At the beginning of the game, Noel Cook only had a 7.9mm KL86 rifle and a 20cm military dagger.
The bullets were also very limited, less than 8 rounds.
It could be said he was very poorly equipped.
The advantage was that Noel Cook could obtain equipment from enemies by killing them.
...
After learning the basic tutorial, the game guided him to hide behind a small stone hill, using the stones as cover, and then use an old pair of binoculars to observe the enemy's movements.
After pressing the B key, he entered the binoculars view.
Noel Cook followed the guidance and observed that the entire village in the distance was already full of enemies; the enemy forces had arranged patrolling personnel to walk back and forth at every entrance and exit of the village, and at regular intervals, other soldiers were also on patrol.
The arrangement seemed strict, making it impossible to start anywhere.
The game guided Noel Cook to crouch and sneak into the village from outside the fence, then raise his dagger from behind and swing it a few times, easily eliminating this enemy.
Afterward, following the game's prompt, Noel Cook found an enemy sniper standing at a high position, whose high-power scope's reflection was particularly obvious in the dark night.
He took the opportunity to sneak up from behind the high tower and once again eliminated the opponent with his dagger.
Not bad.
Noel Cook clicked his tongue in admiration.
The game's effect was indeed somewhat unexpected, as the entire assassination action was very fluid, and the whole process made Noel Cook's blood boil.
...
After eliminating the enemy sniper, Noel Cook, following the tutorial, obtained his equipment:
A 6.5mm TLK101 rifle.
The TLK101, equipped with 6.5mm ammunition, performed very well, even having a perfect trajectory, with bullets flying very stably.
The TLK101 rifle had a sight range of up to 2400 meters and an effective range of 600 meters.
Equipped with a high-power scope, it was simply perfect.
In addition, he also scavenged two grenades and a Domino 11 pistol from the young man's body.
46 pistol bullets and 13 rifle bullets.
He was already very well-equipped.
...
...
Next, the game guided Noel Cook to stand on the high tower, aim at a lone enemy over 200 meters away, and teach him how to hold his breath and use scope shooting...
Bang!
With a gunshot, the bullet shot out from the barrel, creating a spark in the air...
Then...
A headshot, blood splattering.
The opponent fell in response.
Holy crap!
Noel Cook let out a low sigh.
The feel and bullet trajectory effect, as well as the opponent's hit feedback, were all done quite well.
It truly gives you the feeling of being on a battlefield.
Amazing, Border.
...
After killing the enemy, because the gunshot would attract the attention of surrounding enemies, a group of enemy soldiers ran towards the corpse.
Text appeared on the screen showing what they were saying:
"Enemy!"
"We have a soldier down."
"He must be nearby; we must find this person."
"Increase vigilance."
...
The game quickly taught him how to conceal himself.
To avoid the opponent's detection.
Every soldier has a field of vision; if you are within their field of vision, you will expose yourself.
...
At this point, the game tutorial ended.
Noel Cook's mouth curved slightly upward.
He had never played such a realistic and thrilling shooting game before.
It must be said that pokeni truly has a knack for making games.
No wonder it's so popular in pokeni America.
To avoid misleading players, the game tried to avoid reality as much as possible, using new naming conventions for all firearms and making certain distinctions in their appearance, but some features were still very obvious.
Especially in terms of bullet trajectory and feel, even with a changed name and style, Noel could tell with a touch—
This is a Kar.98, that is a Desert Eagle...
In short, it will give you a sense of déjà vu.
However, from the perspective of operational experience, Noel Cook felt it was truly excellent.
Different gun types had different applicability; automatic fire had a fast rate of fire and low lethality, while single fire had slow reloading but high bullet damage.
Rifles were more suitable for sniping, while submachine guns were more suitable for close combat; if enemies got too close and he happened to run out of bullets, he would have to resort to close quarters combat with a dagger.
Different firearms also had different bullet trajectories and recoil.
Other types of shooting games he had played before had not been so realistic; with an automatic rifle, the first shot would go 'Da da da,' and the accuracy might be similar to where you aimed, but then it would kick up.
Like a wild horse without a bridle.
Just hearing the sound was especially exhilarating.
The feel of the firearms was also meticulously adjusted by the pokeni America team, allowing them to both fulfill their value and avoid overly abnormal or versatile weapons; each weapon had its unique bullet trajectory and pros and cons, making players both love and hate them.
...
After continuously taking down several Balak enemies, he slowly infiltrated behind a stone cover not far from the target.
In the game, when you sprint, you can still clearly hear the character's breathing.
His heart rate also sped up.
This feeling is too exciting.
Noel expressed that he enjoyed this feeling too much, just like truly coming to the battlefield to fight enemies.
The most crucial thing was that he was now fighting one against many, which was an almost impossible task in reality.
He hadn't expected that a shooting game, when made 3D, could bring such a refreshing experience.
The character's movements were also very fluid, not the kind of flat movement without limb changes, and when enemies died or fell, their entire body movements also changed.
They didn't just fall like puppets after being shot, becoming stiff and wooden.
If you hit the chest, he would fall backward, throw his gun aside, and fall with his arms open.
If it was a back attack, he would fall forward.
Although pokeni couldn't achieve real-time calculation in the game, at least it made a front and back random death animation to enhance player feedback.
Even a slight lack of these things, or cutting corners, would prevent players from having a good experience.
...
Noel Cook moved to a better vantage point and then found a lone enemy to aim at.
Whoosh...
Noel Cook's heart rate also sped up, then he clicked the left mouse button.
The bullet missed the moment it was fired.
Damn!
Noel Cook whispered, preparing to leave this position.
Who knew that because the bullet missed, it quickly alerted the opponent, and in the process of escaping, he also ran into some soldiers who were outflanking in this direction.
When enemies meet on a narrow road, the brave win. Noel Cook, without a word, pulled out his pistol and started firing.
But—
The next second, the opponent raised his rifle and fired a volley at him.
Bang bang...
The camera suddenly dropped to the ground.
A large [YOU DIED] appeared on the screen.
...
Fuck!
Noel Cook's mouth hung open, unable to believe the reality he saw for a long time.
I just died like that?
Just met, and then got headshotted by the opponent?
Is this game that realistic?
Is the protagonist that fragile?
As a very important sharpshooter in our army, how did I just die?
For some reason, Noel Cook felt the fear of being dominated by pokeni again in this game, just like back then.
This, this game, was it made by Miyazaki Hidetaka?
How could it be so realistic?
...
In fact, if Noel observed carefully, he would find—
His health was exactly the same as every enemy's health, both 100 points.
If you died, you were truly dead.
However, in the game, health could be restored through some supplies, such as bandages and first aid kits, allowing the protagonist to continue fighting after defeating each enemy.
Ammunition could be obtained by killing enemies or by sneaking into rooms in the village to obtain certain supplies.
If he wanted more health, he could only scavenge items like bulletproof vests; if he had a bulletproof vest, it could offset some damage.
Moreover, in the game, Noel also discovered something—
The damage caused by bullets hitting different parts of the human body was also different.
For example, hitting a hand might only cause 10 or 30 points of damage, but hitting the chest would be 50 or 60 points, and two more hits would kill him.
The head was even more exaggerated, basically hovering around 100 points, and it was unarmored, so a hit was a guaranteed kill.
If there was a helmet, it would be slightly better, helping to block a little damage.
However, it was only a little; at this point, it was basically a critical health state, and any further hit to any part of the body would be fatal.
How exactly did he find out?
It just goes to show, the more you die, the more you learn.
After figuring out this pattern, Noel became addicted to the thrill of headshots.
He would always observe the enemy's movements first, confirm there was only one or two targets, and then use a long-range rifle to aim for the head…
Each time he landed a shot, that feeling of an accelerating heartbeat and surging adrenaline would fill his mind.
Blood rushed to his head, dopamine secreted rapidly; it was truly an unprecedentedly stimulating experience.
"The Border" is too much fun, isn't it?
Even without a substantial storyline, just experiencing different firearms and kill effects was enough to keep Noel playing.
And in this process, he also needed to avoid the enemy's sight and prevent being discovered.
Once the number of enemies engaged exceeded two, it became very dangerous.
The gameplay was completely different from Diablo, which he had played before; this was not a game of stacking stats, but one that required the player's personal reaction ability, the accuracy of their shots, and their control over the firearm—whether they could suppress the gun to make bullets hit the opponent more accurately and densely in a short time…
These were the aspects that made Noel feel the joy of growth.
Not the growth of the in-game character, but the growth of the real player.
In this regard, "The Border" shared a similar brilliance with "the witcher 2: Demons Egg."
In short, playing this game, apart from a slight dizziness that occasionally occurred from constantly turning the camera, everything else could be said to be impeccable.
Noel thought to himself.
3D motion sickness probably started with FPS games, because to guard against enemies that might come from all directions, one needed to constantly use sounds from headphones to determine their location, and also move the mouse to switch the camera to ensure no enemies were in one's field of view.
Once an enemy was spotted, one had to immediately open fire and eliminate them, otherwise it was very easy to be killed.
Frequent camera movement and rapid changes in vision could easily lead to dizziness.
However, 3D motion sickness also varied from person to person, with very obvious individual differences; some people would only experience slight discomfort no matter how much they played, and it would take a long time for dizziness to appear.
While some people couldn't play such 3D games at all, feeling nauseous and wanting to vomit as soon as the camera moved frequently.
Originally, he was full of doubts about the game's production, thinking that it would be difficult for POKENI's smaller teams, apart from Shinji Mikami's team, to produce high-quality products.
But after playing for a while, Nor Cook realized he was wrong, and terribly so.
Because this game, from every aspect, was a commendable good game.
Whether it was the shooting experience, the realistic and brutal battlefield, or those scattered, cunning enemies.
As well as the realistic graphics displayed by the game, the patches on characters' clothes, the aged guns, the handles that had a greasy patina from long-term use…
When killing enemies, the splattering blood, and the fact that they died so quickly…
All made Nor Cook feel the cruelty of modern warfare.
This game was definitely a superior work.
And the person who designed and debugged this game must understand firearms very well.
He even suspected whether POKENI's designers had designed them completely according to real-life weapons, and had actually gone through countless battles to achieve this level.
It was truly amazing to be able to play such a game.
Especially for firearm enthusiasts and military fans, what could be better than a shooting game that was closer to reality?
However…
The game's difficulty was truly too high.
Or rather, too realistic.
Every enemy had the same stats as the protagonist, and computer shooting was more accurate than real-person shooting.
Humans still needed to use their wrists to suppress the gun, but computers didn't need to at all; these were all things programmed.
The key lay in difficulty control; if the designers wanted players to experience a living hell, then every enemy would be a sharpshooter.
If they wanted to go easy on players, they could completely make them masters of shooting around the target, not hitting a single shot—
Unless you ran into it yourself.
Sometimes, even if you tried your best, you might not be able to easily defeat a single enemy soldier.
And these soldiers, according to their level, had increasingly better marksmanship.
You could only save after each kill; there was no room for lucky, because excessive greed for combat would lead to a very tragic end.
However, this time, pokeni America's Gravity Studio seemed to have already anticipated that players might have significant individual differences, and thoughtfully set a difficulty option in the menu bar.
Even if you were already in the game, you could still lower the enemy's AI by adjusting the difficulty—
Lower shooting accuracy, slower reactions, harder to detect players…
After all, the campaign part was for players to familiarize themselves with game operations, processes, and the battlefield.
POKENI divided the entire "The Border" into more than a dozen small modules, each with its unique terrain, which was equivalent to cutting the game into different battlefields of various sizes.
These battlefields were used as selectable maps for local area network battles.
The campaign mode was for players to gain a deeper understanding of these terrains, preparing for future local area network co-op battles.
And so, Nor Cook carefully proceeded, dying at every step, saving at every step, sometimes even having to reload to a much earlier position due to a small mistake…
It took him 4 hours to clear the first level.
Nor Cook looked at the time.
His smile suddenly froze on his face.
He was still enjoying the joy of success, not realizing he had spent so much time.
"Oh my god… What kind of hell-level game is this?"
Looking at the time, it was already past 1 AM.
Nor Cook had no choice but to turn off the computer and go to sleep.
At night, he dreamed of defending his country on the battlefield, striking down enemies, rescuing teammates…
In the morning, Nor Cook was startled awake from his sleep because he dreamed that he was hiding in a bush and was discovered by an enemy soldier patrolling from behind, and as soon as he turned around, he was shot full of holes.
Oh my goodness~
Nor Cook sat up, wiped his face, his forehead already covered in cold sweat.
This game was simply too terrifying.
I must clear it today!
After 15 hours of playing, Nor Cook finally passed half of the levels and arrived at Norton Hill.
In this battle, he once again experienced the cruelty of war.
He had originally thought that after more than ten hours of training, he was now an excellent Destroyer of war, but he did not expect the situation he encountered here to be much more difficult than before.
Just the level of seizing the high tower alone took Nor Cook over 4 hours.
Then, when the two high points were captured and his forces were deployed, ready to strike the enemy, the enemy formed a long line, densely entering Nor Cook's field of vision from the valley entrance.
"Oh my!"
Nor Cook was stunned on the spot when he saw the number of enemies.
What the heck…
There were at least one or two dozen enemies.
At the same time, his computer immediately lagged.
The frame rate drop was very severe, making it difficult for him to perform effective precise operations, so Nor Cook had no choice but to lower the graphics quality to make the game run more smoothly.
This battle was also exceptionally arduous, because the enemy had a large number of people and fierce firepower, and several times Nor Cook's defended high ground was almost snatched away by the enemy.
Here, Nor Cook experienced the same feeling as watching a war movie—
Enemies were dense and endless.
But the difficulty was not on the same level—
One careless mistake and you would be wiped out by the enemy.
Originally, Nor Cook wanted to experience the thrill of war in this game, but he did not expect that in the end, he experienced countless deaths and the cruelty of war.
This combat environment alone was enough to be heartbreaking in a game, let alone what it would be like on a real battlefield.
Fortunately, this was just a game; what if it were a real battlefield?
Noel thought to himself that even if he had a hundred lives, it wouldn't be enough.
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