Chapter 667 571 Ordinary and Great
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In 2002, the E3 Electronics Show was still held in Los Angeles.
This year's E3 is quite special. It is difficult to describe an electronic exhibition in such an occasion as both sad and prosperous, both pessimistic and positive.
These words seem to contradict each other, and feel like a split, but they are fully reflected in this E3 Electronics Show.
It seems that after the 1211 incident, under the condition of the world economic downturn, many large game companies have insufficient cash flow reserves and are difficult to turn around. Basically, many of the games that came to the exhibition were previously developed, or the games that were not affected in terms of funds.
The worst of this E3 Electronics Show was Square Enix. Originally, a sequel to Final Fantasy would be released every year, but after being affected by the movie, Square Enix once fell into a financial chain collapse and even went bankrupt. Naturally, the game could not be developed in time, so Square Enix was absent from this E3 Electronics Show.
Many established game companies have also fallen into a vicious circle of living off their old products:
TECMO, called Tecmo by many Chinese players, has not merged with Koei Tecmo to become [Koei Tecmo] this year, so this time they brought to E3 the most profitable and well-known game IPs under their umbrella:
"Ninja Gaiden": The platform for the debut is the Dandelion game platform. It is a new work in the series after a 10-year absence. It is a 3D action-adventure game launched by Team Ninja led by Itagaki Tomonobu, the producer of "Death Fight".
The story setting is mainly about revenge.
The protagonist is still Ryu Hayabusa, but the world view has been combined with another work of the same development team, "Death Fight", and the setting has changed a bit.
This game is both living off its old products and making bold innovations, because this is also the first time that Tecmo has joined the Dandelion family. After adopting the new Pioneer engine, the picture performance instantly improved by several levels.
During the live demonstration, the players exclaimed: [This should be the 3D action game with the highest picture quality level now, right? 】
However, due to the existence of Pokeni as a ballast, it is really not dared to say that it is the highest level of the contemporary era. It can only be said that it is the best 3D action game among the games currently on display. With smooth and gorgeous moves and changeable weapons, it can be said to be quite eye-catching.
However, the only thing that worries people is its game difficulty.
You should know that the game difficulty of Ninja Gaiden has always been the highest in the industry, even higher than several games developed by Paradox Club Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Therefore, the players on the scene all expressed that they hope Tecmo can learn from Paradox Club and open more different difficulties to take care of the public.
The estimated release date of "Ninja Gaiden" is 2004, so players can be said to have something to wait for.
On the other hand, Rentendo will continue to bring the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
As for Sony, it seems that there is nothing remarkable and new content to show off. In addition, this large multinational company has also been hit by a wave of 1211, and it has not recovered yet.
As the president of SCE, Ken Kutaragi often has the will but not the ability. Although he also attended the E3 Electronics Show this time, his expression was very ugly throughout the whole process.
...
You can imagine how strong the pessimistic atmosphere is.
And the biggest change actually came from the hardware manufacturer Intel.
Intel showed the latest computing technology to mainstream game fans and players: the legendary Pentium 4 processor.
At the E3 exhibition, Intel showed some of the latest computer games running on the world's highest-performance desktop processor-Intel Pentium 4 processor 2.53GHz.
Combined with the latest software, computers based on Pentium 4 processors can support complex physics engines and artificial intelligence, bringing users a more exciting and realistic gaming experience.
For example:
"Strange Creatures"
"Men in Black II: Crossfire",
"Winston Racing 2002",
"Neverwinter Nights"
"Rise of Kingdoms"
"Star Trek: Elite Force II"
"TRON 2.0"
... These games are extremely smooth because they use Intel's latest Pentium 4 processor.
Among them, Epic Games has optimized their Unreal 3D engine for Pentium 4 processors and will use it in the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2003 game.
After the Unreal Tournament 2003 was exhibited, many people clearly felt a strange trend:
It seems that in addition to the Microsoft-pokeni system, there is another system expanding, which now looks like the Intel-EPIC route on the surface.
Seeing the name of EPIC game, Qing Zhiyuan was a little uneasy sitting on the scene, with mixed feelings in his heart.
What should I say?
Is it the end of the timeline?
I thought Paradox's game engine was the only one that was enough to monopolize the entire game engine market, but I didn't expect EPIC to come out.
This company was very famous in its previous life. The Unreal Engine series it created has become the first choice for almost all game developers in the world to develop games, and it will be updated and iterated every few years to ensure that its game engine is the best in the world.
Now it seems that Pokeni's Pioneer Engine is still far ahead, but it will not be good if it is caught up by the Unreal Engine in the future.
Qing Zhiyuan touched his chin and wondered whether to make a protective acquisition of EPIC?
However, if he rashly acquired another engine company under the premise that he had his own engine, he might be countered by Tesla.
So Qing Zhiyuan just recorded it as a small problem and planned to discuss it with Iwata Satoru after returning.
…
When many large game manufacturers were silent, no one would have thought that Intel, which makes PC processors, would show its prowess.
However, this is not a new thing in the game industry. Many times, the large-scale blowout of games comes from the explosion of technology.
Like the release of Pokeni's Pioneer Engine and Dandelion Game Platform, a large number of new games were launched at once, especially after Paradox Club understood 3D games, a storm of 3D games was instantly blown.
Now the mainstream of the game industry is still 3D.
…
After the previous work "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty" achieved a very good result of more than 6 million copies, Konami launched "Metal Gear Solid 2: Solid" this year.
"Metal Gear Solid 2: Solid" is an enhanced version based on "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty". The "SNAKE Story" added to this game can also be said to be a supplement to the "Sons of Liberty" story. In addition, a large number of new elements such as VR missions and BOSS survival battles make the richness of this game reach an extremely high level.
However, this can only be played in 2002, and players will buy into an enhanced version. If it is put 20 years later, if you release an enhanced version and have to collect money again, and do not make up for the difference in price for the original game, you will probably be scolded to death.
Even players will think that you are just fooling us with a DLC and selling the game again.
However, when Konami showed the actual machine screen at the pre-exhibition press conference, it still received cheers from countless players.
Since Konami boarded the Pokeni ship, it has been smooth sailing and making great strides.
It doesn't matter whether to develop technology independently or not. The key is that you will spend a huge price to develop a game engine yourself, and in the end you may still face the result of being crushed by the Paradox Club. It is better to use the Pioneer Engine 2 directly.
By the way, the internal version of Pokeni's Pioneer Engine has been upgraded to 2.5. Although it is called 2.5, in fact, performance support and various new game tools are encapsulated in it, which can make more exquisite and smooth games with more comprehensive functions.
Paradox Club's strategy has always been very clear, maintaining a generation gap of about one generation, and the rest is completely open to other game manufacturers.
In addition to Metal Gear, Konami also brought "Silent Hill 3" this time, which also supports both PC and Sega DC platforms.
In fact, it supports the Dandelion game platform.
After Silent Hill 3 adopted the new Pioneer engine, the picture quality has been qualitatively replaced. It is a horror game. Now because of the increase in the number of faces and the smoother edges of various models, it looks more realistic.
The live demonstration directly triggered a wave of screams.
Because it is really too impactful and too scary.
With the theme of shopping malls, it is closer to people's lives. With realistic character models and dark horror atmosphere, it can be said to be quite thrilling.
The picture of "Silent Hill 3" is quite excellent. It uses the same picture granular filtering technology as "Silent Hill 2", making the game look like a horror movie that has faded because of its age.
With the excellent sound effects of the game, you will soon feel a heavy sense of depression when you are alone in such a picture.
For a long time, you have to shuttle between multiple dark scenes. At this time, you can see the lighting effects that the game is proud of:
There is a flashlight in the granary pocket of the heroine Heather's top, and you can use it to explore those dark scenes.
Under the excellent dynamic lighting effects, the images of various characters and monsters in the game are very realistic, but the performance of some characters' facial animations is not good enough and a little stiff.
And all this can only be achieved by Pokeni's pioneer engine.
In other words, Konami not only proved itself with its two games, but also promoted Paradox's technology.
...
So when it was Pokeni's turn, Qing Zhiyuan's first sentence on the stage was:
"Thank you Konami, thank you Tecmo, thank you... Thank you friends, your games are quite good.
But it is because you have made world-class game masterpieces that the whole world has seen us.
This engine development company that has been silently working behind the scenes."
Hahahaha...
After Qing Zhiyuan finished his first sentence, the audience laughed.
Fuck, you are obviously a game production company, and now you have to force yourself to move behind the scenes and hide your achievements and fame, right?
“You know how I feel this year?
Sony seems to have given up on the battlefield and has not shown much performance.
The fight is mainly around more advanced game engines.
One is pokeni’s pioneer engine, which has made a lot of game companies popular.
On the other side is Intel and EPIC’s Unreal Engine, and the companies competing are basically American.
I feel like there's going to be a good show. "
"I think the current Unreal Engine is no match for the Trail Blazers, okay?
Judging from the graphics alone, Paradox has not yet appeared on the scene. Konami's Silent Hill 3 and Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden have already crushed them. "
"Hmm... It seems like that, but I'm even more looking forward to what kind of games P Society will bring this time."
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...(End of chapter)