Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Thoughts After Playing NHL 27 for Five Hours

Posted on by Viljami

NHL 27 was released exactly one week ago. I bought it almost instantly as I noticed it was offered for 50 euros. The discount for such a new game was a good one and I ended up buying this game. The normal price would have been something like 73 euros. I got it for Xbox Series X. I did have to wait some days for the delivery. I got to play my NHL 27 just maybe three days ago.

How is this newest NHL and ice hockey game? I have spent already a bit over five hours playing this game. The graphics look really nice. The gameplay feels somewhat comfortable. I did set the game controller settings so that I have a slap shot mapped to B button and wrist shot mapped to X button. This is for me a more comfortable way to play. You also have the option to shoot with analog stick. I really don’t like playing with this controller setting but the setting is there for the player to choose.

Defending in this game takes some time to adjust to. You have to be careful not to take a penalty. I found it to be a good strategy to try to not slash with your stick in any way and rather just try to see where the opponent is trying to pass the puck and where are its players trying to move and in this way try to defend and maybe try to intercept a pass and get the puck to your own team.

Attacking takes some adjusting also. You have to remember that the latest NHL game I have played was NHL 21. I remember also the huge disappointment that I had with NHL 20. In NHL 27 you can try to pass the puck to your teammates while also trying to get a good chance to shoot and trying to make a goal. Sometimes you pass badly and you loose the puck. Your players get at some point also tired and you need to make sure to give your players a chance to substitute with a teammate.

After five hours of playing NHL 27 I feel like it is a decent hockey game. It isn’t a great game. It is a decent one. I don’t know how much I am going to play it in the future. I did like that I could choose Carolina Hurricanes as it has some Finnish players. It has Sebastian Aho and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Ice hockey is very popular here in Finland and almost everyone is talking about ice hockey when the world championships are going on. This happens every year. We also have the national hockey league that some of the people I am in contact with are enjoying to watch from television or being actually at the stadium.

I got this game for this discount. I think it is a good game to buy. I can recommend it if you are really into ice hockey. There are many game forms and NHL 27 might be a fun game to play with a friend on the same screen or maybe even through an internet connection. I am not so much of a multiplayer person. I am usually only playing the single player campaigns be it a shooting game or a sports game that is in question.

NHL 27 does feature the latest players and teams. I don’t think it brings many changes to how then last NHL game was. I think this was NHL 26. I would like to see something that would make this game an addictive to play. It is now a game that is a bit frustrating to play. Maybe I haven’t found some of the ways that the game offers a challenge for a video game player. I just hope it isn’t such of a disappointment for me as NHL 20 was. I played NHL 20 for tens of hours only to find out that it was a plain disappointment as a sports game.

Trying to Beat Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

Posted on by Viljami

I have recently spent some hours playing Ghost of Tsushima on PS4. This game is actually a PlayStation exclusive game. It is also available for PC through Steam. Ghost of Tsushima was originally released in 2021. There is also a “Director’s Cut” version available that is a bit newer release.

To this day I haven’t bought PS5. This wasn’t actually a decision from me. I just happened to pick Xbox Series X instead of PS5. I have thought about buying a PS5 but really haven’t. And now when game console prices are very high I don’t feel like spending hundreds of euros to buy another console. And of course I have to say that I don’t have any room left in my gaming setup for a PS5.

So, I am playing some video games still on my PS4. Ghost of Tsushima is a great PS4 game. I have some games that I would very much like to play on PS4 but haven’t just had enough time. I have played Ghost of Tsushima for about 17 hours. The game takes about 25 hours to beat. It didn’t cost a whole lot. I bought it for 20 euros as a used copy from a local gaming shop.

I have been thinking about a topic that I would very much like to write some more about. That topic is buying and selling used video games. I think that at here in Finland we have a bit under ten gaming web shops that have been functional for several years. There is clearly a market here for used video games. I have thought about writing a whole blog post about this. I would also like to write about abandonware and copyrights. Maybe I’ll write a post about this later. Lets see and find out.

While Ghost of Tsushima offers some challenge it isn’t a brutally difficult game to play. There are also some difficulty adjustments that can give you some challenge if you need some. Also I think there is some replay value here if you want to play the game through with a higher difficulty level over again after you have beaten the game on a lower difficulty level. The story is very nice to follow. Also the scenery and the characters are interesting and can keep you concentrated while you advance through the game.

I did buy my PS4 back in 2014. I have to give some props for Sony for releasing such a good quality gaming console. I haven’t had any issues with the console. I did upgrade the storage HDD from a 500 GB to 2 TB HDD back in the day. I had to make this upgrade since 500 GB is such a low space for video games today. This operation was easy. I really don’t remember how much this HDD did cost. It wasn’t an expensive upgrade after all.

So, Ghost of Tsushima offers you melee and also some ranged fighting action. You also get to take down enemies in a sort of a stealth mode. There is a lot of strategy to consider in this game. The main character keeps getting some upgrades and you can unlock some special moves while you keep progressing in the game. The story is also an interesting one. You actually appear in this game as a samurai soldier. So, there are also some dialogs and you even have to make some choices while having these conversations between the characters.

I would prefer playing this game with a PS5 instead of a PS4. I prefer also playing video games from a sharp television screen while sitting on a sofa instead of sitting really close to the screen playing on a table of some sort. I am talking about PC gaming and that I don’t like it as much as console gaming. This can be a matter of taste and not so much something that I would like to have a debate on.

I have bought some more games. I hope to be able, soon, to write some more about my achievements in this matter. I am still waiting to get my hands on the new Onimusha gmae that was released last Friday. The new Metal Gear collection is also waiting for me on the list of what to play next. See you in another blog post. Lets hope that this will be sometime soon!

Hyperkin DuchesS Is a Joy to Use

Posted on by Viljami

It has been already almost three weeks since I bought Hyperkin DuchesS. It is a game pad that works on Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One and PC. It is available in three different colors that are black, white and green. The button layout is very familiar to gaming fans that have played video games on original Xbox. IT also has the so called “select” and “start” buttons of a modern Xbox game pad on the left side of the controller. This controller costs currently about 55 euros. So, it isn’t actually a very expensive controller to buy.

The Hyperkin DuchesS is a wired controller. So, you hook it up to your console or computer with a long cable that has a USB-A, as is usual nowadays, connector. I had sligh issues because the cable pressed some of my keyboard buttons accidentally. I don’t think that is a huge matter. The game pad feels light. The button layout feels very nice and the controller works very nicely when you play some original Xbox game on an emulator or with your Xbox Series S/X or Xbox One.

I have had some good gaming moments using this Hyperkin DuchesS with Xemu. It is a piece of software that allows you to play some original Xbox games on your PC. Xemu does have some issues and all the games aren’t playable using it. I was able to play some Forza Motorsport. This game works very nicely. Also Hyperkin DuchesS is a good choice also for modern games. I played Rush Rally 3 for a while. It is a decent rally racing game from this year (2026). I bought it for my Windows PC from Steam a while ago.

The nicest thing about Hyperkin DuchesS is definitely the button layout and also the similar feel to an original Xbox controller. I think this green color was the most appealling at least for me. So, I had the opportunity to buy it. I think this might be the most popular color out of all three of them. The controller really gives you a touch of a real gaming experience with a real original Xbox.

I have recently played original Xbox games mainly through emulation. I emulate Xbox with Batocera or a regular Windows PC. The experience is deeper with my Batocera computer since I have connected it to my television. So, I can play original Xbox games from my couch. It has been several years since I last time had a real working original Xbox connected to my TV. There are a bit over 60 games for original Xbox that actually do work through backwards compatibility on Xbox Series X. Some games are available as digital versions from Xbox store.

I really hope that Xemu keeps getting better. At some earlier times it wasn’t as good of a solution in a way that it currrently is. Some gamers say that it is able to run about 80 percentage of games out of the whole original Xbox game library. Original Xbox has almost one thousand games that were actually released. I think Xemu is a good and solid emulator. It just still has some slight problems and there are some ways it could be improved as an emulator. You can just compare it to PS2 and/or GameCube emulation that works without issues with emulators like PCSX2 and/or Dolphin.

Also you can use Hyperkin DuchesS with Xenia. This is a Xbox 360 emulator. You do need a powerful modern PC to use Xenia. Xbox 360 has 2157 games in its game library. I have played Colin McRae Dirt 2 for some hours with Xenia. You can probably find Xenia and Xemu using your favorite search engine.