Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2000s

Gears of War – Ultimate Edition

Posted on by Viljami

Gears of War – Ultimate Edition is a remake of the original Gears of War that was released for Xbox 360 back in 2006. It was also released for Windows. It is an exclusive game for Xbox. There has been some discussion about exclusive games and we have already seen a Gears of War game released for a PlayStation 5. We also have seen Silent Hill 2 (remake) getting released as a digital version for Xbox’s latest console which are Xbox Series X and S. Also now when Nintendo also has its very powerful console, Switch 2, it is also possible for it to compete. Nintendo does have these own type of games it likes to release that are quite different from what some other consoles have.

While Gears of War is a already a strong brand among game enthusiasts I personally haven’t played it a lot. I do have some experience on playing the first game in this series on my Xbox. I really cannot remember if I was playing on my Series X or 360. I enjoyed the game but couldn’t beat it after all. I just got stuck and finally lost interest. I hate when I end up in this situation. I would like to play the game with a flow mode and play it all the way to the end. Fortunately it isn’t today such a shame to look up some advice online if you need some.

Gears of War – Ultimate Edition seems to be a perfect game if you want to catch up before trying to play games like Gears of War 4 and the fifth game in the series that is titled just “Gears 5”. There is still a lot for me to play when it comes to Gears of War titles. Ultimate Edition was released in 2015 right before Gears of War 4 was released. That moment was 2016.

I can very much recommend Ultimate Edition especially if you haven’t played any Gears of War games before. It is obvious that in this game it is necessary to aim well and keep yourself in cover almost constantly. It takes several hits to drop an enemy. You also get to throw some grenades. There are many types of enemies that are trying to come and get you. You have some teammates that can die and when that happens you can also revive them. I really only play the single player mode but there is a multiplayer of some sort also available. The camera angle is in third person or over-the-shoulder.

I have only spent something like two hours playing Ultimate Edition. I really like the game. I am playing it now on my Xbox Series X with my Elite 2 controller. It did cost almost 150 euros. The regular Xbox controller does cost if there aren’t any discounts something like 60 euros. I can definitely feel the difference. The Elite controller is more responsive and sensitive enough. It might be also a good purchase if you are into eSports and/or some competitive gaming. It is a bit sad that Microsoft doesn’t offer such a high quality controller as a default but that is just the way it is. You nowadays sometimes have to pay a bit more for quality. I also did buy some years back the official extra disk space unit which was for me the 1 TB version. This was also a very expensive purchase but it also improved the experience in overall.

I was checking a day back or something like that about if I should get an Xbox One console. I found out that consoles One and Series X do support the same amount of original Xbox games. If One would have supported more of these I would have been very interested in getting one. The amount of original Xbox games supported is only 63 out of all over 2500 games. As I do have loads of original Xbox games the only ways for me to play them seems to be buying a working used Xbox or playing these games on an emulator.

I also have lots of Xbox 360 games that aren’t supported by Series X. So I would need also maybe a used and working Xbox 360 console. Question seems to be how long will these consoles last if I purchase them? It seems to me that I will be playing these games on emulator. The options seem to be Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB of RAM) and Recalbox and my old desktop PC with Batocera installed. I actually think that with Batocera it is possible if you have a powerful PC to play games up to PS3 and Xbox 360. Actually I think that also PS4 emulation might be possible at least soon.

I did find some more games from my gaming shelf. I picked the first Forza Horizon, Xcom UFO Unknown and Army of Two and also one Xbox One game that was Alien Isolation. We are going to see a sequel for it soon I think. I have tens of Xbox 360 games on the shelf just waiting for me to get to play them. I wish I had more time to play also these titles.

 

Colin McRae Rally 3 vs 2.0 – Which One Is Better?

Posted on by Viljami

I played Colin McRae Rally 3 for a while. It made me think how much it reminds Colin McRae Rally 2.0. The game that I mentioned first was released for PlayStation 2 while the game that I mentioned after was released for the first PlayStation. Is it fair to make such a comparison? I think that the answer is yes. Maybe 2.0 is a better game? Would 3 be so much better just because of the more powerful hardware of PS2? You can also consider that with Colin McRae Rally 2.0 the developers had a gaming system like PS1 that they were already familiar with and could also develop a good game for. Also Colin McRae Rally 3 was released early in the considerably long life cycle of PS2.

I have to say that Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was and still is one of my favorite games that was ever developed for PS1. I think it just deserves its status as a great game. It could just be that it is also better than a game from same developers that was released on a more powerful gaming system year or two later. What makes 2.0 so great? It has everything to do with the physics modeling, the way you get to fiddle with the car settings and also the pure and satisfying game play that it has to offer.

Sure, the graphics aren’t that good. Still, I think 2.0 offers the best that PS1 can provide when it comes to the quality of the graphics. Can you honestly say that CMR 3 offers graphically everything that this more modern hardware of PS2 can offer? The answer is probably not. If we think about some PS2 games that look amazing graphically this rally game isn’t going to be mentioned.

We could solve this matter purely by looking through Metacritic and check how are the grades of both of these games. We can also check what the reviewers are writing about these two games. Critics are saying that Colin McRae Rally 3 deserves a grade of 86 while 2.0 receives a grade of 83. Also the users are saying that 3 has a score of 7.6 and 2.0 has a score of 8.6. In the comments Colin McRae Rally 3 is said to be one of the best rally games ever made for PS2. That same can also be said about Colin McRae Rally 2.0. You can say that it is the best rally game of PS1.

Is this basically just a comparison of PS1 and PS2. It looks very much like that. I think it is also a matter of how well you can utilize the hardware of the console you are actually developing the game for. Codemasters had more time with PS1 and developing CMR 2.0. They had spent less time with PS2 when CMR 3 was released.

My favorite out of these two is Colin McRae Rally 2.0. It has more settings to mess around with and the overall control of the vehicle is more comfortable. You also get to drive with several cars while with CMR 3 you only get to experience this one car. These are the most important thoughts that made my mind about this little debate.

Maybe it isn’t necessary to try to decide which one of these two is a better as a rally game? They have been created both by Codemasters. Basically they are both rally games but as games they are very different. The sum these thoughts up for me personally I have to say that I like both of these games. I just happen to like the PS1 game a whole lot more. So, my final thought of this blog post will remain to be this: “Colin McRae 2.0 seems to be a more comfortable and better as a rally game than Colin McRae 3 is”. And still…they are both very good games.

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.