Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2000s

I Don’t Mind That a Game Is a Bit Old

Posted on by Viljami

Sometimes I don’t realize how fast time keeps moving. If you consider that Colin McRae Dirt 2 was released thirteen years ago you probably get my point. In my opinion this rally game has aged beatifully. It is still a very good game. Maybe not the best of this series but you have to consider the quality of the games that you compare it to.

As you might think already I started going through all these games that I haven’t had enough time to try to complete. It is nice to understand that when you spend some time playing a game it kind of reveals itself and you can really get into the game you are playing. It takes time, doesn’t it.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 has a specific style of driving that you’ll have to adapt to. It isn’t a simulator racing game. Driving in this game differs a bit from some other racing games that I have recently played so it takes some time to adjust to it. It isn’t so difficult after all. You can also in this game adjust the difficulty level if you find driving too easy or even too hard.

There’s lots of visual detail in this rally game. You get to know some actual persons that are driving the vehicles. As you have probably figured you get to drive rally cars and you also have many more types of cars that you have to drive. I think that’s where the “dirt” in the games name comes from.

Some other racing games that I have recently played are, of course, Burnout 3 Takedown, WRC 10 and Forza Motorsport 6. If we compare this game to these other racing games I can say that Colin McRae Dirt 2 offers a very good, maybe a bit easy, experience for the player. There is a challenge also if you adjust the difficulty. You can also set damage on or completely off. It is common, at least for me as I drive these driving games aggressively, to bump in to another racer.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 is one of those games that I have thought about playing for a long time. As other Dirt / Colin McRae rally game titles are very familiar to me I like this game. I still have a lot to play. I am hoping to complete this game and it looks good so far. I have now put six hours to playing this game.

Still Trying to Beat This Game

Posted on by Viljami

I am still trying to beat Burnout 3 – Takedown. I have played it for about nine hours and I have completed 40 percentage of it. During the weekend I had some time to play this game. I played for about three hours. I had some other things that I just had to do. I spent some time making music and also seeing some friends also.

Today it seems that I don’t have so much time for playing video games. Working makes me a bit tired. I have to make a choice of how to spend these free hours. It can be a difficult choice sometimes. I also read a lot. I have been reading a book about a music band System of a Down. Just yesterday I read thirty pages.

The book is written in Finnish. I read also books that are written in English. It would be fun to some day read a book that would be in French or maybe Swedish. I have studied these languages just to get my knowledge to a higher level and also as a hobby of some sort. I studied French in high school. Swedish is compulsory in school in Finland.

I checked from the website that tells you how long it approximately takes to complete a game and it said that Burnout 3 takes 14 hours to be completed. If my calculations are correct it would take me way more time to beat Burnout 3 Takedown. It would be something like 20 hours. At least I think so.

There are some other games that I would like to play. I just haven’t got the time to thoroughly get into them and even beat and complete them. It’s easy to start a game. It’s also easy to get into a game. After some hours the game starts to be more challenging. I am noticing about my playing habits that I don’t complete most of these games I start to play. This is how the markets work. Today, gamers aren’t completing their games. They just move on to another game and it’s a bit sad to me.

This brings us once again to the sad conclusion that there are too many games available. You can think about this for a while. You have new games and then you have retro games. My gaming library consists of both new and retro games. That makes me think I have some older games that I would like to play and I also have these new  and even upcoming games that I woul like to play.

But what the heck! I am going to get these new games. Just thinking about releases like Diablo IV and the new Forza Motorsport makes my hearth beat a bit faster. What are some games you just have to play in your lifetime? I think there are too many to even mention. And I think you’ll have to find the ones that you want to play and even complete and you have to find them yourself.

Games That Are Too Repetitive?

Posted on by Viljami

There are some good things about Nintendo GameCube and then there are some bad things about it too. I lately got this gaming console. I decided to remove Nintendo Wii from my setup for now. Wii might have been great but I just didn’t have time or inspiration to get into the games that I bought for it deeply. I did play GameCube games on it and went and bought GameCube. Now I have many games, two controllers and a memory card for it.

I absolutely love how the original game pad of GameCube works. The layout is way different from regular PlayStation and Xbox game pads layouts. It’s once again a case of Nintendo being original. I like the format in which games are delivered. GameCube is from the generation of consoles that includes original Xbox, PS2 and Dreamcast.

There are however some things about GameCube that I don’t like. I am not using, at the moment, the digital output of my GameCube since I don’t have the necessary adapters or cables. I have a 4K capable television and I have to say this – the graphics look crappy. I just have to adjust to this. An attitude of not taking it too seriously and thinking that this definitely is a retro console helps a bit. After all it has been twenty years since it was released.

I have very good games for GameCube. If you think about Resident Evil Zero you get how nice games there are for this gaming console. I have a sport title NBA Courtside 2002 that features Kobe Bryant on its cover. Then I have a driving game. That game is Need For Speed Underground. What do I think about this game? There rarely are bad games in this game series. I just like some of them more than others.

Need For Speed Underground is a bit repetitive. What that means is that it forces you to drive same tracks over and over again with a same car. Although there is some sort of experience score that keeps updating even if you don’t finish first in a race. In some races you have to finish first to get to the next race. The progression is slow and of course this makes the time to complete the whole game a lot longer.

It is said that Sega Mega Drive games were in overall too repetitive. You cannot say that about all games released on Mega Drive. Let’s take an example. Think about Gynoug. It is a very nice shooter that sadly is awfully repetitive. It is very easy to get stuck in Gynoug. Then you will find yourself playing the same part of the game and starting from the same point over and over. You cannot say this about Sonic the Hedgehog or Streets of Rage.

What are some things in gameplay that make game to have variability? The ability to save at any time is one key to this. Or the ability to not save at all. Then you will have to start playing the game all over again. But it keeps you from going the same short part all over again. Some games  have passwords instead of an ability to save a game. Constant progression is one thing. You might have experience points that you get from for example every race even if you don’t win the race. This gives you a feel of progression. And when your experience score unlocks a new track or a new car it makes you also progress.

Having a difficulty option is in my opinion a way better for increasing the amount of times that you can keep yourself playing the game all over again even if you have finished already on a low difficult level. You can decide for yourself if you want to keep playing the same game with a higher difficulty. Sometimes you get stuck in a game. Then it might help to look up for help from a walkthrough online. Today there is lots of help available. You can for example use YouTube if you like. It is nice to know that there are these specialists of gaming available here in the internet.

To make the conclusion for this blog post we can say that GameCube is a very nice gaming console that has some games on it that are a bit repetitive. Being repetitive is only a cheap way to make people play a game for longer time. It should be a lesson for game developers working today and in future also. Mega Drive also has games that are repetitive. But it is clear that not all games on it are as dynamic as can be when it comes to gameplay. Enjoy your games, be them retro or new, and have a nice day!