Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Aladdin (Sega Mega Drive)

Posted on by Viljami

Aladdin is a very good Sega Mega Drive game. It isn’t a long one but it surely is of a good quality. It only takes about two to three hours to complete. This is what we were actually used to back in the beginning of the 90s. So, I am writing this whole blog post about this game Aladdin.

As there have been some discussion about the release of Neo Geo console I have to make a brief comparison of these systems. Sega Mega Drive as a gaming console had a completely different strategy if compared to Neo Geo. The latter one seemed to invest in power and also had a higher price. Mega Drive was competing with Nintendo’s NES and was a whole lot cheaper gaming system. This also meant that the games weren’t as impressive graphically. This did also mean that Mega Drive was available to more consumers and was way more popular than Neo Geo.

Sega Mega Drive is also very important to me personally. I do have today maybe 40 games for this system. I do have also still every game that our family had when I was kid back in the 90s. I have kept them and haven’t sold any of them. I also have the console which is replaced in my gaming setup by Retro Trio since it you can play also SNES and NES, and also Master System and Game Boy games with the adapters I own, games. This way my setup doesn’t take so much space. I sometimes use real hardware and sometimes I play games with an emulator. I do buy games for Mega Drive at times and Aladdin is one these games that I have bought.

I remember buying Aladdin for a decent price. I think it was 40 or 60 euros. And this was already maybe two years ago. It might be difficult to try to find the actual physical copy of the game from a web shop. It is a bit of a rare game although it isn’t the rarest of all Mega Drive games. What really makes some games expensive is if they are good games and if there have been only a low amount of copies produced in the first place.

Aladdin as a video game gives everything that a Mega Drive game can give. The 2D graphics look beautiful on the system. The game is all about slight problem solving combined with platformer elements and some moments of action. The main character can jump and sling his sword at the enemy characters that usually take maybe three or four hits and then they disappear. There is a lot of jumping and path finding. The game play fits perfectly for Mega Drive’s original pad that only has three buttons along with the start button and the directional buttons.

I can definitely recommend Aladdin if you like games from this era. Playing this game is a must if you love Disney’s Mega Drive games. There was this certain appeal in these two-dimensional environments. The graphics look very nice. The game doesn’t last but only two to three hours as I already mentioned in this blog post.

Today is Saturday and it is also the time for schools to shut down for the summer vacation times here in Finland. I do remember when I was that young. It has been a long time. I also do have a summer vacation. It is for four weeks. In Finland it is common to have a long summer break be it that you were a student or an employee. I know that it is common in USA to take only a two weeks break at maximum per year. This is how different some things are if you compare USA and Finland. This is actually my 400th post to this blog!

Prices of Some Retro Games Are Very High

Posted on by Viljami

Prices are high. I bought this copy of Silent Hill 3 for PS2 that is now on this blog posts featured image for 30 euros back in 2017. Now the price is on a popular Finnish gaming webshop is 130 euros. The condition is promised to be OK and the game includes also the box and manual. So, the price has gone up 100 euros in just nine years. That’s pretty high price for this PS2 retro game.

Silent Hill games are expensive today. I saw a copy of Silent Hill – Shattered Memories for PS2 sold for 500 euros. Prices of Silent Hill games aren’t the only ones that are currently very high. I have taken notice that especially PS2 games prices have been ricing recently. It is very common to see a PS2 game to be sold for a price of hundreds of euros. This makes me think how good of a value actually these games have. They are PS2 games after all. They aren’t some beautiful big box releases or even “collectors editions”. They are just your regular PS2 games packaged in a some plastic box.

I have also noticed that many people are trying to get some profit out of buying a retro game for cheap from flea market and then selling it for a high price. So, you just cannot expect to see a lot of cheap games on sale in flea markets anymore. The flea markets are also very popular right now. You almost cannot find games there. That makes you to go to look for games in these gaming shops.

I do appreciate that there are so many of these game shops also here in Finland. I very rarely order anything from outside of my home country since it is a bit difficult to make an order. It is way easier for me to buy a video game from Finland. Althought there are many game shops that offer service outside  of my home country also. I am just not so familiar with them.

There are also the options that are available when you use something like emulation. This has been a very hot area of discussion recently. The game shops make some money selling used games. However the publisher or developer of the actual game doesn’t receive any income from a purchase of a used game. So, many times no body even cares about profits. There isn’t a way to buy the game so it ends up being something that is called abandon ware.

When a game is abandon ware it is even legally all right for everyone involved that you actually can download a copy if one is available for free. There are some very good websites that offer these games and they can be downloaded. I have to mention “My Abandonware” that holds some old PC games. Also be sure to check out “Vimms Lair”. They have a huge collection of retro console games. Just write these titles of websites as a search to your favorite search engine. I don’t like to provide direct links to almost any content here.

Vimms Lair actually has every popular video game console games as something referred to as roms. There are present every console from Atari 2600 and NES to as new as PS3 and/or Xbox 360. You do need an emulator for your chosen gaming platform. Setting up an emulator on your PC setup might seem a bit tricky but if you are a knowledgeable person you can get it to work. You can even go as far as installing an operating system dedicated to retro gaming.

These are my thoughts about prices of some retro games. I have to mention that I am thinking, maybe not so seriously, about turning this blog to a paid one. How would that fit in your life as a gamer? We will have to see how this matter progresses.

Waiting for Forza Horizon 6

Posted on by Viljami

Forza Horizon 6 will be released 19th of May this year (2026). It will be available at the launch for PC and Xbox Series S/X. There have been some very unofficial discussions about this game getting released also for other mainstream gaming consoles. This just seems to be the viewpoint today. There might be such things as exclusive releases soon as every PlayStation title seems to be getting released for PC and now also for Xbox.

So, what I have been up to lately, one might ask. Mainly I have been working and keeping myself busy in that way. There seems to be less time for video games as I get older. However I have played some games and this blog post deals with that part of my life now. I have played Crash Bandicoot 4, Doom – Dark Ages, Half-Life 2 and also more and lately Dirt 5 which seems to be a nice racing game to start to get ready for Forza Horizon 6.

Dirt 5 was originally released in 2020. It isn’t the newest game that has been developed by Codemasters but it still remains as a part of this legendary series of racing games that might even been started by Colin McRae Rally already back in the end of the 90s. There have been many great games in this series. I especially want to mention Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and Colin McRae Dirt 2. Those might be the best games out of this series.

Dirt 5 has a lot to offer. I have already spent a bit over 7 hours playing it. You get to drive with several different vehicles and there are several types of driving you will get involved in during playing. There are many camera options to choose from. You can set the camera to the surface of the road or then set it to display the whole car from the back. I chose to set the camera so that I can see the whole car I am driving. This makes it somewhat easy to play Dirt 5. You do have to control the vehicle precisely. I have played this game with a game controller. I really don’t know how a driving wheel and pedals would make the game seem to feel like.

Dirt 5 is a nice racing game in overall. It is almost unfair to make a comparison between the earlier games in this series because they are just so good as racing games. If we put it into this perspective Dirt 5 is a good game. There might have been some issues early when the game was released but I think that in 2026 this game is still a fun one to play. It has received the “metascore” of 79 out of 100 on Metacritic.

I originally picked up Dirt 5 just some weeks before the upcoming release of Forza Horizon 6. It currently has a price tag of 21 euros on the Xbox store. So, it is a cheap game that can help you to better deal with waiting for Forza Horizon 6. This time I bought a game as a digital copy. Although I decided to order Forza Horizon 6 as a physical copy. There will be a long installation process since the game takes a bit over 130 GB of space from my Xbox Series X. Do remember that there is also a PC version available.

With having already made the purchase I am waiting to get my hands on the new Forza game at next Tuesday. Today I am having a day off and I am currently enjoying it an drinking some coffee while I type this post that you are soon able to read. I really have nothing else to say right now. So, until next time my dear readers.