The latest version of "Plants vs. Zombies Online" will be released at ten o'clock in the morning Beijing time the next day after completing a comprehensive internal beta.
This update uses hot update technology. Players do not need to re-download and install the entire game. Instead, after starting the game, the game directly downloads new game materials and updated content online, thus ensuring that all players connected to the Internet are Players must complete this update unless they have been playing in single-player mode offline.
For users who are playing the game, the background will automatically complete the update while the player is playing, and will be automatically loaded when the game ends. Then the user can experience the latest version of the game content.
Starting from this time period, players all over the world have experienced the new "Plants vs. Zombies Online" one after another. The new map, new plants, new zombies, and new system have brought huge surprises to players.
Chinese players were surprised to find that in the latest "Plants vs. Zombies Online", there were Chinese-style maps and zombies unique to Chinese folklore! This is really surprising, because so far, no one has ever integrated zombies from Chinese folklore into the game, and the cartoon zombies are not only not scary at all, but also give people a particularly cute feeling.
Even for Chinese players, they haven't seen new elements about "Chinese Zombies" for a long time. After all, Hong Kong zombie movies have long passed their golden age, and there are no new movies produced so far.
Seeing familiar scenes and familiar yet unique zombie shapes, Chinese players almost all gave positive comments. To a certain extent, there is also a special cultural complex. After all, this is our own folklore, just like Western zombies. Like vampires, zombies and vampires can become game elements, so should Chinese zombies, and Makino Technology has achieved this.
The familiar but somewhat unfamiliar zombie element has returned, rekindling the love for zombie movies among many netizens. Zombie movies are almost sold out in the DVD rental shops on the streets, and various zombies are also being played on TV. movie, and the ratings are surprisingly high. Even Lin Zhengying’s forum, which was originally deserted, has become a hot topic in celebrity forums because of this nostalgia. The public’s love for zombie movies seems to have suddenly returned to the tenth century. years ago…
When foreign users, that is, players using non-Chinese language versions, updated the game, the game had a simple prompt on the Chinese map level, informing them that the design of the map was derived from the unique architectural style of China, and the zombies in the game were A type of Chinese folklore, collectively known as China-Zombie.
Putting aside Eastern and Western cultures, in the game "Plants vs. Zombies Online", the design of Chinese zombies is much better than the original Western zombies. Although the original Western zombies are not visually scary, they are also It's not cute, it just feels stupid at most, but the design of Chinese zombies can really make overseas players shine. Their clothes are very special, their postures are also very special, and their skin color is not the gray-black of Western zombies, but light yellow. , the talisman on the forehead flutters as the zombies jump. Overseas players don't understand its use, but there is always a sense of mystery when looking at it.
For overseas users, there is no general rejection of Chinese elements. On the contrary, these special ethnic designs also bring them a full sense of exotic customs. Most of these people did not know it before updating the game today. There is such a thing as Chinese zombies, but it only took a few hours for people all over the world to know about Chinese zombies, their shapes, and their unique settings of walking and jumping.
The most important thing is that they do not hate this element. On the contrary, they have gradually fallen in love with these very special and interesting images and settings. Many overseas users even openly discuss Chinese zombies on the Internet. They search and collect various The legend of Chinese zombies is translated into the Chinese language and popularized on the Internet platform among netizens in the country.
Why do they wear special robes? Because they were wearing official uniforms from the Qing Dynasty in China. These official uniforms were actually very particular. Officials from the first to the ninth grade had strict requirements for the clothes they wore;
Why do they have a strange yellow piece of paper taped to their foreheads? That's because there is a profession in Chinese legends that deals with this kind of zombies. They are called Taoist priests. This kind of yellow paper is called Fu Zhuan. It is one of their weapons and has a very special effect. Of course, in this game, attacking The zombies are plants rather than Taoist priests, so this talisman may just be a design element;
Why do they walk and jump? This is not because zombies in Chinese legends are like this, but because there were many zombie-themed movies in Hong Kong. In the setting of Hong Kong movies, zombies are jumping forward, so in China, everyone’s impression of zombies is That’s how it bounces;
In addition, many people have found screenshots of various Hong Kong zombie movies and put them online to popularize science among netizens. This has further attracted users’ curiosity about Chinese zombies. Many people said online that if they could It would be great to get your hands on a Hong Kong zombie movie or two and watch them.
The entire Western world, even Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia, have set off a wave of discussion about Chinese zombies because of the revised version of "Plants vs. Zombies Online".
No one would have expected that Hong Kong zombie movies tried their best and failed to break out of the Chinese area, and even had no response in Southeast Asia. However, "Plants vs. Zombies Online", a small game that became popular around the world, only took a few hours. , brought the concept of Chinese zombies to players around the world.
This caused a great shock in the Hong Kong film circle. Many investors, directors and actors in the Hong Kong film circle were lamenting that in just a few hours, Makino Technology had accomplished something that had not been possible in Hong Kong films for more than ten or twenty years. The cultural output is really impressive.
Zombie movies have been unable to leave the Chinese area for twenty years. This is also a typical phenomenon of global cultural export in recent years. Our people know too much about Western culture, but Western people know very little about our culture.
In the Chinese world, our three-year-old children all know about vampires in the West. We know that they have long fangs, come out at night, and feed on human blood. We also know that ordinary people will become addicted to vampires as long as they are bitten by a vampire. Become a vampire.
However, few Westerners know that there is also a kind of zombie in China. They are produced by ordinary people after their death due to some special reasons, such as too much resentment during life, or too much yin in the place where they are buried, etc., in the moon After the full night and the transformation of corpses, the corpses in the coffins will turn into jumping zombies. They cannot see it, but they have a keen sense of smell. They are afraid of glutinous rice, red thread, black donkey hooves and black dog blood, and they are even more afraid of zombies. A long mahogany sword and a corpse-fixing talisman.
Our young people in the West celebrate Valentine's Day, Christmas Eve, and Christmas as significant festivals. They send flowers on Valentine's Day, eat apples on Christmas Eve, and open a house with their girlfriends on Christmas Day. But young people in the West don't even think of us. The Chinese Spring Festival is poorly understood, and even fewer Westerners know about traditional festivals such as Chinese Valentine's Day, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival;
A classic love movie like "Titanic" can sweep the whole of China and make everyone in China know about it. However, although a domestic film like "Farewell My Concubine" has won the Cannes Grand Prix abroad, it is not popular in the United States. The total box office gross was only over five million US dollars.
We know too many big Western stars, have watched too many of their movies, and listened to too many of their songs. However, among the Chinese movie stars that Western audiences know, the most influential are basically Li Xiaolong, Cheng Long, and Jet Li. There was no one left.
This is a huge asymmetry in cultural exports. At this point, the United States is like a country with a huge trade surplus, while we are a country with a huge trade deficit, almost to the point of being treated as a dumping market by the other party.
It is precisely because of the long-term unequal cultural output that the update of "Plants vs. Zombies Online" is particularly significant in the eyes of people in the Chinese cultural industry.
Among them, the one that was most shocked was the Hong Kong film industry.
8. In the 1990s, a large number of zombie movies emerged in Hong Kong. From Lam Ching-ying to Hung Kam-bo and Wu Ma, these outstanding Hong Kong actors made great contributions to the prosperity of zombie movies.
However, in Hong Kong, where the film industry is booming, zombie-type films have been overly squeezed in a short period of time, and bad films have become rampant. Later, both Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland audiences have had enough of this type of films. For movies, the market space has plummeted.
Another very important reason for this is that after the death of Lin Zhengying, zombie movies no longer have a real benchmark figure.
Although Hung Kam-bo had made zombie movies in the early years, he soon embarked on the path of mainstream movies. Supporting roles like Wu Ma also have a wide range of roles in the Hong Kong film industry.
Today, there are almost no new zombie-themed movies in Hong Kong, and this theme is rarely touched in the mainland. Everyone regards zombie movies as old semiconductor radios and throws them into the trash can or storage room. , they put their energy into more advanced TVs and computers, and only a few nostalgic people would occasionally listen to them.
The Hong Kong film circle is regarded as the pinnacle of the Chinese cultural industry. Although it has declined a lot now, it did have very brilliant achievements back then, so their structure and vision are relatively more international. Many people in the film industry discovered that "Plants Vs." After the update of "Zombie Online" caused a lot of response and strong recognition overseas, we realized that this might be a good opportunity for Hong Kong zombie movies to ride on this super ride to all over the world!
(End of chapter)