Immediately after the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo concluded, pokeni wasted no Time capitalizing on the momentum.
Contracts with distributors in Europe and America had already been finalized in April, and the game "Border" had already gained a bit of Kohi even before its release.
Throughout July, pokeni's "Border" advertisements were plastered all over the streets and software stores in pokeni America.
In fact, the advertising effect was not as strong as the exhibition and media coverage at E3.
At E3, the world saw pokeni's potential, and also the effect of Nvidia's graphics cards.
Therefore, as soon as the media released relevant news, "Border" immediately became the focus of public attention.
As the operational activities deepened, more and more players also learned about this game.
"Wow, can game actually be made to this extent now?"
At the entrance of the software store, a large "Border" poster was displayed.
At the top was a sky ablaze with fire, dyed red, and in the dense forest below, two opposing forces were engaged in a firefight.
The image did not use live-action photography, but rather in-game model effects (relatively higher polygon count models), but it was already quite realistic.
At a quick glance, one might even think it was real burly soldiers holding submachine guns in an intense firefight.
Only upon closer inspection would one realize these guys were game models.
But even such a poster had already surpassed all action games currently on the market, leaving players in awe.
"How can it not be fake? How can a game achieve such an effect?"
"Not necessarily. It is said that Pokeni conducted a live demonstration at the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo, and the effect was really similar to this. The models might be a bit rougher, but the scene effects are truly quite good."
"Really? Is POKENI already this amazing?"
…
In fact, choosing Europe and America as the main battlefield was a very wise choice; there was not much enthusiasm for "Border" in Japan Country.
However, in pokeni America, players were highly enthusiastic and full of anticipation for the game.
Even before the game was released, many people were already eager to try it out.
Action games, especially gun-shooting games, are very popular in Europe and America.
…
On August 15, 1997, "Border" was released on Time.
Nor Cook is a junior student, currently living in California. He doesn't have many hobbies, his biggest hobby is playing game.
That day, he rushed to the software store, bought "Border," and then hurried back to his student dormitory.
Although only in his twenties, Noel's game age has been over ten years, and he has been a fervent fan of pokeni since a very early age.
From "Diablo" to the later "Eternal Ashes," and the recent the witcher 2, he has diligently purchased and collected them all.
A month ago, he went to participate in this E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo held in Atlanta because of his fondness for pokeni.
Pokeni once again conquered his heart with its exceptionally outstanding performance.
At the pre-exhibition press conference, Noel saw the effect of "Border" and was so astonished that he couldn't close his mouth.
To be able to make a game to such an extent is truly terrifying.
For this, he has been working hard to earn money during this period, and he just upgraded his computer with the latest Nvidia GeForce256 graphics card.
Originally, he planned to buy a Voodoo graphics card, but pokeni saved him and helped him save a sum of money.
He directly upgraded to the most advanced GeForce.
After the computer upgrade, he suddenly found that game like Command & Conquer, which might have been a bit laggy before, or warcraft 2, now played very smoothly.
He had never had such a good game experience, it was as if the whole world had been accelerated.
…
Now Noel lives with another classmate named Ross.
University dormitories are similar to apartments, with two people sharing a room, just like a bedroom at home, where two people can decorate according to their preferences.
Ross is also a game enthusiast.
It's just that he went to a party today and is expected to return tomorrow.
Ross is a tall boy with a high nose and big eyes, and he is skilled at playing basketball, so he is very popular with girls.
Noel knows that Ross has had more girlfriends than a soccer team during his Time at university alone.
But Noel thinks this is also quite good; when Ross is not around, the dormitory is his alone.
He can do whatever he wants.
Playing game won't affect Ross's sleep.
Noel felt exceptionally happy and content at the thought of being able to play all night tonight.
Awesome!
Ross, you enjoy your party, don't come back tonight.
…
Returning to the dormitory, Nor Cook closed the door, then turned on the computer, opened the game package, took out the disc, and put it into the optical drive.
The total size of the game was 1.2 GB, which was somewhat intimidatingly large for that era.
However, thinking about the game graphics displayed by "Border," Noel felt relieved.
He even felt a little happy.
If a game can't fully utilize the computer and graphics card performance, then wouldn't buying the Nvidia GeForce256 be a waste?
Aoki Haruhi, of course, also knew this. game were made according to the top configuration, because only in this way could players be driven to update and purchase Nvidia's graphics cards.
In a sense, "Border" and Nvidia's GPUs are complementary, mutually achieving success, and indispensable.
Without the popularity of Border, Nvidia's graphics cards would not have sold so well.
After the 1.2 GB game was installed, it came to about 1.5 GB, almost filling Noel's entire hard drive.
In 1997, hard drive capacities were generally around 2GB, with some high-end computers reaching 4GB, but anything over 4GB was not for civilian use.
It's not that they didn't exist, but rather that they hadn't yet reached the point of being used by ordinary people.
After the installation was complete, a new icon appeared on the computer desktop.
The icon was divided into black and white.
The white part was a side silhouette of a character in military attire holding a submachine gun, and on the other side, if you looked closely, it was not difficult to see a mirrored character holding a gun, but the positions of their guns were different, thus forming a strange pattern in the image.
pokeni's icon design is really interesting.
Noel pondered for a while, always feeling that such an icon design had a certain meaning, but he hadn't been able to decipher it yet.
"Alright, now it's Time for me to enjoy the game."
For a child who grew up in pokeni America, especially in California, firearms are simply a common part of life.
California's permit requirement is 21 years old, and Noel only got his gun permit last year, so he can now legally carry a gun.
Noel has not yet had a particularly satisfying experience of what it feels like to experience shooting in a game.
I hope POKENI doesn't disappoint me.
Noel held the mouse in his right hand,
Double-clicked the game icon to enter the game.
The first thing that appeared on the computer screen was the game production company's logo:
POKENI
[game is Life]
[In game, start a new journey of life]
Then the studio name:
Gravitation Studio
Gravitation Studio
This is also the new studio built by Brevik within pokeni's pokeni America subsidiary, primarily responsible for the development of this shooting game, and in the future, it will also undertake the development of other shooting action games, such as "The Matrix," which will also be handed over to this studio.
Nor Cook was a little lost in thought.
Because he seemed to have gotten used to the POKENI company logo, or rather, he had seen most of the logos of major game companies in the country more often, and the sudden appearance of a relatively unfamiliar studio logo made him a bit unaccustomed.
To be honest, Gravitation Studio's icon is really ugly, it's a twisted, ink-stained metal mask pattern.
This is also the first game developed by this studio.
Before this, Noel had never heard of this studio's name.
He had originally expected it to be produced by the Japan headquarters, Shinji Mikami or the recently popular Miyazaki Hidetaka. pokeni America seems to have no experience in developing action games; the only one they could boast of before was "Eternal Ashes."
However, Eternal Ashes is a dice-rolling turn-based game, which has little to do with action games, so it's hard to tell what pokeni America's development capabilities are like in action games.
However, it doesn't matter. Although it's not a game developed by Pokeni's Japan headquarters, Noel, who had already gotten a rough idea of the game, was still full of confidence.
It wasn't that important which studio developed it; what mattered was the content.
The screen first went black, then quickly lit up.
It arrived at the game's main interface.
The background image of the main interface was an island, with a clear blue sky and a turquoise sea visible in the distance.
In the foreground, soldiers from two different countries were exchanging fire on the beach, flames spewing from their gun muzzles, and bullet trails stretched across the screen.
Just seeing this main interface image made one's blood boil.
On the right was a row of menu options:
Campaign Mode
LAN
WAN
Settings
Credits
CG
Huh?
Noel Cook paused when he saw LAN and WAN.
He suddenly remembered that Aoki Haruhi had explicitly stated at the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo demonstration that "Border" could be played by multiple players simultaneously online.
How many people could it support at once?
20 people?
After recalling it, Noel couldn't help but stick out his tongue.
This game, Border, is quite impressive.
But... he couldn't find that many people to play the multiplayer mode with him.
LAN would definitely be smoother, but for WAN, he wasn't sure if the game experience could be guaranteed.
After careful consideration, Noel ultimately decided to play the campaign directly.
The campaign was a single-player mode, but it could also be played by two people, though it required setting up a host room and connecting via LAN.
At this moment, Noel couldn't help but complain about Ross.
Although that guy usually played around a lot, he was excellent at game. If he hadn't been out fooling around with girls tonight, it would have been great.
How much better would it be if the two of them could play game together right now?
Noel Cook shook his head, sighed, and clicked "Start New game."
The screen went black, and a small combat map appeared.
The 2D flat mini-map depicted the terrain of the entire world.
The camera zoomed in towards the center, then the screen framed the largest continent in the middle, spanning two oceans.
The overall world map, while somewhat similar to the real Earth, had undergone very noticeable changes and distinctions.
This was a fictional world.
This is a real yet illusory world.
On this continent named Nost, there have existed two opposing nations since ancient Times: one called the Balk Republic and the other called the Corian Republic.
These two nations, being geographically contiguous and bordering each other, were in continuous conflict.
Entering the new Time, with the development of human industry, thermal weapons were introduced to the battlefield.
Guns, artillery, and bombs led to more casualties.
War was no longer an era where victory was decided by individual size and strength differences; even a short and frail person could still kill a much larger and stronger man by using firearms.
Under such circumstances, war became simple and cruel.
And this Time, Balk and Corian are organizing armies to fight for the border.
This entire animation was extremely simple, but it gave a particularly intense feeling. The entire demonstration was conducted on the mini-map:
When Balk was played, a piece of land on the left map was circled with a white line, and when Corian was explained, its territory and map were outlined with a red line.
Finally—
The camera zoomed into the junction of the two countries.
The small, elongated border in the middle not only had forests and valleys but also a coastline adjacent to the southern sea.
Small blue arrows were drawn from the Balk Republic on the left, then converged into a large blue arrow, its spearhead pointing towards the border in the middle.
At the same Time, correspondingly, many small red arrows also appeared in the Corian section on the right, converging into a large arrow, also pointing towards the border in the middle.
Two large red and blue flags were suddenly planted in the central area.
Then a flame ignited in the middle, as if a paper map had been placed in the real world, and then gently touched with a candle from below.
The flame burned a large hole in the middle, then rapidly spread, covering the entire map.
Ashes burned and scattered from the screen...
Seeing this scene, Noel's fighting spirit was ignited.
This is too artistic, isn't it?
He originally thought it was just a 2D map display, but the final burning flame really excited him.
As expected of Pokeni, even though it's pokeni America, Noel has already felt its technical and design capabilities.
And he didn't know why, even though he hadn't seen a single decent character or war scene, just staring at a few red and blue arrows, Noel had already imagined many magnificent war scenes in his mind.
...
After the short film finished playing,
It entered the first level mission:
The game started from the Corian Republic.
The player takes on the role of a Corian soldier.
You are a high-ranking soldier of our army,
Dispatched to carry out a secret mission.
In this village, our captured senior officer, Werner, is being held.
You must rescue him within the specified Time, otherwise, he may reveal our military secrets, causing terrible losses.
To complete the mission, you will eliminate all obstacles at any cost.
A more courageous combat approach, or a smarter one, depends on your personal choice.
...
After the subtitles ended, the "Border" map section was singled out on the screen (in fact, Pokeni only did terrain design of this size for Border).
The conflict zone between the two countries was generally elongated and strip-shaped, but it was divided into several parts.
This mission started from the right forest side, closer to Corian.
The camera zoomed in, and a flag was planted in that area.
The scene shifted to outside a village, with stones piled by the roadside and some small mounds nearby.
In the distance was a large wheat field.
The surrounding trees were withered, like giant hands reaching out, grasping at something in the sky.
The male protagonist was hidden behind a large tree, wearing the military uniform characteristic of Corian.
The military uniform was a light-colored military suit that fit the character's body, but his head was not visible. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing two sturdy arms.
This is a standard first-person perspective game, with the camera positioned above the neck, and all player actions are observed through this camera.
To simulate the perspective of a person in the real world.
Although Pokeni was not the first to do first-person perspective, it was the best Noel had experienced so far.
Next, the game entered the tutorial section.
The tutorial content was very simple.
First, it taught walking, climbing, jumping, and crouching.
After learning to jump, Noel, without any instruction, instinctively started pressing the spacebar while walking.
Which resulted in the effect of running and jumping on the screen.
In fact, if you don't press the spacebar, it always feels like something is missing.
...
That's good.
Noel Cook was quite surprised by the game's visual quality.
He originally thought this game would be a rough model version produced by a small workshop, but after entering, he found that the game's visual details were done quite well.
In 3D mode, various lighting and shadows, as well as the models and textures of the surrounding large trees, were quite realistic, and the character models and movements had also reached an astonishing level.
Indeed, everything Aoki Haruhi said was true.
Both the game's set designs and the objects within the scenes were no longer the rigid, commonplace photographic modes of the past, but rather models and textures with intricate details and excellent processing.
Moreover, this Time, Pokeni was no longer using static lighting effects, but dynamic lighting, which was generated in real-Time, though still in its early stages.
Even if it didn't achieve the ray tracing effects of around 2020 in his previous life, the current dynamic lighting was already enough to impress Noel.
It gave a natural feeling.
Although the tree trunks still had some rough outlines upon closer inspection, they were already quite well done.
This was probably the best 3D game Noel had played in recent years, without a doubt.
It seems that buying an Nvidia graphics card was a very wise decision.
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