers in the middle of the race via a pop-up window, allowing your opponents to have their say, a bit like in Star Fox.

Around twenty Vertexer cards have been put into circulation, and a few collectors are said to be the proud owners. I strongly recommend that you take three minutes to watch the video.