Afterward, the protagonist fell on the floor from fatigue. His vision gradually turned blurry.
He had exhausted all his energy, and the virus that he had contracted was starting to make him lose consciousness.
In the end, the protagonist closed his eyes; and the screen turned black.
Chapter 64
After some time, the protagonist regained his consciousness.
He realized that he was still in that room and was lying beside the corpses of mutated creatures.
However, the state of his health had improved tremendously. The feverish symptoms that he had after contracting the virus had disappeared.
A little girl was hiding behind an abandoned cabinet. She was staring at him with curiosity and wariness.
The protagonist tried communicating with the girl using various languages. He discovered that the girl seemed to understand Chinese but was unable to respond. She pointed at her mouth and then shook her hands.
“Oh. She can’t speak. Is she a character in the story plot?” Chen Sha wondered.
The plot continued.
The protagonist stood up and approached the girl with a friendly demeanor and tried to talk to her. Through that, he discovered that she was the one who saved him.
The little girl showed the protagonist a special syringe. That was probably a special apparatus developed by scientists in the base and could be used to collect blood and inject fluids into the body.
The protagonist vaguely figured out that it was the little girl’s blood that suppressed the virus he had contracted and cured him. That was why he did not turn into a zombie!
The little girl brought the protagonist to a nearby research laboratory. The lab was in a mess. It appeared that an intense battle had occurred here. There was a pungent smell in the air. The protagonist only dared to enter the lab after wearing a gas mask from the corpse of a soldier nearby.
The protagonist deduced the sequence of events that happened based on the documents left in the lab as well as the state of the place.
This little girl’s body contained an antibody for the virus. Her blood was the cure for the virus. After the virus had circulated in the base, a team of mercenaries was tasked to bring the little girl away from the lab.
However, they encountered a zombie attack in the process. In the midst of the intense battle, the team released a special poisonous gas to kill the zombies. Unfortunately, the number of zombies was still too much for the team to fight against; and they had all sacrificed in the end.
Meanwhile, the zombies that were originally in the base and members of the team that had turned into zombies all died from the poisonous gas.
The equipment was damaged and had malfunctioned. The little girl had escaped. The antibodies in her body allowed her to disregard the biochemical virus and poisonous gas. Moreover, her blood could heal infected persons.
However, a special apparatus had to be used during blood collection. That was the special syringe that the little girl was previously holding. It had to be discarded once it was used.
Because of that, the protagonist brought the little girl along as he searched for the exit of the base.
In the process, Chen Sha encountered even more obstacles.
The map started to become more and more complicated. Sometimes, Chen Sha would have to solve some simple puzzles before he could continue moving.
The difficulty of fighting those creatures escalated. Some zombies started to possess mutant abilities, such as fast speed, tremendously increased health bars, and the ability to turn semi-transparent. The weapons of the mercenaries became more advanced, and their numbers increased.
Other than having to fight these enemies, Chen Sha also had to look for more resources within the map and calculate the ammunition that he had to avoid exhausting it.
Apart from ammunition and medical supplies, the protagonist also had to source for syringes.
The little girl’s blood could not make him immune to the zombie virus permanently. After the protagonist was bitten, he would still contract the virus again. In that event, he still required a blood transfusion from the little girl.
Without syringes, the little girl would not be able to transfuse blood to the protagonist.
Additionally, Chen Sha required the little girl’s help in other areas.
Although she did not have much combat abilities, she could help out in many other aspects. For example, Chen Sha required the little girl to cooperate with the protagonist to solve certain puzzles for specific obstacles. She was tiny, agile, and immune to the poisonous gas and virus. Her blood could also remove the debuff caused by the virus and recover the protagonist’s health level.
Outside of battles, the little girl would help players source for collectible items hidden in the setting.
The little girl could sense nearby zombies. If the little girl suddenly found a place to hide while they were walking, that meant that a battle was about to commence.
During battles, Chen Sha felt that the little girl could affect his emotions.
He would feel extremely proud after clearing an obstacle together with the little girl.
He would be extremely paranoid if the little girl was surrounded by zombies and would wish to be there immediately.
He would be in huge distress after seeing how weak the little girl was after the blood collection. He would scold himself for being too stupid and would wish that he had not gotten injured during the battles.
…
Chen Sha was addicted to the game unwittingly.
Strictly speaking, Ocean Stronghold was incomparable to some overseas Triple-A games in many aspects, such as its game quality (including its graphics, character models, actions, and details) and intricacies of its plot.
Nevertheless, Chen Sha was still addicted to the game. He felt that it was different from other overseas Triple-A games.
The protagonist was a fellow countryman. He was a compatriot from the special forces who snuck into the secret base of a transnational organization in search of the truth. Although he was multilingual, he would often use Chinese to talk to himself when he was resting. He would also talk to the little girl in Chinese. That made the game extremely immersive.
It was common for players to find games attractive when the protagonist was a fellow countryman. Moreover, objectively speaking, it was pretty remarkable for a domestically-produced game to create such an impressive story mode!
Even games such as Counter Strike and Bullet Hole did not dare to include a story mode!
Even though Ocean Stronghold’s story mode was inferior to some classic Triple-A games overseas because of its lack of resources, its quality was not that far off. It could even be considered to be top-notch as compared to other domestically-produced games. The producers should be awarded full marks for what they had done!
Furthermore, it was worth noting that although the game’s story mode was relatively less complex, it still contained the essentials!
The design of the obstacles was reasonable, there was a huge variety of creatures and firearms, and the difficulty level of the obstacles was adequate.
The most impressive aspect was the design of the little girl. It brought life to the entire story mode!
If it wasn’t for the little girl, this could not even be called a story mode but would instead be considered an ‘infinite mode’. After all, all that it included were obstacles and battles with zombies and mercenaries. Where was the plot?
However, with the addition of the little girl, the entire story mode was brought to life!
There seemed to be a soul to the originally boring gunfights. That was because players would invest their real emotions into the game!
Only games that resonated with the players could be considered ‘in possession of a plot’!
At the end of the game, the protagonist braved through all the hardships and made it to the highest level of the sea fortress. He defeated the final mutated boss creature and left the place on an aircr
aft.
When he was in the helicopter, the protagonist pressed the detonation button. A huge mushroom cloud rose above the sea fortress. The evil virus experiments, the scary mutated creatures, the money-seeking mercenaries and executives of the transnational organization… all of that had been buried under the sea.
As the protagonist flew the aircraft, the camera lens focused on the little girl.
She was quietly asleep under the protagonist’s jacket.
In the middle of the sunset afterglow, above the raging waves caused by the explosion, the protagonist flew away with the little girl. The story mode had ended.
The names of the staff appeared on the screen. To Chen Sha’s surprise, there were only a few more than sixty persons in the production team in total!
Amongst the sixty-something names, only twenty-something were research and design personnel from Tengda. The rest were personnel from various companies that Tengda had outsourced for the job. That included character model designers, game functions designers, voice actors, music and sound effect designers, etc.
Nevertheless, Chen Sha was still shocked. He had not expected that so few people were able to create such a memorable story plot!
Actually, if one was to recall carefully, not many resources seemed to be devoted to the entire story mode. The only memorable character was the little girl.
However, the story mode in Ocean Stronghold was still unforgettable. That proved the capabilities of the designers!
Chen Sha was completely astounded. It took a long time for him to recover from the shock.
He had originally thought that the company would thoroughly embarrass itself with the story mode that it had developed. He did not expect the company to be so competent!
Chapter 65
Apart from the story mode itself, many other aspects of Ocean Stronghold surprised Chen Sha.
For example, the hand sensitivity during battles!
Chen Sha was an elite gamer in FPS games and possessed superb skills. He was extremely skillful in techniques such as burst fire and target tracking.
To put it simply, he had excellent shooting skills. That meant that he had high expectations for the hand sensitivity of FPS games.
The gaming experience for FPS games mostly focused on the game’s hand sensitivity.
When he was trying out Bullet Hole, Chen Sha was a little shocked by how far the game producers had gone to perfect the game. Bullet Hole had almost reached the level Counter Strike was at.
However, what Bullet Hole did was mainly replicating Counter Strike.
That was very normal. Counter Strike was proven to be the closest-to-perfect FPS game in recent years. It was almost unbeatable when compared to other games in the domestic market.
Things would not go wrong if producers tried their best to replicate the hand sensitivity in Counter Strike.
However, the problem laid here. No matter how closely they tried to replicate the game, there was no way it would surpass the original game itself.
Bullet Hole attempted to replicate Counter Strike’s hand sensitivity. However, it was hard for them to reach the height Counter Strike was at due to some imperfections and inadequacies.
Even though Chen Sha suggested several amendments to improve Bullet Hole’s gaming experience, even he could not specify what the minor differences between the two games were!
‘Intuition’ itself was something hard to quantify. Sometimes, one might know that a problem existed but would find it hard to pinpoint what amendments were needed.
Ocean Stronghold, on the other hand, went down a completely different path!
Chen Sha knew that from the moment he experienced the story mode.
The game’s hand sensitivity differed largely from Counter Strike!
For instance, shooting was much more stable in Ocean Stronghold. The recoil patterns of its guns were much simpler, landing a headshot was much easier, and lesser time was needed to switch weapons and open the scope…
Chen Sha’s first impression was that the game was very satisfying!
Counter Strike was an FPS game that required high concentration levels and possessed difficult techniques. Meanwhile, Ocean Stronghold greatly reduced the learning curve of the game to make shooting games much simpler and more satisfying!
If Chen Sha was to experience the game’s hand sensitivity during combat mode, he might develop a slight dislike towards the game.
Reducing the learning curve of the game was terrible news to players like him who had spent years mastering Counter Strike and had devoted much time to perfecting their techniques in the game.
However, Chen Sha had been experiencing the game’s story mode.
A lower requirement for shooting greatly improved gameplay in story mode. Chen Sha felt that the experience was smooth like silk and found it hard to break away from the game!
Although the story mode restricted the number of bullets the protagonist had, Chen Sha had a wonderful time fighting waves of zombies with his skills in switching weapons and shooting. The main reason for that was that Ocean Stronghold had greatly reduced the difficulty of the game. That made the gaming experience much more satisfying!
After spending a few hours completing the story mode, Chen Sha surprisingly realized that he had become accustomed to the lower-difficulty game controls. He had completely gotten rid of his dislike towards the difficulty level of the game controls!
It made him feel as though switching weapons should originally be so fast and countering recoils should be that easy!
Moreover, Chen Sha realized that a lot of content during battles in the story mode seemed to prepare players for the combat modes!
For instance, there was a boss in one of the obstacles in the story mode that could become semi-transparent. That corresponded to the apparition mode that was one of the combat mode options.
The zombies within the story mode became a part of the gameplay in the biochemical mode.
Moreover, the protagonist in the story mode could seize and use advanced firearms from different mercenaries after defeating them.
Those firearms could be obtained in the combat modes by purchasing them directly or by some other means. That meant that the story mode allowed players to use those advanced firearms beforehand!
The story mode became the most appropriate conduit that helped Chen Sha transition smoothly from Counter Strike to Ocean Stronghold!
Chen Sha looked at the time. He started playing the story mode in Ocean Stronghold in the afternoon and spent five hours completing it.
Although the duration of the story mode wasn’t long and was much shorter than other overseas Triple-A games, it had a complete emotional process that adequately guided the emotions of players.
Chen Sha quickly opened his group chat and sent out Ocean Stronghold’s download link on the official game distribution website.
“This game is way too incredible! Quick, come and try it out!”
The people in the group chat were a little surprised. It was unusual for Chen Sha to be so excited about a game that he recommended.
Did he do this for a commission?
However, that didn’t really explain his excitement.
It was not like Chen Sha never received a commission for promoting a game before. He was paid for that quite often. However, he wouldn’t normally be so excited when publicizing the game. He would only send out a perfunctory message in the group chat; that was all.
For example, when he encouraged members in the group chat to participate in the testing of Bullet Hole, he merely told them that it was an opportunity to make money and did not praise the game at all.
Chen Sha was a person with high expectations. He felt that Bullet Hole was a good game and was merely a good game. Therefore, he merely wanted to recommend the Bullet Hole game testing as a job opportunity and did not put in a lot of effort promoting the game.
His attitude this time was a little confusing!
Could it be…?
“B
rother Chen, was your account hacked?” someone asked in the group.
Chen Sha was speechless.
What was that? Hacked? Why couldn’t a usually aloof person recommend a game with passion?
“I’m not hacked! This is a really special game. You guys can check it out. It’s free anyways.” Chen Sha explained patiently.
“How is it special? Is it better than Counter Strike?” some curious minds asked.
Chen Sha pondered for a while before responding, “Well… I don’t know how to explain it. It is a very special game. Amongst FPS games that contain story modes, its combat experience is the best. Amongst FPS games that encompass combat modes, its story plot is the best. Even though its purchasable content is pretty ridiculous, it makes people feel that it is inexpensive and reasonably-priced…”
Those in the group chat were stumped.
“Pfft!”
“What the heck?”
“Is Brother Chen drunk today?”
“This is so funny. Best combat experience amongst games with a plot and best story plot amongst combat games!”
“Okay. I’m about to go off work. I’ll try it out after work!”
“Is there anyone who wants to play the special modes in the game together? I want to try out their biochemical mode and apparition mode. Is there anyone who wants to join me?” Chen Sha typed in the group chat.
It was not like Chen Sha wanted to take advantage of his buddies.
The key thing was that there were too few players in Ocean Stronghold. There were at most dozens of players online at the same time. He could not find other players for the special modes using the in-game matchmaking system!
He could only form his own group by inviting people in the group chat.
Very quickly, players in the group chat started talking enthusiastically about Ocean Stronghold.
They were all shocked to find that other than its horrible name, all other aspects of the game were pretty well-designed.
Chapter 66
The group leaders who had the same experience as Chen Sha were no longer in the minority.
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