Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

My Latest Purchase

Posted on by Viljami

This the beginning of my new blog post. As the title says it is dealing around my latest purchase. I ordered three games for my Xbox Series X. I bought these three games for a little under 100 euros with the shipping included. What games did I get? I bought Endless Dungeon, a game released by Sega, Lies of P and also Tekken 8 that is the latest game in the well-known series of three-dimensional fighting games.

I am very happy fellow now. I just got to my home and away from some bad weather. It is raining right now but just a moment ago it wasn’t. It is also, again,  Friday and the week-end is here. I am probably going to play some video games. I do have time for that and this weeks work is done.

I almost wrote a blog post some days ago about two Xbox Series X games that I managed to install. I didn’t that time write about it but I went and installed Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077. Now I have played about four hours of Cyberpunk 2077 while Hogwarts Legacy is still not played at all though I have it now installed. I do have lots of space still left on my Series X since I don’t keep so many games installed. This hasn’t been a problem for me. I have almost always space for the games that I am currently playing. I just uninstall a game or two that take too much space and that I am not so into at this moment. That is my strategy and it seems to be working.

What did I expect from these games that were included in my latest purchase? Tekken is very familiar. Te latest Tekken game was so cheap that I just had to buy it. It cost me only sixteen euros and it was the cheapest game from this latest purchase. I think it is a good fighting game and a decent game when it comes to the Tekken series. It does take some space. I am not sure if I am able to install all these three games and try to play them immediately. I probably have to pick which one I am going to concentrate on.

I read just some few words about Lies of P. This game cost me 45 euros. It is not the newest game. It was released already some time ago. I have read that it is a decent game. It can be finished in 29 hours. I got this information from How Long To Beat that is a website that has a database of almost every popular game out there including every abandon-ware game as well. It is actually a very good site and I use it regularly (as you may have seen).

Endless Dungeon was 31 euros. I just felt somewhat interested in it. I actually have been looking for it in case it would be available in a cheap price. I think 31 euros is a good and nice price for a game like this. It is actually developed by Sega. It also came in a huge box. It is not a big box, like PC big box, but it is comfortable. Right now all these three games are sealed. I am not very keen on keeping games sealed so that they would be valuable later but sometimes I leave them sealed while I am not going directly into them and starting to play them. We’ll just have to see how long they are going to keep being sealed copies. I think that the time would be too long for me to get a proper profit for something like this. But there a sense in handling your games like this (keeping them sealed) if you have the patience required. After all a sealed NES game, be it a Super Mario Bros 3 or some other decently valuable game, would actually be very valauble in deed.

But what am I still talking about here? It is Friday after all. I should open these sealed games and give them a good run. I might play some Cyberpunk 2077 first or try to get into some Hogwarts Legacy type of action. Whatever my game of choice will be I am going to have some fun, right? After all that’s what these weekends are perfect for.

When Games Had No Graphics at All

Posted on by Viljami

We’re you playing video games when there were no graphics at all? This screenshot is the featured image of today’s new blog post. As you can see there is only text content for the player and no graphics. You can see the title, “West of House”, and the score. You can also see how many commands you have given in the game. That value is displayed as “Moves”. There is also an opportunity to save a game. You progress in the game with writing commands like where to move and what items to pick up and how to use them. The player also has an inventory system that can be displayed with a proper command.

This game is a text adventure game called Zork 1 – The Great Underground Empire. It was released originally in the beginning of 1980s. As you can probably already figure the first computer and video games were many times very moderate when it comes to graphical performance. They had no graphics. Some of the best text adventure games that I have come across include the first version of the adventure game Leisure Suit Larry. There was also an interesting game called Colossal Cave Adventure. It was one of the first games ever released on computer. It was released already in the 1970s.

It is interesting for me to look back in the video game history as I am such a young person that games for me have always included graphics of some type. When I was a small boy I played many DOS games on our family’s PC. Even some of the adventure type games, many of them were released by Sierra, had some sort of graphics. Later we saw games from Lucas Arts that even had an user interface that utilized some mouse interactivity. So, these games had already a real user interface.

Playing a text adventure game that has no graphics can be very charming. Early in the game you become used to the limitations. While there are many functions in the game they are a bit harder to figure and image. So, this leaves a lot to your imagination. You have to figure out what are the main commands that can make you progress in the game. It helps if you have some experience in playing adventure games be it that they would have had some kind of graphics. You can get into text adventure games more easily if you know concepts like items, maps and/or inventory systems. In some games your character even has some kind of development that can be based on for example experience points. Your characters abilities can sometimes open new opportunities like some new function that is enabled as your character has a more advanced ability. Sometimes there can be a new option inside some conversation dialogue. This all is based on charaters abilities like intelligence, luck or strength that can have a value like a number from 1 to 10. So, this number increases when your character goes up a level. Sometimes you may have options on how to develop your character. Character progression is however considered to be more of a character of a role playing game. Most text adventure games aren’t considered role playing games.

I encourage you to try for example Zork 1 or its sequels. You can get an idea of the surroundings of the space or room you are in with a command like “look around”. Then you are beginning to find some points and items that you can interact with. The score tells you about your progression in the game. Text adventure games are a bit limited but they can be a fun way to experience something new. They sure tell us a lot about the history and origins of video and computer games. The first Zork game is considered abandonware and you can download it from internet and install it through Dosbox. You can maybe use a frontend like D-Fend Reloaded that I am personally using for this purpose.

 

The Huge Library of PS2 Games

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post is about PS2 games. Sony’s sequel to PlayStation was a huge success in many ways. There are almost 3500 games that have been ever released for this gaming console. In this post I am trying to create a picture of the whole meaning of this huge game library and how things are with games today.

PlayStation as a video game console affected the whole industry very strongly. Playing video games transformed from something you did for two or three hours sometimes to playing tens or even hundreds of hours of any game you chose to play. Before the first PlayStation we saw video games that weren’t so appealing especially for grown ups. Gaming was considered to be a thing only for young people and children.

This way of thinking changed when the first PlayStation was released. PS2 went even further and brought some advancements. PS2 is today the most popular gaming console ever. Even consoles like Switch, that’s still in production while I’m writing this, or Xbox 360 or the newer PS4, haven’t been able to sell as well.

PlayStation had many games that presented us gamers new kinds of worlds in a three-dimensional environment. PS2 games made these worlds even more deeper. As the console was released in the beginning of 2000s we saw many unforgettable and great games. These PS2 games were just some years ago very cheap but the prices have been rising recently as this seems to be the current trend for retro game titles.

As there are many games included in PS2 games I want to give some personal recommendations in case you are a complete PS2 games “beginner”. You can already find these PS2 games from the picture I took. These seem to be the latest PS2 games that I’ve have played or bought recently. I have to say that I have had some bad luck as my PS2s have broken. I have had two PS2 consoles already.

I was going to give you some recommendations of PS2 games. I liked Tenchu – Wrath of Heaven a lot. It can be a difficult game. Also I have to mention maybe the best driving game ever – Gran Turismo 4. It is a PS2 title definitely. We have also in this picture Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3. It is a very good skateboarding game. It might be the best in the series. Ratchet & Clank is a very nice three-dimensional platformer slash action adventure game. The content of this game is suitable for people of every age.

Some other popular and good PS2 games are Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, Gods of War 1 and 2, Silent Hill 2 and 3, Resident Evil Code Veronica X, Ecco the Dolphin – Defender of Future, Okami, Shadow of the Colossus, Colin McRae 3, 4 and 5, some very good Need For Speed games, Hitman games, The Sims 1 and 2 and some fighting games like Tekken and SoulCalibur and also some roleplaying games like Final Fantasy X. There are some FPS games, like Call of Duty and Black. I have to mention also a game called Bully.

If you are going to try to get into PS2 games these games are just something you can start with. Try to get familiar with a genre you find the most interesting. You might be into strategic games or adventure or action games or you might want to play some roleplaying games. Try and test and find your favorites. There are so many PS2 games out there.

While there are many PS2 games to get into the system has its limitations. These include awkward controllers and that there really isn’t a hard drive in the world of PS2. So, you have to use memory cards. Graphics could be better. You might face some nostalgia if you played PS2 games in the past.

The system has its limitations but all-in-all it is in my opinion something you just have to try. I have well over 50 games already in my personal PS2 games library. There seems to be many good games that PS2 has to offer.

The Last Issue of Pelaaja Magazine

Posted on by Viljami

So, it’s a bit over twenty one tonight and I just received Pelaaja magazine as delivered in mail. I don’t know why the deliver was so late. Well, anyways, there’s also a book that I am currently reading in this featured image of this blog post. The book is about Snapchat (“How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars”). I find it very interesting and I am about hundred pages through this book at the moment. The book is written by Billy Gallagher.

The fact that I just received mail brought me the idea that I’ve been thinking about already for some days. I did already know that this issue of Pelaaja would be the last one. I was just waiting for the mail to be delivered so I could start writing this blog post. I knew that I was going to receive the issue sooner or later. So, this is the real news. Pelaaja is going to stop getting printed and it is going to be merged to another Finnish gaming magazine called Pelit. So, I, and also all the other readers that have a subscription paid already are going to get their still remaining magazines in their subscriptions delivered as Pelit magazines. We are also getting one issue of this magazine as a some sort of a bonus. Then we can make a new subscription to Pelit or just quit our subscriptions. This is how it seems to be going.

Pelaaja has been around for quite a while. The magazine was founded back in 2002 in October. Pelit, the other still remaining Finnish gaming magazine has been around for some time longer. Actually I remember reading Pelit already back in the middle of 1990s. I think it was established in maybe 1980s (it was actually founded in 1992). Pelaaja has for a long time provided a solid competition. I have bought some Pelit magazine issues. I have never subscribed to it. I have been a subscriber of Pelaaja for several years.

Back in the wild 2000s there used to be several printed gaming magazines. There are too many to mention or to even remember. I think we had a magazine called Peliasema that was focusing on PlayStation. Actually the word “peliasema” is somewhat translated as “play station”. Well, I had to make one more search through a search engine right here just to find that this was actually true and not just my imagination. It was founded in 1998. It was sort of a spin-off of Pelit and it featured some gaming journalists that were also writing articles to Pelit. So, there was some competition already in the field when Pelaaja was founded.

It is somewhat hard to trying to realize that Pelaaja has been actually discontinued. I thought that this magazine would have been up and running for a long long time. There are many trips, for example to our summer cottage, that I picked up the latest Pelaaja from gas station to have something fresh to read while enjoying summer, or winter, here in Finland. Pelaaja has been there for a long time and now it seems like there is a part of gaming journalism missing at least here and right now.

The direction for printed media is that we are getting less and less actual, physical, printed content and the news can be read online from your closest display that can be a smart phone, a tablet or a computer screen. More and more content is published digitally. More and more content is getting released for free online. And this has been the direction for already some time. I do enjoy very much reading content that has been printed to a paper as you can probably see from this blog posts featured image. I don’t have a e-reader device and my tablet is very poor and I almost never use it. Almost every book I read is a physical copy instead of a digital one.

In the last issue ever of Pelaaja we are going to deal with the new Doom game that is getting released next month. I am going to get that game. I know this already for sure. The last two Doom games were great ones. We are going to read more about Wreckfest 2, Housemarque, a Finninsh game company, turning 30 years and also some other very interesting content. I hope this is a good read. If its anything like every earlier issue of Pelaaja I am going to like it. So, thank you, Pelaaja, for everything and farewell!

Terminator 2D – No Fate

Posted on by Viljami

Terminator 2D – No Fate is a video game that will be finally released for Xbox Series X, PS5/PS4 and Nintendo Switch 5th of September 2025 (this year). What are my expectations about this game? From what I have seen in the official trailer we are going to see a game that is very close to the plot and happenings of the second Terminator movie. The action is going to be presented in an amazing two-dimensional style. I have to say that I am excited. I also think that Terminator 2 was maybe the best one in this series of sci-fi action and maybe even horror style of a movie.

The game, Terminator 2D – No Fate, is going to be available as a standard type of a release that is  going to cost, at least here in Finland, 53 euros. The collectors edition is going to cost, here, 109 euros. Collectors edition includes a collectors a silver tin, steelbook cover, art book, flipbook, a paperweight and a poster. This short list is just giving you a hint of what the collectors edition is including. You can probably make your decision on if you are going for the collectors edition or are you going to stick with the standard edition.

It is just purely exciting to even wait for some video game like this. As I mentioned already earlier we are going to see some famous and legendary scenes that were in the movie. The first Terminator movie was good. It was released in 1984. It was a peace of art made by the director James Cameron and featured the then rising star actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a role that revolutionized hos career as an actor.

The second movie of this series was titled Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It was released in 1991 and was also, again, directed by James Cameron. The character of Sarah Connor is acted by Linda Hamilton that was also in the first movie. We are also seeing also Edward Furlong acting as a John Connor who is also later in the story in a significant role in the war against machines and robots that seem to be overpowering compared to human soldiers that fighting this war against machines.

If you are new to Terminator you might still get the picture with every word that I’ve already wrote in this blog post. The main plot handles between the machines, terminators, trying their best to destroy every human being. The terminator, a cyborg, is sent back to the past to kill, firstly, Sarah Connor before her son is going to be born. The second movie features a plot that describes how the second terminator, an advanced model, is trying to kill, now, John Connor while he is a young boy. I am not going so deeply in the plot. I highly recommend watching at least the first two movies since they are pure dynamite.

In the second movie Sarah Connor has had some hard time mentally while having the knowledge of a sort of an end of the world scenery that is going to happen in the future. The trauma has to be a deep one. After all she survived the attempt of the terminator on trying to kill her. In the beginning of the second movie she is being held at a mental hospital and his son and the “good” terminator, acted by Schwarzenegger, are freeing her from there at the beginning of the movie.

Everything that was good in the second movie, all the exciting scenes that we saw, I hope, are faithfully presented again in a form of a 2D video game. And all this has been made available to the most popular gaming systems of today. Now, lets just hope that it is not going to be another flop or a game that would perform somewhat poorly compared to the expectations. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Some Notes About PC Gaming

Posted on by Viljami

With all my video game consoles I am also very deeply into PC gaming. In this blog post I am going to write to you about my experience in PC gaming in 2025. What games do I play, what kinds of hardware and software I use and how can a PC be utilized to also play some retro games be it that they are on any platform including consoles and older PC gaming systems like MS-DOS or older Windows. I am not so deeply involved in Linux or Mac games. I have only played several Windows and DOS games. I think that Linux gaming is a very young field at this moment but things are moving forward all the time. Linux is today able to play many games that were available only for Windows systems earlier. We are not going to go so deeply into Linux gaming as I have at this moment a Windows 10 installed on my PC.

Some old school gamers might be a bit confused since many PC gaming hobbyists are utilizing a game pad today. Originally PC gaming was very focused on playing with a mouse and a keyboard. I once handed a game pad to my friend, he’s a total PC gamer and has been playing for a long time already with a PC, and he just couldn’t figure out how to even put the controller in his hands. He was trying to handle it like it would be a keyboard. This is just to remind you that some PC gaming enthusiasts are very keen on playing with this somewhat old school controlling method. Back in the 90s it was almost impossible to picture someone playing a FPS game with a game pad. This changed when games like Halo and Call of Duty became popular within console gamers.

Console and PC gaming has become closer and closer to each other. There used to be these two separate groups that favored PC or console games. Of course PC even today cost a lot more than consoles. It is somewhat ridiculous that some players demand same performance from devices like Xbox Series X and PS5 that is present in PC gaming. It has been some kind of a law of nature that consoles are cheap to buy and the profits that console manufacturers make are made out of selling software and mainly games for these systems. There are many ambitious and huge games while some games are developed by indie developers that don’t have so much expectations or technical ability in the games they are releasing. I think this is mainly a good thing. Not every game has to be a huge success after all.

I have lots of PC games in the form a DVD or CD-ROM disc. Today it is coming more and more common to see a PC that doesn’t have a optical disc drive at all. Many setups available don’t include the drive at all. My personal solution to this was to first buy an external DVD drive and just recently I got also a Bluray disc drive. It was a bit expensive. It cost me about 150 euros. I haven’t seen any Bluray Ultra HD 4K disc drives that would have been available in any web shop that I encountered online. This is the actual format of the latest video game consoles.

Gamers are buying their PC games mainly from places like Steam and GOG (“Good Old Games”). There is also the consideration about abandonware. This means that some games aren’t available to be purchased at all and the copyright holder doesn’t really mind if someone is sharing the game for free to be downloaded. You can run a search on your favorite search engine, like DuckDuckGo, or some else, to see some of these games. My favorite place to find abandoned PC games is “My Abandonware” that is a website that holds thousands of games. Soe games are tagged as “commercial” and this means that you aren’t able to download them at least from this site. Some popular abandonware games are the original Silent Hill 2 – Restless Dreams, Black and White 2 and Need for Speed Most Wanted.

It is also possible to play many retro games on a PC. This subject is a bit controversial. Some game companies, like Nintendo, are telling us that emulating older systems is piracy and illegal. Some consumers think it is totally all right to play these games that are downloaded from some gaming website. The law says that for example to use a PS1 emulator on a PC you have to extract the BIOS from the PS1 that you own and then rip every game from an original CD that you own. Then you are perfectly legit with this matter. We are not going to go so deeply in this topic ether. Let’s just state that emulation is possible and there are emulators available that emulate devices like GameCube, PS2, N64 and PS1.

When it comes to operating systems Linux has gained some popularity. At October Windows 10 users are forced to update to a Windows 11 system or then pay some more to keep using their Windows 10 systems. Some lucky people just need to update their operating system while others, that don’t have a compatible PC for this upgrade, are going to have to buy a Windows 11 PC.

How about the issues of performance? How powerful PC can run the latest games and how much does it cost? I have currently a systems that has 16 GB of RAM, a video card memory of 8 GB, a lousy CPU that actually isn’t compatible with Windows 11 or 12 and a 2 TB SSD drive (along with a 250 GB SSD that holds my Windows 10 system files). I also recently bought, finally, a screen that is 28 inch and can display 4K resolution graphics. I am going to upgrade to a PC that has at least 64 GB of RAM, 2 TB SSD, and a video card that has 8 GB of video memory. Also I need good and compatible CPU. This system should be able to run games like the new Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy 16. This kind of a computer is going to cost me about 1300 euros. I bought my old PC with a price of 750 euros back in December of 2020. So, it is already a kin do f time also to update my computer to enjoy some modern PC gaming. I think this is all this time and we’ll see in a new blog post later.

Playing Some Gran Turismo 4 (Again)

Posted on by Viljami

I am playing Gran Turismo 4 once again. This game is in my opinion the best one in the series. Not to say that there would be any really bad games in this racing game series. I was thinking about writing a ranking about how I think Gran Turismo series’s games are compared to each other. While I think Gran Turismo 4 is the best I think the first game and also GT 7 were also very good games. It has to be mentioned that the first game deserves some credit about its innovative approach to racing. That game was the one that sparked the series into its way to success.

I have played, since I recently started playing it from the beginning, for about 14 hours. I am always complaining about retro hardware breaking down so now I am going with PCSX2, the PS2 emulator for PC Linux/Mac/Windows. I do have also the original game that can be ripped from DVD with a computer and an optical DVD disc drive. Actually, I recently bought myself also an external Bluray drive and I am hoping to get to rip some PS3 games also. I might write about that also later in a new blog post. Lets just see how my plans are going to be developing.

I am playing this game with a game pad. I am using an Xbox controller because it is so cleverly compatible with my current PC setup. I am running a Windows 10 with 16 GB of RAM and a neat GPU that has 8 GB of video memory. I do have also a SSD that can hold 2 TB of data. I think for modern gaming 1 TB would be enough. The weakest link in my setup might be my personal computers processor/CPU. So, its quite clear that I am also going to have to upgrade my computer later this year. I also have some news about my screen/monitor. I finally upgraded to a screen that has a 4K resolution and is also a bit bigger. The size is 28 inches. Compared to my old Full HD 22 inch display this one is clearly better.

I am hoping to get to play some more new games with a new Windows 11 PC. I have already bought Final Fantasy XVI and Starfield from Steam but my hardware is too poor in performance for me to play them currently. So, I have bought these two games but never even installed them. I am also very interested in getting into the new Silent Hill 2 remake that has received a lot of good reviews. I hope I will get to update my PC in about 2 months. The move to Windows 11 from Windows 10 is going to be scheduled to October. So, for me, this is the final deadline for the upgrade.

This week we also finally got some news from Nintendo concerning the release of Switch 2. The price is going to be 470 euros and 510 euros when you buy one game bundled. This game is going to be Mario Kart World. It is already possible to make an order at least here in Finland. The actual release will be 5th of June this year. I am waiting to get my hands on the new console. I am probably going to get at least Hades 2 and maybe the new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 when it gets released in July.

What more do I have to say about Gran Turismo 4? It was originally released for PS2 in 2005. The graphics are just amazing and I think that they even hold up against today’s racing games. It is very nice to play Gran Turismo 4 with a 4K display and some graphics settings tweak and the screen just screams as the beautiful graphics are getting displayed. There hundreds of real cars that need some updating and tweaking of settings. You can start with buying a transmission that can be set up to get a better acceleration for your vehicle while your top speed does drop. You can have yourself a strategy about different tracks that different types of corners and parts where you are just driving full speed ahead. You have to play some tracks several times to gain some credits so you can advance and buy a new car. You also have some missions to complete to get a proper driving license. Winning series’s of races is being rewarded with a car also.

Clone Your Memory Card in PCSX2 Emulator

Posted on by Viljami

We are dealing with a PS2 emulator that is very capable and that provides you a good quality of emulation for your PC. PCSX2 is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS. Its system requirements include 2 GB of video memory and 8 GB of RAM. There are some requirements also for the CPU or processor. A 64-bit operating system is also a requirement. The recommended system settings are a bit higher. PCSX2 has a good and comprehensive website where you can also look for more details.

PCSX2 utilizes virtual memory cards that are files that have a filename that is ending in *.ps2.  Now, the standard memory cards have 8 MB of space. So, you have to use these memory cards just to save your progress in a game. I am currently playing, once again, Gran Turismo 4 and it takes about 1,5 MB just for the save. There were already some other saves and the emulator printed a message for me saying that the memory card is already full.

So, what do you do? You can of course start your PS2 with no disc inside so that it goes to BIOS. Then you can delete some saved games. You can access BIOS within PCSX2 by first clicking, on your upper left corner: System->Start BIOS. You should do this while there isn’t a game running. Now you can get an access to your memory card by selecting Browser->Memory card on your emulated virtual PS2.

However there is another and more practical way to handle this situation. With no game running on your PCSX2 head over to Settings->Memory cards. Now, click Open… button that is located on the right side of the part that reads Memory cars – Folder: and the location of your virtual memory cards or the files ending with .ps2. Click that button (Open…). Now these files are showing in your operating systems resource manager or the application that you actually handle your files. Now make a copy of the file. This memory card file should preferably be empty. You can empty the file within your PS2 system and then make a copy of the file. You can also leave an empty memory card file that you can copy or clone when you need more space for your saves. I know that I am not going to closely to how the memory card gets copied in your operating system, be it Linux, Windows or Mac, but I think you can manage to do this and will get the idea that I am telling you.

Now, move to your PCSX2 graphical interface. You should be in a windowed view and you should see every memory card file that you have in this specific folder. Make sure there is a tap on your memory card slot 1. Click the “eject” button.  Now the virtual memory card gets ejected. Next you must drag-and-drop your new and preferably suitably named memory card file to the slot that was emptied earlier. Congratulations! You have now a fresh virtual memory card to be used with your PCSX2 emulator. You can now click Close on the window and continue using your PCSX2 emulator.

PCSX2 is a very capable PS2 emulator. It makes playing all almost 4000 PS2 games a smooth experience. I found out that tweaking some graphics settings and also settings found from within the game you could actually make the visuals more detailed. You can manage the settings by going in PCSX2 to Settings->Graphics. From Display I changed Aspect Ratio to 16:9. It can be set to standard 4:3 that is the original aspect ratio. You can also change, from Rendering tap, your Internal Resolution. I changed it to 6x Native (4K UHD). You have to consider how powerful your host PC is. I have a compatible CPU, a video card with 8 GB of memory and 16 GB of RAM. I haven’t had any major issues while running PCSX2 with these settings.

I ended up using PCSX2 because my PS2 always kept breaking. I don’t know if it is because all this dust that you must have seen in my pictures here on this blog. Is it because of the poor overall quality of these game consoles or what. In any way I just find it easier to rip my PS2 games to my PC and then utilize PCSX2 to play them. I don’t get to play with a real PS2 controller but I think that is not so important. Okay then – I hope you found something interesting from this blog post. See you again soon!

Latest Isn’t Always the Greatest in Gaming

Posted on by Viljami

I’ve been verry active in gaming lately. I’ve played a lot of Xbox 360 games. They are a bit old but actually I have found many good games that are still very much enjoyable. The hardware is old. Xbox 360 was released in the middle of the 2000s. I think it was released in 2005. Its already about twenty years old console. Still there is a steep appeal for me at least.

All this talk about Nintendo releasing a new console soon is getting me a bit confused. We are talking about Switch 2 that is going to be released later this year. We are going to get some more information about this matter from Nintendo soon. At least that’s what I’ve heard or read. There is a new console coming and it is said to be only as powerful when it comes to pure performance as a PlayStation 4. Sony released this console almost 12 years ago.

We are we headed? Sony and Microsoft are releasing powerful new consoles and we are seeing as we are used to a new console maybe every seven years or so. While the performance is increasing we are seeing less and less exciting new games that we had earlier with some earlier consoles. Prices of consoles have been on a rise. PS5 Pro has still a price of 850 euros. I bought my Xbox Series X for about 510 euros couple of years ago.

Where is Nintendo going? You can get a Switch for 300 euros today. The price might go even lower as many gamers are already waiting for the new Nintendo console. Originally Switch was a console for gaming that was released in 2017. How about some games then? Switch has several good quality games that are exclusive to Nintendo Switch. I am talking about games like Super Mario Bros Wonder, The Legend of Zelda – Tears of the Kingdom and Luigi’s Mansion series. There are also many remakes like Paper Mario – The Thousand Year Door and Donkey Kong Returns HD and these two are also exclusives just like the first three games that were mentioned.

Backwards compatibility can make things a bit easier. You can play many Xbox 360 games on Xbox Series X. You don’t have to own a functioning Xbox 360 console just to enjoy some of these a bit older but also very good video games. However every game of an old console isn’t compatible. This is where we should also consider about emulation. While gaming consoles can break down you can take any personal computer, install an operating system like Recalbox or RetroPie and start enjoying your just a bit older video games. You just have to have a powerful enough PC.

Many video games today are getting also released as remakes for newer consoles. There are game developers like Capcom that are bringing games like Resident Evil series to new and younger audiences in a from of a remake. These games seem not to be just some old or retro games getting an update and instead they are kind of spin-offs that have also some new content. We have seen this also in the form of games like Dead Space. Some games are actually just games getting released again only with new and improved graphics and game play. This is when you should consider turning back to the old release. Slightly improved graphics can give you only so little. You can think for a moment about a game like the first Red DEad Redemption.

PS5 is fully backwards compatible with PS4. Xbox Series X is fully backwards compatible with Xbox One. All the time we are seeing less and less new games. All the time we are seeing games that are hugely ambitious in getting players to play these games. We are seeing more and more ambition in selling these new games. Every new game wants to be a popular and in every way successful. How long do we keep improving when it comes to pure performance? Should we appreciate game design more?

Two Different Approaches to a Rally Game

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post is about how you can approach a game or specifically a rally game. So, a game has graphics, sound and overall game-play and also some rules of how to create the physics in the game. From this point of view you can try to create a popular game and a game that is nice or/and a game that is as realistic as possible. I am taking a look at two rally games right here in this blog post and right now.

Dirt 3 is part of a legendary rally game series that originates from legendary PlayStation 1 game Colin McRae Rally. There was also a sequel released for PS1 and it was called Colin McRae Rally 2.0. Dirt 3 is also a sequel to games called Colin McRae Dirt and Colin McRae Dirt 2. So, this game has a bit shorter title. These games were released for PS3 and Xbox 360 and also for PC. Dirt 3 can be played on Xbox Series X as it is backwards compatible. Every Xbox 360 game isn’t compatible in this way. Dirt 3 has now two sequels called Dirt 4 and Dirt 5. Codemasters made also two games called Dirt Rally and Dirt Rally 2.0. later.

Dirt 3 was released 2010. I remember back in the day when I just had to buy this game as soon as it was released. I remember paying 60 euros for this game. At that moment I only had one video game console and that console was PS3 back then. Dirt 3 takes an approach of trying to be as realistic as a rally game as can be. The camera can be adjusted and it is tightly following the car. There are some options here. Usually I adjust the camera angle so that I see the road as closely as possible. If you make a mistake you can pause the game and go back to where you made the mistake and try to correct the way you did drive.

There has been some time since Dirt 3 was released. It is a very good game. I like the background music a lot. You don’t hear any music while you are driving. There is something important in this game as it seems that you can also hear your cars performance. We can also say that the team that was involved in developing this rally game was a large one as it had, I think, hundreds or at least tens of people working with the rally game.

What about Art of Rally? It was released roughly about ten years after Dirt 3. The approach is slightly different as is obvious already. Graphics are somewhat basic. They aren’t even trying to aim to be as realistic as can be. This also makes the game lighter to run and so this rally game doesn’t require so powerful hardware. I have this game for Nintendo Switch and lately bought it also for PC through Steam. It cost something from 25 to 30 euros. The “deluxe edition” is somewhat more expensive but only about 5 euros or something like that.

Art of Rally has a very good physical modeling. What it lacks in pure graphical performance it compensates on game-play and overall realistic feel it is able to generate. It feels nice t and realistic to drive the vehicles that are in this rally game. Cars in Art of Rally aren’t real cars. Their names are just something that has been generated by the developer. Dirt 3 does have real drivers and also cars. It would be awkward in my sense to play Art of Rally with a steering wheel and pedals while Dirt 3 gives you everything concerning a simulation type of a rally game. I do play currently both games with a game-pad.

There are only a few people that worked in the development of Art of Rally. The music is in the background while you are driving. I like also the music of this rally game. So, I adjusted the volume settings so that I can clearly hear the music while I drive. I set the engine volume of the car a bit lower, actually way lower, than it was as a default. Art of Rally has a career mode. I recommend that you play the career mode through. It is a nice experience all in all. There are many ways in both of these games that you can drive with your friends in a multiplayer mode but I am not so into playing with other people through network or internet connection.

So, these two games bring you a bit different and unique take. Should we appreciate clever software design or even a form of art more than some video game that is realistic and seems to demand a more powerful hardware? Nintendo Switch was released in 2017 and it has tens or even hundreds of good games that have been released on it. It isn’t the most powerful console but it definitely can deliver some good quality games. Also the next Switch console has been rumored to be as powerful as a PS4 which is, by the way, also a cheap console that still seems to have some players place in their hearths. Should we always go for the most expensive choice or is there a room for some games that just don’t compete in this way at all. Could there be a cheaper or somewhat different option? And this is the question I am leaving you to ponder this time. See you soon again!

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