Point Blank (2008 video game)

Point Blank
Developer(s)	Zepetto
Publisher(s)	South Korea: NCsoft Russia: Innova Systems Turkey: Nfinity Games Thailand: Hitsplay Indonesia: Gemscool Brazil: Ongame Peru: Kaybo USA: SG Interactive Philippines: E-Games China: Shanda Games United Arab Emirates: Tahadi Italy: AccelOn
Engine	ICube
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	South Korea: October 2008 Thailand: February 2009 Indonesia: July 2009 Russia: 4 December 2009 Brazil: 3 August 2010 Turkey: 10 August 2010 Peru: 4 November 2010 USA: 10 December 2010 Philippines: 5 May 2011 China: 2010 United Arab Emirates: 9 November 2011 Italy: April 2011
Genre(s)	First Person Shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Point Blank is an online tactical first-person shooter developed by Zepetto, a South Korean company.

Gameplay

Point Blank is a fast paced online first-person shooter, which is very similar in terms of gameplay to Counter-Strike. In Point Blank, players join either the Free Rebels or CT-Force team (the Free Rebels is based on the Terrorists from Counter-Strike, while CT-Force is based on the Counter-Terrorists). Each team attempts to complete their mission objective and/or eliminate the opposing team. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, usually at opposite ends of the map from each other.

A player can choose to play as one of four different default character models (Acid and Sharp Eyes for CT-Force and Aurochs and Tarantula for the Free Rebels). There are four purchasable deluxe character models: Fennec and Pit Viper for CT-Force or Cheshire and Shadow for the Free Rebels. Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins or before the respawning to change the weapons and/or equipment.

Game points are awarded for winning a round, losing a round, killing an enemy, making a headshot, and killing other team's players in a row, etc.

Story

There are two background stories. Project Blackout is an alternate background used with the North American version of the game.

Point Blank

In the mid-20th century, the new nation of Koroga was a developing country. It grew rapidly and in less than twenty years became one of the most powerful nations in the world. During the rapid growth, the country had to face industrialization, growth in individualism and a dwindling population. When several national policies to increase the population failed, the government turned to immigration for the answer. The nation enjoyed the cheap labour and increases in population; however, there are now increasing conflicts between the natives and the new immigrants. The natives enjoy the prosperity the immigrants bring, but treat them as a servant class with few rights and no legal or political representation. The immigrants have tried to use passive means to express their grievances and gain influence with the more liberal-thinking natives, but government oppression has made it impossible. The heightened tensions have forced the natives to crack down on immigrant unrest and in turn has encouraged the immigrants to support the more radical political groups. The increasing conflict of interest caused to divide people between the native CT-Force (Blue Team) and the immigrant Free Rebels (Red Team).

The CT-Force's mission is to protect the native social order and its privileges. To this end, it has declared an all-out war against the militant Free Rebels. Meanwhile the Free Rebels have been trying to overthrow the establishment. Some wish to force the government to recognise their demands, some want to replace it with a different form of government or a more diverse social order, while others just want to destroy it utterly.

Project Blackout

The nation of Korogese is crumbling. Although a technologically-advanced industrial world power, its government is weak, ineffective, corrupt, and divided along sectarian lines. Its swelling decaying cities are ruled by powerful criminal gangs. Its corporations have a great deal of influence over its democratically-elected government and the gap between rich and poor is increasing. Prosperity and a recent era of global peace has made its citizens willing to trade their rights for comfort and security.

The corporations have the view that they know what is best. They hope to create a social utopia in which free market forces will control society and the political system will be reduced to figureheads. One part of this goal was to replace The Corps, Korogese's volunteer and conscript defense forces, with a corporate-trained-and-controlled paramilitary mercenary army called Aegis Incorporated. With the support of anti-military and anti-war activist groups financed by the corporations, the government disbanded The Corps and handed over its facilities and equipment to Aegis Inc. This was followed by a series of laws restricting personal freedoms that were supposedly enacted to combat the rising crime rate but were really created to aid in controlling Korogese's citizenry.

A large faction within The Corps went underground and hopes to overthrow the corporate-run oligarchy that runs Korogese and replace it with a true democracy. Through support from civilian anti-corporation groups, funding from wealthy patrons, and black market connections in the criminal underworld The Corps built up an impressive and well-armed underground army. They plan to wear down Aegis with a guerrilla war campaign, strike at the corporate leadership cabal that runs the oligarchy, and eliminate any civilian collaborators and traitors who support them.

The player will have to choose between the sides. Aegis Inc. (the Blue Team) supports law and order, but represents tyranny and oppression. The Corps (the Red Team) supports democracy and freedom, but represents indiscriminate violence and anarchy. The side that survives the conflict will impose their social views on the masses.

Development

Point Blank was originally developed by South Korean software company Zepetto, who licensed the game to other companies. It has been launched in South Korea (published by NCSoft in March 2008), Thailand (published by NCTrue, February 2009), Indonesia (published by PT. Kreon, July 2009), Russia (by INNOVA, January 2010) and Brazil (published by OnGame, August 2010). It will soon launch in China (by Shanda in 4th Qt., 2010), North America (December 2010), Turkey (by Nfinity games in August 2010) and Italy (by Accelon Italy in April, 2011).

Each local edition has different weapons, skins, and options to meet local tastes. For instance, the North American variant has a different backstory and is called Project Blackout. The available weapons lists are different for each version and developers add or drop weapons depending on popularity.

Game modes

There are 7 game modes and (currently) about 24 maps. There are more than two modes available for some maps.

• Deathmatch:
  • This can be played one of two ways. 1) The round lasts until a set number of characters on one side are killed. The team that reaches the total number of kills first wins. 2) The round lasts until a set time limit runs out. The team with the most kills when the round ends is the winner. Dead characters are respawned until the round ends. On several maps, the maximum number of player is 4vs4 instead of 8vs8.
• Bomb Mission:
  • Red Team must try to either emplace and detonate a bomb in a designated area or kill all the Blue Team defenders. Blue Team must defend the objective, intercept all Red Team bombers, and/or defuse the emplaced bomb. Dead characters do not get respawned for the duration of the round. The several version of Point Blank call this "Explosive Mission"
• Destroy:
  • One team must destroy the target objective in the enemy’s area while defending or protecting their target objective. If neither objective is destroyed before the time limit is up, the team that scored the most damage on their opponent's objective wins. Dead characters are respawned until the round ends.
• Eliminate:
  • Annihilate the opposing team. Dead characters do not get respawned for the duration of the round.
• AI Challenge:
  • A practice mode in which 1-4 players of one faction fend off 1-8 “Artificial Intelligence”-run "bot" characters of the opposing faction. The AI's difficulty can be set from 1 (easy) to 10 (impossible). Dead characters do not get respawned for the duration of the round. Since it is for practice, Kills and Deaths scored in this mode do not count towards a player's career Kill/Death totals.
• Defense Mission:
  • The Red Team must destroy two Panther Class Tanks of Blue Team while Blue Team must protect their Panther Class Tanks. This is different from Destroy Mission while in Destroy Mission, both team have similar objective. Only "Black Panther" map currently running this mode.
• Dino Mode:
  • A Human vs. Dino mode. in this mode, the Red Team was changed to Dino, and Blue Team was changed to Human. One of Dino will be the strongest Dino which changes on every stages.This game was called as Ally Mission in Game modes selection

External links

• Thailand Point Blank (Thai)
• North America Project Blackout (English)
• Indonesia Point Blank (Indonesian)
• Russia Point Blank (Russian)
• Peru Point Blank (Peru)
• Brazil Point Blank (Brazilian)
• Turkey Point Blank (Turkish)
• Philippines Point Blank (Philippines)
• United Arab Emirates Point Blank (Arabic)
• Italy Point Blank (Italian)
• China Point Blank (Chinese)