Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2000s

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.

My Latest Game Purchase

Posted on by Viljami

My latest game purchase, that I collected from the mail locker just yesterday, includes two PS2 games and four PS3 games. I bought Midnight Club 3 – DUB Edition (PS2), Sonic Heroes (PS2), Bayonetta (PS3), Spiderman 3 (PS3), Aliens vs. Predator (PS3) and Need for Speed – Most Wanted (PS3). They did cost me 109 euros with shipping included. I am waiting to have a chance to get into these new purchases. I am going to have to knock on wood while I’m saying that I am glad that my PS3 still works. It has served already over 16 years in my video game setup. I have faced some issues with hardware earlier. I have two broken PS2 consoles, a broken original Xbox and also an Xbox 360 console that doesn’t work.

Somehow these consoles don’t seem to last forever. I am also not so good at maintaining or repairing stuff like these consoles. I think they actually aren’t even meant to last for tens of years. That is the main reason why I am trusting more and more on emulation. So, I am going to rip these two PS2 games that I just bought and play them with an emulator. I have two different devices that I am running emulation on. One is a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM. It is running Recalbox. I use it to emulate mainly Sega Mega Drive, SNES, NES, PS1 and also some more exciting consoles while I use another device (a desktop PC) that runs Batocera to play PS2 and some other consoles that require a bit more power.

So, there are two racing games included with my latest game purchase. Midnight Club 3 is a classic racing game. There is really no words necessary for the introduction of a game that belongs to Need for Speed series of video games. This title is labled with “Most Wanted”. It think it will be eventually a good game that might take some hours to get into. Usually I have somewhat liked almost every Need for Speed game that I’ve played.

Why did I pick up Bayonetta? I heard a word or two about it as I was reading a book that desrcibes different video game characters. Bayonetta is a strong female character and it seemed an interesting game and I wanted to purhcase it. I am going to try to find some time to get into this game. I also bought Sonic Heroes because Sonic games just rock. I also bought Spiderman 3. I think there are very few bad games that feature Spiderman. So, why not give it a try. The last game in my latest game purhcase that I haven’t yet mention in this paragraph of this blog post is Aliens vs. Predator. It must be a decent first person shooter.

I made this purchase because I found these games interesting. The price was also cheap. I mean I got these six games for a price lower than what it would have been for two new games. Actually I think you couldn’t buy two new games with 110 euros. It might be possible if the games wouldn’t be brand new releases. I am content with yhis game purchase. I am waiting to get to enjoy also these new games.

I have been lately still playing Gran Turismo 3. It takes some time to finish it. I have spent already over 15 hours on playing GT3. The game might take a bit over 40 hours to finish. Also I have a confession to make. I haven’t, yet dived into plaiyng the new Resident Evil game Resident Evil Requiem. I have read that it is a very good game. I am waiting to get into playing it also soon.