Recaps

Lin Lixin expanded GameNova’s arcade and browser-game ventures while Sony pursued PlayStation and Atari gambled on the Jaguar. He then launched development of Command & Conquer: Red Alert, splitting its campaigns across two discs and steering the team away from needless technical complexity.

• Lin Lixin launched NovaAds, which quickly attracted advertisers and webmasters and created a new revenue stream for Nexus.
• After Nintendo abandoned its deal with Sony, Ken Kutaragi persuaded Sony’s executives to continue with PlayStation, while Lin Lixin began planning GameNova’s arcade hardware and Mirror’s Edge.
• Lin Lixin shaped Mirror’s Edge as a guided, arcade-focused parkour game, recruited Jackie for motion capture, and assembled partners to build it.
• David Belle saw Mirror’s Edge advertised and played it with Sébastien, while the game drew crowds and earned award nominations.
• Lin Lixin warned Jack Tramiel about Atari’s limited ability to develop a 32-bit console, then found that Mirror’s Edge had sold over 100,000 arcade machines.
• Lin Lixin and David developed Bloons Tower Defense as a simple browser game, which became popular alongside Papa’s Pizzeria on games.com.
• Lin Lixin assigned Blizzard and Westwood to build Red Alert and arranged full live-action cinematics with Lucas and Hollywood actors.
• Lin Lixin split Red Alert into Allied and Soviet versions, each with full gameplay but different campaigns and cinematics, and told Mike to prioritize satisfying combat over realistic flight physics.

Lin Lixin helped bring Red Alert and Disco Elysium to players while addressing hardware failures and expanding GAMENOVA’s technology partnerships. He then helped Sega develop Virtua Fighter and rebuild the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, leaving Sega’s new arcade game in its first players’ hands.

• Lin Lixin demonstrated dithering for the NX and worked with Hans Zimmer on Red Alert’s industrial-rock music before Kent and George played its Allied campaign.
• Lin Lixin traced ATHENA-II failures to processor aging, proposed cooling repairs, and partnered with ASUS on gaming motherboards with temperature and voltage monitoring.
• Lin Lixin selected ranchland for GAMENOVA’s headquarters and proposed Disco Elysium to Lucas Arts as a storage-heavy adventure game with CRPG elements.
• Lin Lixin developed Disco Elysium’s branching choices, personified attributes, and forgiving checks while Francis Bacon supplied its oil-painted art.
• Bill discovered Disco Elysium after leaving prison, and the game earned widespread critical praise despite modest first-day sales.
• Lin Lixin assessed Apple’s Newton MessagePad and urged Sega to build a shared 3D arcade platform around Virtua Fighter.
• Lin Lixin arranged to rebuild the Jackie Chan Stunt Team with GameNova’s support, and Jackie helped AM2 examine martial-arts moves for Virtua Fighter.
• Hsu showed Lin Lixin the ROG Model 1 motherboard’s monitoring features, and Matsumoto Shoki and Furukawa Kentaro prepared to play Virtua Fighter after Sega’s initial arcade stock sold out.

Lin Lixin pushed GameNova into the fifth-generation console race with new hardware, experimental games, and an acquisition of Atari. The arc ended as Sony reorganized around PlayStation and moved to recruit Square as a publisher.

• Lin Lixin announced Nova-Fusion, outlined the language-puzzle game Tower of Babel Hymn, and assigned Lucas to lead its development while Mark Cerny designed a new controller.
• Lin Lixin and his team developed wireless-controller plans and created Hacknet, which drew hacker Kevin Mitnick into GameNova’s cybersecurity team.
• Lin Lixin brought DMA-Design into the new Rockstar Games subsidiary, where the team expanded Race'n'Chase into Morality and Rule of Law and designed a sprawling simulated city.
• GameNova launched Grand Theft Auto, and Pauly explored its cities, stole vehicles, completed missions, and discovered how freely he could roam.
• Lin Lixin used Atari’s declining fortunes to offer $1.25 per share for the company, then secured Jack Tramiel and Sam Tramiel’s acceptance with plans for Linux support, optical discs, and backward compatibility.
• Ken Kutaragi told Shigeo Maruyama that PlayStation needed major publishers, leading Sony to approach Square and establish SCE with Kutaragi as executive vice president.

Lin Lixin developed Spore and a networked rhythm-game ecosystem, brought HAL Laboratory under GameNova, and launched NovaFusion to strong sales. He then began Half-Life development, which reached engine and controller testing before an unexplained door bug puzzled the team.

• Lin Lixin assigned Spore’s development and worked with Yu Suzuki on Mai Meng maimai, VOCALOID creator support, and the GameNova All-in-One Card.
• Nami Yaguchi and her club earned a place in Sega’s prefectural music showdown, and she played their song in Mai Meng maimai with Furukawa.
• Lin Lixin offered HAL Laboratory an interest-free loan in exchange for becoming a GameNova subsidiary and appointed Satoru Iwata president.
• Lin Lixin and the Spore team developed procedural creature creation, evolutionary progression, and animation systems for its stages from cells to space.
• GAMENOVA launched NovaFusion and Spore, and Sam reported first-week sales exceeding 3.4 million consoles and four million game copies.
• Lin Lixin announced Half-Life as a narrative FPS, while Hiroshi Yamauchi assigned Gunpei Yokoi to Nintendo’s Virtual Boy project.
• Lin Lixin and the Half-Life team planned atmospheric sound, lighting, map transitions, and dual-stick controls with aim assistance.
• Lin Lixin used Quake 2 player data to refine aim assistance before Carmack reported a door bug that also appeared in the archived original engine.