Sorry?
Sincerely thank you to LordValmar for the new cover, they're amazing, and sorry too late because I just got access to my computer on Sunday.
Timeline: 1 hour after chapter 108
Enjoy!
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The loud rhythmic 80s synth-pop songs had become the background music for this event and it echoed all over the hall.
"Good Morning Los Angeles!! And welcome to the first and foremost video games event in the world! Niflheim Electronics Entertainment Expo!!" The host said, his smiling face was captured by the camera and appeared on the big screen.
Not only his face appeared on the big screen of the Los Angeles Convention Center, but also on the NBC TV Stations. With Steven Spielberg's name, NBC became one of the sponsors of this event and they also offered an exponential sum of money to get the rights to broadcast this event
The audience was madly clapping their hands and making noises such as loud shouts and whistles as the host was announcing that the most anticipated event of this year finally began.
Al was smiling the whole time since he began to step his foot on the backstage area. The plan was when the host announcing his name, the screen on the stage would split and revealed himself to the world.
The host was waiting for everyone to calm down before saying, "Sorry everyone, but Mr. Spielberg can't greet you today because he just received the news that his son is in the hospital."
That made some of the audience giving an 'awh' and 'boos' to the host and Al could sense their disappointment. It seemed that a lot of Steven Spielberg's fans were coming to this event.
This situation made him doubt himself whether they would be happy if they knew it was him who was replacing Steven.
Suddenly, a slap to his back stopped him from walking backward. "They will want to see you, Al. Don't worry, you are the most popular teen celeb in America and I doubt you will disappoint them. Hell, my son likes you very much."
He saw it was Jerry Lawson who was encouraging him. Al then smiled at him. "Thanks, Jerry, I need that."
The host was smothering the audience from their disappointment with light jokes. He really studied well for this because the jokes were all about video games.
After he did that, the screen suddenly changed, revealing a number 5 that turned into 4 and it continued its count down. The host walked backward and went backstage.
"Okay, I'm ready, wish me luck, Jerry." He said as Jerry was giving him a thumb at him.
"Break a leg, Al," Jerry said.
When the countdown has reached zero, the theatre hall lights turned off and white floodlights were pointing at the location where he would stand.
"Let's giving a wild welcome to, Alphonse Brandt!!" The host shouted from the backstages and rock music played as he was stepping to stage.
"What!?" The hall became silent for a moment before another scream was heard but it was more hectic and louder than before.
Al could even be heard a loud whisper saying, "Alphonse was here!?" "Why's he here?" and many more that confused for his appearance.
Because of the backlights from the floodlight, they could only saw a silhouette of him and another scream rang more erratic as they got a clear vision of him.
He could even hear they weren't shouting for his name but rather it was "Ferris Bueller" or "Marty McFly".
"Hello, Los Angeles!!" He screamed and it did not extinguish the madness in the theatre hall. "Yeah, How's it going everyone!" He said again.
"Welcome to the Niflheim Electronics Entertainment Expo! Where finally, there would be a place where gamers and game developers, not only from Los Angeles or California, but all of United States, or even better, all over the world will gather here!" Every time he said something, it always ended up with their thrilling outcry.
"Hey, you might ask why am I here right?"
"Yes!!" They answered.
"Well, I owned the company..." He chuckled at their reaction who mostly had their jaws fell on the floor, "But mostly because I am also a gamer like you all, and I fucking love video games."
"Okay, I remembered that day when Steven and I were having a nice chat after we played Space Impact together and he has beaten me to the pulp at that game. That's right folks, Steven is goddamn of a whole level of gamers, he locked himself to play space impact the day after its release. The genius filmmaker was the same as you all people, the respectable gamers!"
"After we played, he told me he had a dream. A dream where he wished he was the one who brings video games into a new era, however, as a good gamer he is, he wasn't yet to understand thoroughly how hard the game was made. He talked to me about how he was giving the E.T. game a green light to a video game company, well, you know what it was and I'm not gonna say it."
"Atari!!" One of the men in the crowd screamed and everyone was laughing at his abruptness.
"I'm not saying that name guys, or else, I might get sued." He laughed with everyone. "Yes, you know how it ended? A total disaster."
He continued, "But it wasn't Steven we must blame or the programmer of this game. Yes, Mr. Marshall, I know how hard it was to make games under 3 months. For god's sake, are you making a Lotus 1-2-3 or a video game?"
Al knew this joke was not for everyone else, maybe only computer users knew it very well about Lotus 1-2-3, but he was wrong. Almost everyone in the hall was laughing at his jokes. So it was his turn to laugh.
"Okay, okay... Yes, we should not blame Steven and the programmer team. Remember the video gaming crash at the beginning of 1983?"
"Booo!!!" They shouted not at him, but more at how bad that event was.
"We should blame those MBAs who looked at the video games industry from the point of the business side. They put pressure on game developers, as they only cared about how much money they will get. They also pushed the developers into creating monotonous games, video games that lack innovations, bad quality games, etc.
They do not know what gamers want, and they just hire the game developers and told them to make games? Guys, it doesn't work that way! So, one day I visited Steven and told him, 'Steven, the only who understand gamers, are us, the gamers!' and then I came up with a plan to make a video game console company. That historical day was the day where Niflheim Games was founded."
"And what makes us different from every other company? Yes, we did not approve of a shitty game! Any third-party game developer who wants to let a game be played in our console must be tested by the professionals at Niflheim Entertainment where they would get a golden stamp on their cartridges and enlisted at our database. This was to prevent any fraud or scam that misusing our golden stamp.
So there you go, folks! Find any golden-stamped games and you can play the video game wonder that developers created like their own children." An applaud was heard when he finished.
"Okay, who was excited to play their NOTE Portable?" Almost everyone raised their hands, including the crews.
"What games do you like?"
"Pokémon!" One person from the crowd shouted.
Pokémon game was so popular that it had also become one of the best games besides its rival, Mario Bros.
"Wow, I can see a lot of people are excited to play that game. I remembered the first time I give that game design to Steven..." They gasped at his statement
Everyone was astonished, Alphonse was admitting that he was one of Pokémon's creators. It could be said that the Pokémon game changed the gaming industry forever. They questioned if is there anything that this boy couldn't do? Talented actor, director, singer, and now game designer? What next? Designing a rocket to the moon?
Besides the Pokémon game, there was also The Legend of Zelda and Metroid that released early year by Nintendo. Al was in a rush to release most of the popular games so he could fight with Nintendo head to head-on.
(Sorry everyone, I made a mistake. I didn't see when this game release and it turned out it was released in February & September 1986.)
"Ah, I forget to tell you that I design that game, fortunately. While Ken and Roberta William perfected that game. The Pokémon design itself was inspired by some Japanese animation. You know, I used to wonder that the game arcade we played only make us chase after high-score. So I was thinking, how about we play games that collect monsters, battle with other people, and have a fun adventure! How breathtaking is it right?"
"You are breathtaking!" One of the men from the crowd said to him.
He chuckled. Somehow everything seemed like it was a deja vu to him, "No, no, no. You are breathtaking! You are all breathtaking!!" The scream was getting louder. Literally, everything he said today made the crowd screaming. Maybe because this convention center made everyone's adrenaline so high.
"For the next game we will release tomorrow, we hope it also would be a game-changer of the video game industry, this game would be called
The next game he would release would be called The Elder Scrolls. Although the game was still using a 2D graphic for NOTE Portable, there would be character customization features on this.
This was all his plan for the future where the Alfheim Design Group would finish their brand new 3D rendering engine someday. Talking about Alfheim, his animation company, he wondered if their short animation was finished.
"Well, Steven should have been the one who said this but. Everyone! Please check under your seat!"
At first, they were all confused about it before a scream from a few people in the audience seat confirmed their suspicion.
"Oh my God! This is a Pokémon Yellow game! And it said it was a limited edition!" A young girl's shriek made everyone also checked what's under their seat and also found they got the same thing as that girl.
"That's people! That's a limited edition of Pokémon Yellow that should be released early next year. Inside were coded where you could unlock the most rarest Pokémon I have ever created, Mew!"
The situation getting heated on every alphabet he has spoken, as if his words were words from the messiah, well maybe he was a video game messiah. "You got a free game, you got a game, everyone got a fuckin game!" He pointed to the crowd.
NBC would have censored a lot of his words today because he swears more than the quota.
"Remember, only us who understand us, and Niflheim Games bring you the games from gamers, by gamers, to gamers... So long winners! You are all breathtaking!" He dropped the mic to the floor and got out of the stages followed by everyone in the hall screaming for his name.
As he came back to backstages, everyone was congratulating him for his success. Jessie who always loyal following him suddenly hugged him "Damn, Al! You are nailing it! I never knew you could speak like that. Every time you said a word, literally, everyone would scream!"
"Thanks, Jessie but I will never do that again next year. I will let Steven take care of all of this." He said with an exasperated sigh.
The next presentation would be Jerry who would introduce their newest gaming system called NOTE 1.0 and then followed by Ken and Roberta William who would be presenting their newest game Elder Scrolls and King's Quest.
Then for the rest of the day would be the trailer for games from the third-party developer who passed their quality control test.
The evening came to their adrenaline was not yet subsided but the opposite, it increased. But the fun things won't last forever. The biggest video game event this year was finally over and it was ended with a performance from his company's contracted artist, Red Hot Chilli Pepper.
Al was currently in the VIP room, leaned on the comfortable sofa with Jessie on his side.
"Damn, that's tiring. At least the tiring things should be over from now. Tomorrow I will take Gwen somewhere for a vacation, where do you think I should take her, Jessie?"
Jessie raised one of her eyebrows and sighed from her mouth. "Al, remember, tomorrow your book will be released and you must be there for the book signing."
Al slapped his head, "Oh, Oooh shit, I forgot. Where will this hold?"
"Don't worry, it's not too far. It's on Small World Books in Venice Beach."
"Yipee..." He said without any excitement betraying how the words should have sounded.
To Be Continued...
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