Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2000s

Hyperkin DuchesS Is a Joy to Use

Posted on by Viljami

It has been already almost three weeks since I bought Hyperkin DuchesS. It is a game pad that works on Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One and PC. It is available in three different colors that are black, white and green. The button layout is very familiar to gaming fans that have played video games on original Xbox. IT also has the so called “select” and “start” buttons of a modern Xbox game pad on the left side of the controller. This controller costs currently about 55 euros. So, it isn’t actually a very expensive controller to buy.

The Hyperkin DuchesS is a wired controller. So, you hook it up to your console or computer with a long cable that has a USB-A, as is usual nowadays, connector. I had sligh issues because the cable pressed some of my keyboard buttons accidentally. I don’t think that is a huge matter. The game pad feels light. The button layout feels very nice and the controller works very nicely when you play some original Xbox game on an emulator or with your Xbox Series S/X or Xbox One.

I have had some good gaming moments using this Hyperkin DuchesS with Xemu. It is a piece of software that allows you to play some original Xbox games on your PC. Xemu does have some issues and all the games aren’t playable using it. I was able to play some Forza Motorsport. This game works very nicely. Also Hyperkin DuchesS is a good choice also for modern games. I played Rush Rally 3 for a while. It is a decent rally racing game from this year (2026). I bought it for my Windows PC from Steam a while ago.

The nicest thing about Hyperkin DuchesS is definitely the button layout and also the similar feel to an original Xbox controller. I think this green color was the most appealling at least for me. So, I had the opportunity to buy it. I think this might be the most popular color out of all three of them. The controller really gives you a touch of a real gaming experience with a real original Xbox.

I have recently played original Xbox games mainly through emulation. I emulate Xbox with Batocera or a regular Windows PC. The experience is deeper with my Batocera computer since I have connected it to my television. So, I can play original Xbox games from my couch. It has been several years since I last time had a real working original Xbox connected to my TV. There are a bit over 60 games for original Xbox that actually do work through backwards compatibility on Xbox Series X. Some games are available as digital versions from Xbox store.

I really hope that Xemu keeps getting better. At some earlier times it wasn’t as good of a solution in a way that it currrently is. Some gamers say that it is able to run about 80 percentage of games out of the whole original Xbox game library. Original Xbox has almost one thousand games that were actually released. I think Xemu is a good and solid emulator. It just still has some slight problems and there are some ways it could be improved as an emulator. You can just compare it to PS2 and/or GameCube emulation that works without issues with emulators like PCSX2 and/or Dolphin.

Also you can use Hyperkin DuchesS with Xenia. This is a Xbox 360 emulator. You do need a powerful modern PC to use Xenia. Xbox 360 has 2157 games in its game library. I have played Colin McRae Dirt 2 for some hours with Xenia. You can probably find Xenia and Xemu using your favorite search engine.

Playing Some Onimusha 2 (PS2)

Posted on by Viljami

I put some hours into playing Onimusha 2. This game was released by Capcom back in 2002 for PlayStation 2. This game was part of a purchase I made recently (maybe a week ago or something like that). That time I bought seven games for PS2. These games weren’t so expensive and Onimusha 2 had a price of 25 euros alone. It was the most expensive game out of all the games I bought. I also bought one “loose” game for PS1. That game was Ridge Racer Revolution.

I played Onimusha 2 for a bit over eleven hours. A bit sadly I got stuck badly to a point very near to the ending of the game. It was a very tough part and I just couldn’t get past it. I spent maybe half an hour alone in that part and decided to give up for now. This is not a rewarding way to end playing and trying to beat a game. But I want to be honest and tell you this fact.

Onimusha 2 is a good game. There are however some slight flaws in it. The camera angles make it a bit difficult to navigate at times. Luckily there are some maps in the game that make this a bit easier. There are several puzzles that might be difficult to figure out and solve. I can thank modern internet for being able to solve these issues very quickly. So, I actually didn’t get stuck with them at all. It is a bit difficult to try to figure the progression but I was able to manage to progress all the way to near of the ending of the game.

We can discuss a bit about the gameplay and how the character is getting involved in the action parts of this game. You have several melee weapons in the game and also some projectile weapons can be used. There are endless amounts of enemies and there is no point in trying to kill every enemy you see. Sometimes killing all of them in some area might help you to explore it more thoroughly. You get some health points from killed enemies. You don’t have to use an item every time your health is getting low.

Onimusha 2 is a bit old game. Some retro fans probably can feel some real nostalgia playing this game. You also have this view of how Capcom has developed itself as a game company all the way through the history of video games. You can compare this game to some of the latest games that have been developed by Capcom. I am of course talking about games like Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem. You can rally see how the technology and also game design has been developing all the way from 2002 all the way to 2026.

At this moment I have many games only waiting on my gaming shelf for me to get my hands on them. Just yesterday I bought the new Halo remake. That game is titled “Halo – Campaign Evolved”. I was going to buy the physical copy but ended up buying it as a digital version. At least I don’t have to wait for the game to be delivered. I also bought “Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1” since it featured a very interesting Atari 2600 game named “Saving Mary”. I might write something about it to this blog some day. This collection of games has in total 50 games for Atari 2600.

I haven’t yet touched the other PS2 games that I bought a bit over a week ago. Maybe I do have time for them at some moment. There are also some games that are going to be released that I am waiting for. We have already in this blog touched GTA VI. Also I am waiting for Control Resonant and Rayman Legends Retold. There are also many other exciting games going to be released soon.

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.