Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2000s

Web Page as a Medium

Posted on by Viljami

I have spent so much time learning to write and also express different ideas on a web page. There has always been this certain appeal for me to websites. It probably all began when I started getting into HTML in 1999 or 2000. So, that’s ages ago. But that is where it this interest started for me.

I was far from a professional. At first I didn’t even study anything related. At the time I was still a student in elementary school. This was even before I went to high school. It started as an interest and a hobby for me. I didn’t think that I would become some sort of professional in this exact field. But that actually happened a bit later. But lets just say that I was sort of free to do whatever I wanted at this time and I also found many interesting subjects in this time in my life. That was also a time when I got deeper into gaming.

So, there has always been an interest for me in designing and programming websites at least at some level. I am still not a seasoned professional. I am still taking those steps toward understanding this form of art and also a very strong medium. Because I think that’s what a web page really is – a medium. There are so many things you can express in a website. It might be a single page application but I myself started with static HTML. I soon got to CSS also.

I started building websites with simple HTML tables. I liked creating different types of interfaces and menus and also logos and headers. That was fun. I liked modifying images and changing how they were colored and represented in a web page. Soon it came to my understanding that tables weren’t a good way, anymore, to design a website. So I learned some newer techniques. I got far. I still stumbled as I encountered something like PHP, MySQL or JavaScript. I understood how powerful they could be but I wasn’t ready to move on to actual programming. I think that would have been too much for me to cope with as I was learning everything on my own with no teachers or other students or even a decent theory book.

I did learn more later. Today, I can create a static website. I still don’t know how to use React deeply and thoroughly. There is still lot to learn. Websites are now fully responsive and can be used with different kinds of tablets and phones and maybe even some other mobile devices. I think the medium is still there. You can write a book on a website. You can play a movie on it. There are several ways to draw content to the screen using your favorite web browser. You can create a game for others to play. And all this is achieved with a certain limit and you don’t have to actually install any other software than just your web browser.

There are many types of browsers available. Microsoft still has its own browser and it is currently called Microsoft Edge. Google has its own web browser. It’s called Chrome. You have also, the descendant of Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, which is very popular. Then there are browsers like Opera and Brave. Web browsers do gather information about you, the user, in form of cookies.

There are countless possibilities in what way you can deploy this medium. The content has to be in a form of HTML and it’s functionality is defined in JavaScript, be it as a framework or vanilla. You can also tune the look and view of your page with CSS. Together these, sort of, languages form a web page. This form is very different from what you have when you write a story. Then you are only using a tool like Word. You have a very limited way to control the content. Then you have complex ways to express your content with a pen or even a brush with a paper. This means actually drawing something. Creating a website is more technical and also more simple way to express some ideas you might have.

Websites keep interesting me a lot even today. I like fiddling around with digital photography and writing stuff. I like also the technical stuff. The programming side is very interesting. I think I have now a grasp of what can be achieved with a web page. I just have to grab myself and start working. There is lots to do and I have lots to achieve, still.

One Nice Retro Rally Game

Posted on by Viljami

Yesterday, after a typical working day, I found myself playing, again, this classic rally game. The game is titled Rally Trophy. It was released in 2001 only for Microsoft Windows . So, this means it can be played with a PC that has Windows. I did buy this game back in the day. I don’t think it’s available anymore. And I don’t know if it’s really necessary to buy it. I of course have it in my PC game collection and I even have it as an actual physical game disc.

This game was brought to us, gamer persons, by a Finnish game company named Bugbear. I remember when I get to realize back in the day that this game was actually developed in my home country. I made a search through internet and found the e-mail address of the company. I was excited but I don’t remember did I actually send them any e-mail message or not. There were some game companies here in Finland and I felt this need to be a game designer even back when I was only a teenager going to high school. So, I don’t remember if I did or did not send them my resume when I was looking for a job later in my life. I did send an application to Remedy and that I can remember clearly.

Not so many people have the actual skill to work as a game developer. Be it a programmer or a 3D modeler or maybe even a software tester. You have to have some experience under your belt and some projects that you can show your skills with. Today there are lots of people that have just been graduated and cannot find a job anywhere. They will end up to getting any job that they can get. And that’s the way it goes. But not back in 2001 when some very skillful game programmers could show their level of skill. I think many people got their skills back in the 80s and with a Commodore 64. It was a way to get to know the hardware and also the software.

Rally Trophy is a nice driving game. It isn’t actually an arcade type of a game. Although the driving technique isn’t hard to learn it is a bit different if you compare it to some other driving game of this particular era. There are some vehicles for you to choose from. I took a Ford mainly because it was the most powerful one. It has a horse power of 140. The driving means in this game very much trying to keep your speed above 100 km per hour all the time. There’s not a lot room for braking or accelerating. Somehow I still find this driving style satisfying. It brings a unique feel to this game.

I played this game with a Windows 10 PC and with my Xbox One Elite controller. I had to run some patches and also a fix to get this game to work. I was actually able to configure my game pad after all. The game has a maximum resolution of 1920×1080. I think that graphics of this game still look very nice. A bit retro styled but nice. It was at first hard to try to play the game. I banged my head with these first four stages of the first rally for maybe two hours. That was yesterday. Today I started playing again. I played for some time and I managed to finish every rally in the top six and the season ended and I placed third in the season.

There are some cars to unlock but I didn’t care to figure out further how to do this. I think this was it for me for this game. If you wish to play this classic there is some information available if you do a search on your favorite search engine. I also advice to go to a website named My Abandonware where you can find lots of games including the one I was just writing to you about.

The Enemy of My Dear Hobby

Posted on by Viljami

Where should I begin. Firstly I must admit that I am frustrated with this issue. GameCube seems to be very popular retro gaming system right now. It has been maybe six moths that I bought this console. GameCube was released in 2002 in Europe. So this console might be 20 years old. Who knows, exactly?

Of course the hardware has its limitations. It would be much nicer if I could just rip the games that I have to a rom file and install for example Batocera or some other Linux OS to any computer that meets the system requirements to play these GameCube games. Currently there is no solution like this. There is nobody selling any kind of hardware to ripping your roms to be used by you only…and you already own these games!

Small gaming stores have a responsibility. But that responsibility for me is very limited. I understand that they can only give you a guarantee of one or maybe three months. But where are the experts that are able to repair these old gaming consoles?

What is my issue here? The answer is that my GameCube refuses to handle game discs properly. I have already cleaned the disc reader very carefully. I did that once. After that the console worked just fine…for maybe an hour! I have also unplugged the power and AV cables and plugged them in again. This also makes GameCube do something but it clearly isn’t the right solution.

This is the same problem I had also with my original Xbox and my older PS2. Both of these machines are out of use and I am keeping them in a storage right now. These consoles are definitely of a low quality. If you compare these devices to for example my Xbox 360 or my PSOne you definitely get the picture.

These problems make me think once again if its really comfortable to spend so much effort to getting an old physical device to run your retro games on. It makes me, and maybe even you, consider buying some newer hardware. But why, oh why, aren’t there a solution here for us retro heads? Why can’t you make a new GameCube mini console? Or maybe a device that we could rip our games to another device or computer?

GameCube is right now a popular device. For a while ago I also bought a HDMI adapterto my GameCube. There are plenty of games available right now. Prices of these games are also high. There seems to be a certain appeal to this system. And I defionitely would like to play these types of games.

We are desperately waiting for Nintendo or maybe some other party to release a better console for playing the games of this system. I can guarantee that it would make you some money. And please…make it available also in where I live and that is of course, Finland.