Remember that classic emoticon?
The contrasting photos of four foreigners, one with expressionless faces and the other with cheerful cheers, are a sharp contrast.
Over the years, I don’t know how many times it has been used by netizens.
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In terms of the status of this picture in the meme world, it is basically equivalent to the status of “Qili Xiang” in the Chinese music world.
And its origin comes from a game exhibition called E3.
The upper part of the picture was taken at E3 in 2003. The four foreigners in it are all employees of the game review media IGN.
The reason why they were expressionless was because at that time, they were watching the “Pac-Man World 2” game promotional video released by Nintendo NGC, which was not interesting, so they were bored.
The lower part, in sharp contrast to the upper part, was taken at the 2004 E3 exhibition.
At that time, it happened to be the first public appearance of “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess”.
The long-awaited “youthful” Link image has finally appeared, and the gorgeous 3D graphics are stunning. Not to mention that after the promotional video, Shigeru Miyamoto made a shining appearance holding the Master Sword and Hyrule Shield.
Anyone who is a gamer will be excited about this scene.
The world-famous paintings of the four foreigners have just remained.
The E3 exhibition, a name familiar to old gamers, was once one of the most important promotion channels for major game manufacturers.
At the press conferences over the years, there have been countless famous scenes that people talk about.
For example, V Club, also in 2003, used “Half-Life 2” to show everyone the powerful technical power of the “Origin Engine”.
Players can not only interact with windows and props in the scene, but when they hit an enemy with a gun, the enemy will also drop a bunch of canned drinks by hitting the vending machine.
Such interactive details are not uncommon today, 20 years later, but 2003 was the first time that people rethought what immersion in a game was.
In addition to this, there is also a trailer for Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 2.
It was the first time that people felt the perfect combination of games and film and television at the E3 exhibition.
In a complete real-machine demonstration, “Metal Gear Solid 2” showed graphics technology that transcended the times and extremely creative gameplay, which is still timeless today.
For example, water waves and blood stains on the ground have reflective effects. When sneaking in, you can also use shadows to attract the enemy’s attention, as well as various techniques to hide enemy corpses, etc.
It is not an exaggeration to evaluate this as a famous scene in the history of the game.
However, things have changed, and the once glorious E3 exhibition is now facing a crisis of suspension.
In those days when publicity channels were still television and print media, E3 gave game manufacturers a channel.
But in the current era of streaming media, through the Internet, we can achieve a publicity effect that is no less than that of the past.
What’s more, there’s no admission fee.
Therefore, whether it is Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, or third-party manufacturers such as SE, Capcom, and Ubisoft, they have begun to hold direct face-to-face meetings led by themselves.
E3 is like an old guy abandoned by the times, facing the dilemma of being forgotten.
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The most obvious point is that it is difficult to find some video materials of the press conference.
Not only are all of them in 360P ancient AV quality, but the clips are also uneven and scattered.
Of course, it’s not just E3.
In fact, the same is true for slightly older game video advertisements, game promotion TV programs, etc.
The collective memories of these old players are predictably heading towards being forgotten forever.
But recently, Xiaofa discovered a channel on YouTube——
Noclip Game History Archive.
It is a new channel established by Noclip, which specializes in producing game documentaries.
What we have to do is collect and publish those old game press conferences and advertising videos, acting as a historical museum of game advertising conferences.
In addition to the characteristics of vertical and concentrated video types, there is another more important feature.
That is, all videos will be as high-definition as possible.
Many of Noclip’s video titles will also mention “BEST QUALITY EVER” to show that they have the clearest resources on the entire network.
For example, during the promotion of XBOX Live Arcade (XBOX digital game store service), Noclip directly uploaded all 1080P image quality resources for a series of “Devil May Cry 4” warm-up videos.
This high-definition video from 2007 is definitely worth downloading and collecting for Devil May Cry fans.
If you think Devil May Cry 4 isn’t old enough, that’s fine.
They also have a demo of “Neverwinter Nights” that Bioware brought to E3 that year, with the time coordinate being 2000.
Maybe you haven’t heard of Bioware, but you must have heard of “Baldur’s Gate 3” recently.
Yes, it’s the same studio that produced Baldur’s Gate 1 and Baldur’s Gate 2 back to back. It wasn’t until the third main game that the IP was handed over to Larian, who developed “Divinity: Original Sin”.
Bioware’s status was previously ranked among the top among European and American RPG manufacturers.
Their “Neverwinter Nights” series is a generation classic and the memory of countless people, and the “grandma kicking teeth” meme is still passed down to this day.
In case you haven’t seen the demo DEMO back then, you can finally get a glimpse of the original appearance in Noclip.
This is a proper ssr video resource
Facing these epic old pictures, veteran players are more excited than anyone else.
This feeling is a bit similar to when we look through photo albums and albums from 20 years ago.
As I flipped through the pages, past memories immediately came to mind like a fountain.
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Due to the factors of the times, not all old videos on Noclip can be presented in 1080P or 720P. We can only say that they should be as high-definition as possible.
But the video resources they collected highlighted an unusual aspect.
For example, “Dragon Ball Z: Goku’s Legacy 2” on the GBA is not very popular, but it can also be called a high-quality handheld game. It was once the childhood memory of some players.
And Noclip actually compiled an interview with the developer of this game back then, which made Xiaofa couldn’t help but wonder where they got it from.
In 2000, there was another major event in gaming history.
That is Nintendo released a technical demonstration video of its new console GameCube at E3.
This game console, which was at the same time as the PS2, set performance requirements to surpass the PS2 at the time. Yes, Nintendo was also pursuing performance back then.
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And a technical demonstration called “Mario 128” really showed the powerful functions of CameCube.
It accommodates 128 dynamic Mario models on the same screen. Although it is magical, the processing power is really bad.
This entire high-definition technical demonstration video was also uploaded to the channel by Noclip.
You can even see the trailer for the 2001 heavy-hitting game “Sick Blood” here.
This horror adventure game on Sega DC was one of the few works of that era to have a Chinese version.
The novelty of its game content and the special nature of the haunted house game have made it popular on the Internet after being dormant for more than ten years. Interested friends may wish to search for a few related videos on Station B to get a feel for it.
Currently, the number of videos in the Noclip Game History Archive has reached 72 and is still being updated.
Most of them are the game press conferences of that year, as well as the release trailers of classic games of the 2000s such as “Left 4 Dead 2”, “Tekken 5”, and “Final Fantasy 13”.
For gamers who like it, it is definitely a good place to reminisce about the past.
These dusty game memories on the Internet have become digital compared to books and DVDs, and they seem to never disappear.
But in fact, any historical record is at risk of disappearing.
Therefore, Xiaofa believes that this kind of old video archive archaeologically found on the Internet is quite meaningful.
I just hope that in 20 years time, when people want to look back on the “old videos” of 2023, even if there is no so-called video archive, we can still have traces to follow and recall the past.