Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Living Colin McRae Rally 2.0 Again (and Again)

Posted on by Viljami

Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was released in 2000 for PlayStation 1 and also for PC. I really don’t remember if I played this rally game before I got to try and play the first Colin McRae Rally game. There is something very special about this game that keeps me coming back to it. I keep starting a new career and suddenly I realize that I have spent already one and a half hours playing it. What could be the reason for this? Let me try to explain it to you my dear reader.

There is a lot to play in Colin McRae Rally 2.0. You get to drive in 8 different countries. One country has 8 stages and some of them come with an additional special stage. You can choose your difficulty level from easy to intermediate. When you beat the game with intermediate you unlock the expert mode. The expert modes’s championship gives you 8 countries now with 10 stages and also a special stage on some countries.

Handling of the car is made as precise and you can succeed in this game without a wheel and a pedal. You can apply different settings to the car. You have only limited time to tune your vehicle. So, you should apply well working settings for your car before the first stage of a country so you won’t loose all of your time. The settings can be a bit difficult to figure out. If you are like me and want to go to just driving you can try to search the best settings for every country online. I bet you can find the best settings. I figure this isn’t any sort of cheating at all.

There are many surfaces from more demanding, like snow or wet mud, to some more forgivable ones, like tarmac or dry gravel. The physics of Colin McRae Rally 2.0 work very nicely. You do get to control the car with your game pad but don’t just think it would be easy to handle your car in this game. There is a lot to learn while you keep playing the game.

Some of the appeal that I do have towards Colin McRae Rally 2.0 can be explained with the effect that pure nostalgia can at times give you while you are playing some retro game. I was 15 or 16 years old when I faced this game for the first time. I also had it for PC and also for PlayStation 1. The PC version gave a bit better graphics while the PlayStation 1 version provided a better game pad support that made it smooth to control the car.

I told you about how much the game can offer in terms of content. However it does take only six hours to beat. There are six cars that you can choose from when you begin playing. You can unlock some more vehicles as you progress in the game.

We are looking at probably the best rally game that was ever made for PlayStation 1. It has been some time already that I played the next Colin McRae Rally game, Colin McRae Rally 3. It is a very good sequel to Colin McRae Rally 2.0. It was released some years after the second game. It was released for PC, original Xbox and PS2. If you like rally games I think you should also play the third game.

The series of good quality rally games that begun from these games that were released back in the end of 90s and beginning of 2000s went on to become an even more legendary. We have seen many more rally games. We have seen also some games that have taken direct influence from these games. If you like this type of games you should check out Rush Rally 3 and Old School Rally. They are indie releses that focus on an experience quite similar to Colin McRae Rally and Colin McRae Rally 2.0.

My Latest Purchase

Posted on by Viljami

This right here in this featured image is my latest retro game purchase. It included one PS2 game, Twisted Metal – Black, and two original Xbox games that are actually playable on Xbox Series X due to the backwards compatibility of that console. The two Xbox games I just bought are Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas and Red Dead Revolver. So, both of these games were developed by Rockstar.

The matter that actually led me to buy these three games was the fact that I got Red Dead Revolver for such a cheap price. It cost me alone only 30 euros. Now I have seen this same game available for a price of 80 euros. I actually think that the price has dropped a bit. I already had Red Dead Revolver as a digital copy. Now I have added it to my collection of original Xbox games with this purchase. The digital copy of this game did cost me 15 euros. I think it is still available if you might be interested.

There are only a bit over 60 original Xbox games that are compatible also with Xbox Series X. I am on my way to trying to collect each one of these. The actual amount is 63 games. One game just to name one that is compatible in this way is Manhunt. This game has received many praises and some coverage because of how violent the game is. Just to give you an example there is a way in this game that you can kill an enemy. You can do it by suffocating the enemy with a plastic bag. Besides all the violence there is lots of hiding in shadows and performing some stealth attacks in this particular game.

Some day I just might install my copy of Manhunt and go and play it for a while. I haven’t finished Manhunt but my brother played it all the way through with his good friend. I don’t actually know why I am sharing this type of content here but I just don’t want to think more about it. After all this is my blog isn’t it? Lets continue – shall we?

Twisted Metal – Black was one of the games involved in this purchase. It is a driving game for PS2. I have heard some good things about it. It has been on my radar for a while now and now I finally did purchase it. There were some earlier games in the series that were already released for PS1. This game did cost me 35 euros making it the most expensive game on this purchase.

I also did buy Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas. I bought it because it is also playable on Xbox Series X. It did cost me only about 24 euros. GTA VI is going to be released soon. I think it is going to be a huge success considering how the media and also fans of this franchise have been reacting to some of the information we have actually received about this release. San Andreas can be a nice experience if only I can spare some time to play it finally. It takes about 30 hours to beat San Andreas in reference to “HowLongToBeat” website.

I am very content about the purchase that I have made. I got Red Dead Revolver for a good price. I also have now some more games to play. If only In would have some time to get into also these titles. I am excited about each one of these three games. I am happy that I didn’t at least this time spend so much money on the purchase.

I have been thinking a lot about getting more into digital gaming. I think I might not be yet ready to stay fully digital today or some day in the future. The way things are seeming to go I don’t know if I myself and also my dear game hobbyists are actually ready for a change like this. I hope there will be room for both – the physical and digital.

 

Some Valuable Games I Own

Posted on by Viljami

I own some valuable games. I had to check some web shops prices and also some actual price charts to see how much value these games actually have. It seems to be that every one of these three games is sold for a bit over 100 euros currently. They might individually cost as much as 130 euros. If I could get 300 euros for selling these three games it has to be a difficult decision to make. I like all these games. I also haven’t really had the opportunity to play them through properly. So, if you ask me, I am not going to sell them.

How much did I pay for these valuable games? I remember buying Silent Hill 3 for 15 euros back in 2016. It has been ten years and now the price is sky high. I do remember buying Alice – Madness Returns as a new game for something like 60 euros. The price has nearly doubled. You know I had to get Splatterhouse for PS3 (I love Splatterhouse 2 on Mega Drive). I don’t actually remember if it cost me 40 or 60 euros as a new game. Price chart tells me that the copy is now worth 140 euros. This is the price of a set that holds the manual and is in good condition in overall.

Of course these prices cannot be compared directly. You have to consider some inflation. All of these games have been in my collection for a decent while already. I have bought the PS3 games that are present here maybe 15 years ago or something like that. Silent Hill 3 for PS2 was bought after I got myself a PS2 and started to collect also for PS2. I rarely simply collect games. I do buy them because I want to play them. After I have played a game through I might want to keep it in my collection. Also, I have a huge “backlog” and there are tens of games that I just haven’t yet had time to get into.

The point here might be that you never know how valuable your collectible items actually are. You have to check and see the prices that these games are currently being sold. “Who buys all these games today for such a high price” one might ask. I think the answer is simply collectors. Game collecting is a very common hobby today. People are drawn to games since they were in touch with video games since childhood.

I have to admit that I am a bit surprised about this high price that my valuable games actually now have. It seems to be a good example of a case of when early bird actually does get the worm. But as you might already have figured out – I am not doing this for money. It feels nice that something like my video game collection does have a value in money. However this is a somewhat a hard value. So, I think for now I am going to hold on to my valuable games.

I remember how frustrated I was maybe ten years ago when I was just starting to get into some PS1 gaming again. The value of my old and now already sold game collection of PS1 games would have had a huge value in money also. I sold my PS1 console, memory cards (I think I had two of them) and all my games (this means maybe 30 games in total) and also two controllers for only maybe 120 euros. They were worth so much more in money or in some other way also.

I am concluding this blog post with some reasonable thoughts. I don’t remember who said it but there is a common saying related to this matter. It goes something like this: “Money can’t buy love”. This is what I am thinking about. If I get money working then I get to spend my money the way I like. But I don’t really like to sell something that has a deeper value to me personally. That, I think, is something that money really cannot buy.