Movie Theaters Should Show Movies

The audience members who had originally been planning to leave realized that things might be about to get entertaining, and quite a few returned to their seats.

Beneath the stylized title lettering, the two protagonists stood back to back, wearing only tank tops stretched taut over their bulging muscles.

The blond-haired 1P sported a flat top and clenched a blue cigarette between his lips. Though his eyes were rendered in few pixels, their determination still showed.

At the sight of that face, even Schwarzenegger himself, holding the control panel, froze for a moment.

It had clearly been drawn in his likeness, only with even more of a "tough guy" air.

And the 2P character behind the protagonist, with those signature long curls and facial features, looked every bit like "Rambo," the iconic character played by Stallone!

"Arnold, this is just a cover image. Any game can do that."

Afraid that this hollow rainbow fart of flattery would sway Schwarzenegger into an impulsive decision, his agent made a point of reminding him.

The cover was only a static piece of pixel art. Spend a little money hiring an artist, and it could be produced in no time.

Even "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" had a lifelike image of E.T. on its cover, but what had its actual content been like?

"I understand."

Schwarzenegger nodded and focused on the game.

Since the test board had not been installed in an arcade cabinet, Lin Lixin had only equipped it with a test control panel, allowing just one person to play.

Schwarzenegger looked at the button functions marked in pencil on the panel in his hands and tried pressing the start button.

With everyone eagerly anticipating a spectacle, the game officially began.

The protagonist leaped from a helicopter, somersaulting through the air before landing.

Stars visibly twinkled in the pitch-black night sky.

Beneath that starry sky lay mountains forming the backdrop, with a jungle a little closer.

The melon-eating spectators who had been expecting some entertainment suddenly fell silent.

Even the water below had rippling effects!

They had never seen game graphics like these before!

"Are... are these really visual effects a video game can produce?!"

Clearly, there was a seasoned veteran of gaming present, staring in disbelief at the image projected onto the screen.

He clearly saw that as Schwarzenegger began moving the character, the finely rendered protagonist actually launched into a smooth running animation!

Frame-by-frame animation!

Did it have to be this outrageous?

Even the agent, who had remained pessimistic throughout, silently shut his mouth.

How could someone who worked as an agent lack a nose for business? That very first glimpse had already made him realize that the situation was vastly different from what he had imagined.

This game might well be an entirely different beast from the industrial garbage Atari had mass-produced in the past.

Schwarzenegger tapped the buttons with interest, familiarizing himself with the controls.

Every button delivered immediate visual feedback.

Especially with the protagonist so closely resembling him in both face and physique, Schwarzenegger's sense of immersion as he played was incredibly strong.

"The gun can move, too? It can even aim diagonally. Unbelievable."

For this era, eight-directional shooting was already an astonishing piece of black technology.

Even the "1942" Lin Lixin had stitched together only allowed shooting in a single direction.

In "Contra," however, the gun could freely point up, left, right, and toward all four corners according to the player's inputs.

Pressing down by itself would even make the character go prone.

Yet this was only the beginning.

The board Gerald had prepared boasted far more memory and video memory than other arcade boards of the period, allowing Lin Lixin to develop without restraint.

It could display up to sixty-four moving objects on the screen at once!

This advantage allowed "Contra" to support large numbers of bullets and enemies moving on the same screen.

After he advanced only a few steps, the first enemy appeared ahead and ran toward Schwarzenegger.

When he saw that the enemy also had a smooth running animation, the know-it-all in the audience felt the corners of his mouth twitch.

"Even the cannon-fodder enemies have full animations..."

"Ratatat!"

Several bullets poured out, riddling the enemy like a sieve.

Schwarzenegger's expression was quite a sight. He had never seen anything like this before.

The experience was completely different from watching a movie. The immersion was so powerful that it felt as though he himself had really penetrated deep into the enemy's headquarters.

"Mr. Schwarzenegger, quick, shoot that power-up! It can upgrade your weapon!"

Sharp-eyed Sam spotted the power-up drifting across the sky and hurriedly called out a reminder.

He had recognized the feature at first glance during his test run. Lin Lixin had simply brought out that same system from "1942" again.

"Okay."

Without wasting words, Schwarzenegger immediately swung his gun around and fired several shots into the sky.

Sure enough, once the power-up was shot down, it released something marked with the letter "M."

Schwarzenegger raised an eyebrow. If an M stood for any weapon, surely it would be that symbol of the tough guy.

Machine gun!

In other words-a machine gun!

The instant he picked it up, the power of the weapon in the protagonist's hands changed dramatically.

The previously intermittent bullets immediately became an unbroken barrage, the dense firepower directly suppressing the newly appearing enemies.

Unfortunately, Schwarzenegger was no old hand like Sam. A few minutes later, he ultimately fell before the first miniboss.

Faced with that "Wall of Sighs," composed entirely of bizarre alien machinery, Schwarzenegger felt a profound sense of helplessness for the first time.

"What a shame. If I hadn't missed that attack-speed power-up just now, I probably could have beaten it."

He could only blame his own mistake at the controls.

As the saying went, "Outsiders watch the spectacle; insiders see the workings."

But "Contra" truly had both spectacle and substance in abundance.

It did not look remotely like a work that belonged in 1984.

In silence, the agent, Dave, took another few serious looks at Lin Lixin.

He truly found it hard to believe that a work like this could have been made by the young man before him, who looked barely into his twenties.

He had thought video games might very well keep sliding downhill until they finally vanished into the long river of history.

But "Contra" seemed like a work brought back through countless worlds from a future in which video games had succeeded.

"Mr. Lin," the agent, Dave, said solemnly, bowing slightly to Lin Lixin, "please allow me to apologize for my earlier rashness. This is an absolutely unbelievable miracle."

Even the greatest fool should have been able to see what choice to make now.

Dave turned to Schwarzenegger. "Arnold, I think this..."

"We have to take this endorsement!" Schwarzenegger cut him off, his expression turning serious. "Absolutely CINEMA!!"