Jump ticket, the player's heart forever pain? -- A review of the top 10 jump tickets in the game industry

When it comes to the game jump ticket, players are definitely not unfamiliar, a game, especially the work of concern, often from the announcement to the official issue have to go through several "jump ticket". This phenomenon may have started as an unexpected delay in the production of the product. Over time, when the phenomenon of "jump ticket" is more and more common, and players are more and more accustomed to it, manufacturers even began to jump ticket as a means of publicity. Today, it seems that if you don't jump the ticket once or twice, it is not a big game, and if you don't jump the ticket, it is not a good game. Therefore, jumping 1, February accustomed to jumping 3, April ordinary, a half year more than a year also occasionally have it. And some games, but really a jump is far away, do not know when to really meet the player. Here, we summarize the top 10 jump tickets in the history of gaming, including games and game consoles. These works, which were popular at the beginning of the announcement and attracted much attention, have now become the eternal pain in the hearts of players.

If you think skip tickets are not terrible, but in fact some skip tickets you really may never see. Skipping tickets is not what users want to see, and it is also sad for the makers themselves. Even if it's a publicity ploy, we don't want it.

10, infinite melancholy - World of Warcraft Adventures: Prince of the Clan (Warcraft Adventures)

1997's Warcraft II was a blockbuster, selling half a million copies worldwide in four months in a lackluster market. The Warcraft II expansion, Warcraft II: Dark Gate, sold 2.5 million units in three years, making it Blizzard's first game to sell more than a million units; Myst and The Seventh Visitor were the only games to go platinum on its previous computer.

Blizzard carefully built a world of Warcraft after Warcraft II, and tried to make a popular adventure game out of the game's own resources. After much discussion, the plan was finalized, and the game was eventually named World of Warcraft Adventures: Prince of the Clans, which catered to the large number of Blizzard players who loved adventure games at the time. Their plan was right, but Blizzard's size at the time limited their ability to develop games, and a lot of manpower was poured into StarCraft and Diablo, leaving them understaffed. For the sake of quality, Blizzard had to hand over some of the work to a third party, Animation Magic, a small company based in St. Petersburg, Russia.

After many difficulties, Blizzard finally completed the game's general work before E3 1998, and the quality of the game has reached the desired goal. When preparing for the exhibition, Blizzard found that the market had changed beyond their expectations - in 1998, FPS games were booming, 3D games were emerging, and the adventure game market had been occupied by a large number of people. It would be a bit risky to launch another 2D graphical adventure game that is already a bit dated. For the sake of the reputation of the brand and the reputation of Warcraft, the plan was eventually abandoned, and "World of Warcraft Adventures: Prince of the Clan" still failed to appear in the eyes of the players.

Fortunately, after the above "World of Warcraft Adventure: Prince of the Clan" this setback makes Blizzard absorb more experience, the production of "World of Warcraft Adventure: Prince of the Clan" accumulation has become the basis for the next game. Through this event, Blizzard realized the importance of 3D graphics to today's games, and ushered in the advent of Warcraft III: Rule of Chaos in 2002, which easily set the world record for the fastest global sales of 2 million copies in a few months. The expansion "Warcraft III: Ice Peak Throne" million level sales have become a foregone conclusion, and once again arouse the player's madness. A series of myths was born.

9. "Prey"

First announced in 1996, Predator was 3D Realms' ambitious project after the success of Duke Nukem 3D, initially using a self-developed engine that was comparable to the Quake generation. In 1998, the "Predator" this masterpiece has already announced some news, and then rarely new content reports. At the time, "Predator" had a lot of features worth players' attention, such as "entrance" design technology is very rare, these designs are completely dynamic, different spatial levels may have opposite physical properties, monsters will jump out of the torn space, giving you a sudden scare. In addition, the American characters are also very attractive, which comes from the excellent Duke Nukem. But slowly this game is no news, year after year, the manufacturer has changed again and again, the engine has now become DOOM3, but it seems that the effect of the game is still quite good - but if the delay can be dangerous, because "Unreal 2007" engine will attack.

Predator seems to have been back on track since E3 last year, and of course it didn't launch this year. However, the development process of the game seems to be relatively smooth, and the official website has been launched. It was also produced by 3D Realms, but Predator was a more accessible jump ticket than Duke Nukem Forever.

8. Resident Evil 1.5

As was the norm in the industry at the time, the production company would not disclose anything to the outside world until the game had reached 50% completion. However, the huge success of Resident Evil has capcom eager to reveal the development of the sequel to the outside world, in order to increase the public anticipation for the sequel. Resident Evil 2 was less than 10 percent of the way through development, and capcom hired professional writers to write the script. At e3 1997, capcom announced a lot of details about Resident Evil 2. Resident Evil 2 takes place a few months after the first game, and the heroine is elza walker, a college student who wants to go home for a few days to relax, only to find Raccoon City is full of zombies. In order to make more monsters appear on the same screen, capcom simplified the number of polygons of the zombies as much as possible, so the zombies in this version of Resident Evil appear angular and rough. There was also a modern building in this version, which did not appear later. The Settings of zombies that can be isolated by rolling shutter doors, and monsters called cockroach people, which are highly anticipated Settings, did not appear later. The game, called Resident Evil 1.5, also features a rather creative costume change system that not only gives the player a more relaxed look, but also features such as body armor to improve the player's defenses, The costumes also have features such as increased carrying capacity (later Resident Evil 2 also had such an outfit, but it was much simpler after all).

As is later known, Shinji Mikami decided to overturn everything and start from scratch when the version of Resident Evil 2 was 60%-70% complete. This surprising bold decision was a little strange at the time, and Shinji Mikami's reason was that the game was too similar to the first Resident Evil game. Sanami Shinji tried to give the player more freshness, and this work made him completely without that feeling. This decision, though, cost players an extra year to wait and cost capcom a lot of development money. But when the shock of Resident Evil 2 hit on January 29, 1998, it was all worth it!

In this game, the black policeman Mabin and the weapons shop owner whom Leon meets in the second are both important characters. The image of the protagonist is not the same as the birth 2, while the weapon system can use grenades, etc., but the "father of the zombie" three on Shinji is still dissatisfied with this, the game has been nearly completed all overturn and remake, professionalism is worthy of admiration!

7. Next Generation troublemaker - "The Phantom"

The "Phantom" console was announced in 2001, and participated in E3 in 2004, but it is still not a shadow, can be said to be a true "phantom". The famous magazine "Wired" "Top ten fog" list is the most authoritative "fog" list in the IT industry. "Phantom" has been in the top 10 for three years in a row!

Let's revisit the "history" of phantoms: At E3 2004, Infinium Labs exhibited the "PHANTOM PHANTOM" game console that was first unveiled at the CES show in Las Vegas at the beginning of the year, and the Phantom console uses the AMD Athlon XP 3200+ microprocessor provided by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) FX 5700 graphics processor (GPU) and NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM)2 Ultra 400 chipset, 320GB hard drive capacity, built-in USB 2.0, fiber output, CABLE MODEM and other features, Running on Microsoft's WindowsXP embedded operating system, the front panel also features the word "PHANTOM" in a cold blue light. The Phantom console will have Taiwanese manufacturer BIOSTAR manufacturing the hardware. Infinium Labs' Phantom console, aimed primarily at PC gaming, will be a continuous broadband device that supports on-demand gaming and game rentals, enabling wireless connectivity, downloadable game demos, and seamless upgrades. Players who buy Phantom games once for two years will get a free PHANTOM Phantom console, which costs about $29.95 a month for the game service, and a $199 down payment for the premium service.

December 29, 2005 - Infinium Labs, which has long said it will launch the Phantom home gaming console terminal, said today that it will launch the Phantom Lapboard, a wireless keyboard and mouse unit for the Phantom console, in the second quarter of 2006. Perhaps Infinium Labs' current financial situation is the reason for the decision to launch a wireless keyboard and mouse set before the console.

SONY, Nintendo and Microsoft are all giants of the competition, Infinium Labs, a little-known company, is really so bold? It turned out to be an empty campaign to hype itself up. One user, Matthew Szymczyk, said: "On the day of Phantom's release we had solved the chicken-and-egg problem and started to migrate to the galaxy, and had completely cured the disease and famine." Look, the XBOX360 has already sold well in the world, the PS3, the revolution is about to come out, and the "phantom" is probably still on the design drawing.    

6. A Forgotten Time - Robotech Crystal Dreams

No video game was planned for Battlestar in the decade since 1985, and plans for Battlestar Crystal Dreams were announced in 1995, just as the Nintendo 64 console was about to arrive in the United States. The goal of the production team was to show the world of Battlestar in full 3D on the powerful 64-bit console of the time. This game provides two perspectives, when the deformation machine in ordinary mode, the perspective is basically in the cabin, and when it is transformed into a protector or fighter mode, the outside of the body trailing perspective is more useful. The game was also designed with attractive multi-ending scripts and new and old story characters. In addition to the single player mode, it also supports 4-player cooperation and combat.

The protagonist of the game is Kyle Bartley, a former RDF pilot who has fallen in love with Vala Norri, a miniature female Zenith. While patrolling the war zone during the Zenith Rebellion, he discovers the tanks of the Southern Crusaders fighting the Zenith, and comes to their aid. Only to discover that they were actually the ones who started a war against the peaceful Zenith people, destroying the entire village. Because of this incident, the romance ends, and he leaves the army to take a job at Monument City TV, where the game begins. As the Expeditionary Force builds the SDF-3, a Zenith Star fleet mysteriously approaches with a new threat, and the player, as a reporter in space, will have the opportunity to win back lost love there.

After the announcement of the Battlestar Crystal dream, it became the object of fanaticism among Battlestar fans at the time, and countless people bought expensive N64 consoles for this game. At the time of E3, the game was also one of the focuses of attention. GameTek ran into financial trouble in 1997, declared bankruptcy, and officially closed in 1998. The company could no longer support the development of such a large game, and although the epoch-making Battlestar game was largely completed, it never got a chance to market.

5. Nintendo's regret -- Earth Adventure 3 (Mother 3)

Earth Adventure (Mother) is Nintendo's RPG that best reflects Ren's concept of games, the first game launched in 1989 on the FC platform, after the launch of the huge popularity, the game production company APE's concept is: "Most games today are full of fatherhood, and it's always the son who breaks through the father's trap, so we wanted to make a game that is more nuanced and full of motherhood."

Flying saucers, special powers, adventures with friends, and instead of bullying heroes fighting swords, we see street urchins with slingshots and baseball bats fighting crazy animals abetted by aliens. The lighthearted game was a hit in Japan, Europe and the United States after its release, but the highly anticipated third generation (platform N64) was cancelled, leaving Earth Adventure FANS waiting 12 years without a new game.

Fortunately, Nintendo is still relatively nostalgic, in November 2005 officially confirmed that Earth Adventure 3 will be launched on the GBA, and this time it will be released on April 20. The game will continue to avoid violence and obscenity and promote the concept of creative games, continue the fresh style, relaxed atmosphere, simple painting style.

4, More than US DOOM3 - FPS super hit "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl" (Shadow of Chernobyl)

"Lost Zone: The Shadow of Chernobyl" is a survival action role-playing Game produced by the Ukrainian GSC Game World game production team, as early as the 04E3 exhibition appeared "Lost Zone" has been recognized as one of the most anticipated games of 2006.

The Lost Zone shown at 04E3 is quite impressive, it uses GSC Game World's own DX9 engine X RAY. The demo of the game showed the charm of 3 million polygons/frames in real time, full support for dynamic lighting, software dynamic shading, Shaders and post-processing effects, etc., X-RAY's physics engine part is clearly better than Half-Life2. demo built 1 game indoor level. The game built a powerful physics system, all the vehicles in the game are reproduced in accordance with the real, and can be manipulated and driven, and the body glass can be completely broken, in addition to the glass broken, "Lost Zone: The Shadow of Chernobyl" physics system also brings broken furniture, metal hoses and so on can be used as weapons. It also showed off multiplayer connectivity, including a multiplayer map and a team Deathmatch mode.

In addition, the game is very emphasis on authenticity, the protagonist as an explorer not only need weapons and equipment, water and food and rest are also necessary survival conditions, if too long without food, you will find that their speed of action significantly slowed down, and it is difficult to hold the gun in the hand when pointing. In addition to bringing your own food, the game even allows you to get some "game" to satisfy your hunger, of course, due to health concerns this should only be a last resort. (This is very similar to the famous Metal Gear Solid 3 wilderness survival system, and we don't know who "references" who...)

This game and "Doom 3" at the same time to log in the player's heavy expectations, regardless of how high the quality of the game, at least in the nature of the ticket has exceeded "Doom 3" more than a grade.

3, Miracles are hard to repeat -- StarCraft: Ghost (StarCraft:  Ghost)

The success of Starcraft is well known to the world, so no more talking about it. We look back at StarCraft's rocky road to success. Starcraft has been called "the longest and most painful one" by its developers, and for a full three months, everyone at Blizzard put down their work and went all out to test StarCraft. All the designers worked like crazy, but when Christmas 1997 came around, Blizzard announced that StarCraft would be delayed, and for the first time in three years Blizzard did not release a New Year's Day title. When StarCraft finally hit store shelves in March 1998, all the results proved that Blizzard had made the right decision after E3 96. Starcraft soared to the top of the game sales charts in its first month of release, and in Korea, Starcraft sold over a million copies quickly.

I don't know if Blizzard is taking this RTS miracle and taking it to the FPS, but the bottom line is that StarCraft: Ghost doesn't have the same desperate passion that Blizzard did with StarCraft.

I don't know what fans of Snowstorm expected when they saw StarCraft: Ghost at E3 2004, or how players felt when they learned that StarCraft: Ghost had been postponed indefinitely. Blizzard, which dominates the field of computer games, planned to return to the growing popularity of video games with StarCraft: Ghost. Originally, we thought that we would see this long-announced work in 2006, but did not think that some time ago Blizzard announced the indefinite postponement of the game.

"Starcraft: Ghost" after a series of images, videos, exhibitions and other publicity, eventually delayed indefinitely, as for the future "will it appear on the next generation of consoles?" Will the development be canceled? "Is it still being developed by the Swingin Ape Studios team?" I am afraid that the question will be a mystery for some time to come.

2. Where does it sound? - Team Fortress 2

Remember the first Mod for Half-life? When Valve announced Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms at E3 1999, we even thought we could play it that year, but the truth is, CS came out, DoD came out, and Team Fortress 2 was still nowhere to be found. According to well-informed sources, the delay was due to the game's use of new "Steam" technology.

Then in 2003 Valve announced that Team Fortress 2 would use a new engine from Half Life2; In 2005, it was announced that the Valve+ Half-life 2 game engine combination was ready to go, and would be released on February 15, 2006, but now it is April, and even the relevant new screenshots have not been seen.

Indeed, as a former Quake add-on expansion pack, Team Fortress itself is a guarantee of quality. In the current number of various plug-ins, whether "Team Fortress 2" can become a successful mission version as opposed to each other, or with its inheritance of the team fortress generation of games, more real game performance and increasingly mature artificial intelligence, like "Counter-Strike" into a unique expansion pack that can compete with "Half-Life", The players who will have to wait and see will judge for themselves.

At the time, Valve called it a groundbreaking multiplayer game, and the company's website claimed that Team Fortress 2 was based on role-playing and used the kind of teamwork found in typical war movies, allowing players to talk to their teammates through headsets to experience what it was like to fight together in the jungle. But whether Valve Software has actually developed this complex technology, the fact is, they have not succeeded.

1. "DUKE NUKEM FOREVER" (DUKE NUKEM FOREVER)

And the winner of this award is Duke Nukem Forever's 3D shooter. First announced in 1997, it has not been released on schedule for four consecutive years. According to the company's website, "There is still no firm date, and we don't know the exact date, so if you have a friend who says he has inside information, or if some game news site or computer store says they know, they don't know anything, they're just fooling you." No date set, really."

"This is an ambitious game," said Scott Miller, CEO of 3D Realms. "It's a very different game than the little cookie-like shooters we see today. We're pushing a lot of standards, and you'll see a bigger pie."

Let's take a look back at the history of Duke Nukem, since 3D Realm's famous masterpiece Duke Nukem 3D was launched in 1996, the sequel Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed for nearly 10 years, and there have been a lot of news about the upcoming launch of the game, and the game engine has changed one after another. But it always ends in nothing. "Duke Nukem Forever" finally became the king of the jump ticket generation, the king of "fogware". It seems that in recent years, the top ten jump ticket products in foreign countries every year, the top ten "fog ware" selection, "Duke Nukem forever" can occupy a place without dispute, and many times "topped" the list. The famous foreign "Wired" magazine even awarded it a lifetime achievement award for the ten "fogware"! Perhaps the charm of this game for players may not be how amazing it will be, how amazing playability, but whether it can be listed at all! We've waited too long to give it the "Longest Game in Production" award. We can only hope that the long wait will be rewarded with excellent game quality, and that when it is finished, it will truly be worthy of the name "forever" rather than "destroyed"...