Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

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.

Halo – Campaign Evolved

Posted on by Viljami

I just recently finished Halo – Campaign Evolved. This game was released only a moment ago. It took me ten hours to beat this game. It would have been nice to get to play this from a physical release but since it isn’t yet available I decided for this time to go with a digital copy. The game is now on sale. I did pay the full price of 60 euros. I think it is available for a discount now and the price seems to be 48 euros for the Standard Edition. This game is also available for PS5.

The original and first Halo game, Halo – Combat Evolved, is a legendary game that was released for original Xbox back in 2001. The game offered something smooth in the form of a first person shooter that you could actually play with a game pad. This was something that we had already seen in games like N64s GoldenEye. The first Halo game was still something better and even bigger.

So Halo – Campaign Evolved is a remake of the old classic. I have to say that it is a decent game. It isn’t anything special. I still had lots of fun while playing it. Only time will tell what kind of a Halo game we are going to see next. The games or a game (we don’t yet know if there are going to be several Halo games released in the future) that are going to be released will be developed by Activision.

By the way I am sorry that I don’t have any screenshots for this blog post and also on my IG share. I have to admit that I just couldn’t figure out how to take a screenshot with my Elite 2 game pad. It is a good controller but it seems to lack the functionality to take a screenshot quickly. I also didn’t want to play with the regular game pad since the elite one is way more comfortable.

If you check the grades that Halo – Campaign Evolved has received you can tell that everyone wasn’t totally satisfied with the game. I can actually very clearly understand this. If a game is a remake of such a classic video game the expectations are of course high. What do I have to say to this? I think Campaign Evolved isn’t a total failure. I actually very much enjoyed playing it. Is it something that all the fans were waiting for? It probably isn’t a fulfillment of these demanding fantasies after all.

Lets discuss the gameplay a bit. All the familiar weapons are present in the game. You get to use grenades and a bazooka. You have to keep changing your weapon and there is a somewhat limited amount of ammo available. Sometimes you have to pick up an alien weapon since all of your other weapons are out of ammo. There is some melee fighting present but it is nothing like in some recent Doom games we have already seen.

The enemies are numerous. They usually drop some weapons but some enemies don’t. If you fire an alien weapon it actually heats if you keep firing it for a long period of time. Then you have to cool out for a while and after that you are able to shoot again as is normal. This functionality is present only in alien weapons. Sometimes you have to pick a weapon that isn’t as powerful as the weapon you did use earlier. There are many types of enemies around. There isn’t a lot of exploring involved in this game which is also in my opinion a good matter.

This autumn is a busy time for gamers. We have already seen the release of games like Silent Hill – Townfall and Control Resonant. We are going to see the release of games like GTA VI and Zelda – The Ocarina of Time remake. I personally am going to play next some Silent Hill f. Actually just before I started writing this blog post I actually started the installation process with my Xbox Series X. I think I am going to go to play the game now for a while. See you in the next post!