One trailer, three maps, and the entire game process.
From a fledgling car thief in New York to a gang member serving California's most powerful family.
Then... to the Miami crime saint who freely enjoys life.
It's practically a dark humor version of the " United States Dream" concept.
It's like some kid from Sicily who came to United States and climbed step by step to the top.
But without a doubt, this promotional video, or rather this game, perfectly hit the spot that United States most sensitive to.
Luxury cars, beautiful women, and crime!
Cars! Guns!... Hmm... How come those things on the beach aren't considered balls?
The three major characteristics of United States have never been combined in one game like this one.
After a lengthy transition period with smaller titles, Gamenova finally delivered a perfect mainstream cultural offering during the Independence Day sale and on United States's National Day.
For gamers, this is definitely an exciting day.
Because during this period, despite Gamenova winning numerous awards and releasing one good game after another, those games were positioned in a very special way, and were typical examples of critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful works.
If you let them praise you, they will certainly spare no effort in showering you with praise and eloquent words.
But do we really want them to go and have fun?
That's a different matter altogether.
Not everyone can bear to spend a long, tiring day playing a game like "Hypotheosis of Babel," nor does everyone enjoy puzzle games like " Tower of Babel Hymn."
And now...
The mainstream has arrived.
After winning so many awards, Gamenova has accumulated enough clout to finally create these "contrary to public order and good morals" works again.
On the day of the promotion.
Convenience stores and digital product stores were packed with people.
This dense crowd is something you only see when Michael Jackson releases a new album or when certain great authors launch new books. Pauly was in the very center of the crowd, completely being pushed forward by the flow of people.
"Eh, I really don't know if I can get one."
He sighed dejectedly.
If I had known this would happen, why didn't I pre-order one by phone?
Today, gamenova's pre-order business is well-established.
However, a large number of players still choose to do what Pauly does, arriving early in the morning to rush to physical stores to snap up the goods.
Besides experiencing the atmosphere of game enthusiasts from all over the world gathering together, I also wanted to catch up on some older games that I hadn't had a chance to play before, now that they're on sale.
For Pauly, he came here today for only one purpose.
That means getting a copy of " Morality and Rule of Law ".
As an Italy- Sicily immigrant, Pauly naturally finds gang and crime themes irresistibly appealing.
Although this is a standard United States Dream template, rather than my preferred "mafia" theme.
"This doesn't look good..." Even from a distance, Pauly could see that several rows of shelves were already empty.
Even other games have been swept away in the process, not just the newly released titles today.
This group of players was like a locust swarm.
In a whirlwind of activity, the shelves were quickly emptied.
A large poster of " Morality and Rule of Law " was displayed on the wall.
Just like in the game, there are palm trees, sunsets, luxury cars, beautiful women, and of course, police.
Several Trinitron televisions were still playing the game's promotional videos on a loop.
However, in such a noisy environment, not a single sound could be heard.
"Thank God!"
Pauly.
He saw a shop assistant carrying an oversized cardboard box, surrounded by a crowd, as they approached the shelf.
The moment the cardboard box was opened, before even the price tags could be put on, the cardboard box would be emptied by the buyers. The box, which was just full a moment ago, would be completely emptied in an instant.
"Well..."
Well, it seems I can't Panasonic for a moment until I actually get my hands on the game.
Fortunately, Gamenova anticipated just how popular this theme would be.
The initial stockpile of CDs was sufficient to handle today's surge in demand.
More than an hour later, with the help of the crowd, Pauly finally got what he wanted.
"Next!"
The cashier deftly pulled out a barcode scanner and scanned the barcode on the back of the card holder.
Cash or credit card?
He took the magnetic stripe card from Pauly and swiped it casually on the POS machine.
"Drop"
I carefully placed the receipt and games into a neatly designed paper bag printed with the store's logo, and then handed the credit card back to him. Go to Bing Search Flagship Store to see the latest chapter!
This maneuver was almost entirely ingrained in their muscle memory, showing that the other party was already used to this kind of situation.
The exhilarating special shopping spree has officially come to a successful conclusion.
Oh wait, how to squeeze out of the endless crowd is another ordeal altogether.
As people squeezed out, several shop Pauly could still be heard shouting while holding landlines:
"Hey, we're running low on stock, could you please bring some over..."
"What do you mean 'gone'? What about Target?...?"
"Okay, I'll check."
It's clear that today's buying frenzy was extremely intense.
Summer sales are one of the most important holidays of the year for gamers.
However, in a corner unnoticed by anyone, there was an extra familiar yet unfamiliar figure on the shelf today. It was a pure black packaging box.
It depicts a pair of exceptionally bright golden eyes.
Below the eyes is a line of bold, powerful red capital letters, the font is extremely aggressive, and even the strokes have been deliberately given an artistic treatment resembling claw marks.
[jaguar]
[64-bit]
If it weren't for the United States flag and [atari] logo in the upper left corner, you would have no idea what this thing is at first glance.
This is the Atari Americas Leopard, also known as the legendary [atari jaguar].
Atari's Last Dance, a "64-bit" game console, a brand new product for the fifth generation.
The demo units were placed against the wall.
The entire device has the same design as the packaging box.
A pure black frame with the word "jaguar" in scarlet.
It's clear that Atari is really trying its best to be "cool" in the way they think it is. However, although this machine boasts such an exaggerated gimmick as 64-bit, Atari didn't actually go to the extreme of developing a true 64-bit high-end processor like 3do did.
Instead, Jaguar used Micro-Nova Semiconductor's Athena-II chip and SDRAM memory chips.
The graphics processor and audio processor are custom-made products manufactured by Micro-Nova Semiconductor.
In addition, this device also integrates a Motorola 68000 chip for controlling all peripheral devices.
At its core, this thing is at best a 32-bit game console.
The reason Atari officially touted it as a 64-bit GG is entirely because its underlying data path and graphics processor use a 64-bit architecture.
Atari seems to have learned something from the console wars of recent years.
In the future, and at least for the next few generations, visuals will be a crucial and indispensable element.
Therefore, they invested a large amount of research and development resources in graphics rendering.
And the result... did indeed meet Atari's expectations.
[Do the math]
This is Atari's promotional slogan for this machine. The meaning is very simple.
Stop giving me that nonsense, let's do some math.
Nintendo's SNES, Sega's Genesis, and Gamenova's NovaXeno were all 16-bit consoles.
While 3do boasts unparalleled specifications, its price is extremely high.
And the Atari Americas Leopard...
64-bit machine, only $250!
With the support of the athena-ii and a custom graphics chip, this machine is even comparable to 3do!
If you do the math, you'll find it's truly a great game console with an extremely high cost-performance ratio!
This differs from the current approach of mainstream game developers.
Atari employed an extremely... in the design of its game console.
Well, how should I put it?
An extremely novel design. In addition to the original D-pad and function buttons, the controller adds an extra numeric keypad below it.
The numbers range from 0 to 9, and also include asterisks and hash symbols.
At first glance, someone unfamiliar with it might mistake it for a phone.
This is terrifying...
Any industrial designer who is passionate about video games would probably be stunned upon seeing this bizarre controller.
The reason for this design is actually very simple and straightforward, and also quite baffling.
Atari hopes that Jaguar will support various genres such as strategy games and CRPGs.
Some of these works require a large number of shortcut commands.
It's like Command & Conquer.
If Gamenova were willing to port it to Jaguar, these shortcut keys could be used to perform many cool maneuvers!
With this in mind, they added a full numeric keypad to the controller.
Uh... okay, it would be a bit too biased to just dismiss it like that.
In fact, the Jaguar's controller has a very stunning design.
A plastic card is included in the game cartridge box.
After players place cards on the numeric keypad, the function corresponding to the key can be directly identified from the information on the card.
For example, the number 1 button will turn into a "map" when covered with a plastic sheet.
This idea is actually quite interesting, and it has a strong early United States industrial and engineering feel to it.
This can be considered a way to differentiate themselves from the Japan market.
But that's where the problem lies.
It's interesting, but the feel of it is truly awful.
Holding a handle that's the size of a plate is definitely not comfortable.
Even more terrifying is...
This 64-bit game console... does not support CD-ROM drives. It's a cartridge player.
Atari's strategy was very clear: high-speed cassette bus.
The advantages of doing this are obvious: fast reading speed, independent technology, and lower cost.
If this machine were made by Nintendo, it might actually work.
At the very least, it will be a generation of machines that are highly collectible.
Unfortunately, it was manufactured by Atari.
Almost a week has passed since the press conference.
The entire machine... only had one game, Cybermorph.
This escort lineup isn't even as strong as 3do.