Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2000s

Games That Brought Consoles to 2000s

Posted on by Viljami

I remember clearly my first steps that I took towards game consoles. My first device was Sega Mega Drive. I could keep playing for maybe two to three hours back then. Games were simpler than today. They were challenging but they were also very repetitive. Graphics weren’t anything amazing. Controlling your character with the game pad was simpler as there were less buttons to use than gamers today have.

I got to know PlayStation soon. I have gone over this already several times in this blog. It was about 1997 and I got my PS1. I got to play Gran Turismo. Racing seemed to be perfect genre for console players. I am talking about consoles here because there are clear differences between computer and console games especially in this time period. There was something great about games back in the 90s. It gave players a hint of where this field was heading.

I don’t see today anymore such a great difference between PC and console games. Back then we were excited about PlayStation. It was easy to plug in to the television. It had awesome new kind of game controllers that were never seen before. A bit later analog sticks made it possible to move even smoother inside the game’s three dimensional world. Consoles seemed to have conquered our living rooms while computers had their position in our home or work offices.

So PlayStation had ruled for a couple of years. It was clear that some day there would be even more powerful device in our living rooms. This was PlayStation 2. It had a capability to play DVD content. It had its flaws also. It didn’t have Ethernet or hard disk drive. But it had something we lack today and that was the extreme backwards compatibility of games and even memory cards and controllers. What were the games that pushed console gaming more and more towards the leap that was ahead?

I was a bit busy in my life this time. I was away from gaming for several years. Althought not completely but I made some choices that made an impact personally. I sold my PS1 and all my games and other accessories. I totally skipped PS2. I only got to know a bit about this era of gaming as I played some PC games and original Xbox games later. I was interested for a short period of time later about PS2. I have to say that I am not so interested in getting to it anymore. I enjoy newer games more and PS2 games don’t give me such a rush of nostalgia that PS1, NES and Sega Mega Drive are able to bring. But there were these great titles that I used to play. And now is a good time to get to them and to how they revolutionized console gaming.

If you think about it, it becomes more and more clearer. This was what would eventually happen. Games would become more and more popular and more and more acceptable as a hobby of an adult person. Think about titles like Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. You can move in these games to any direction. There is a lot to discover and explore. They have a story in them. Graphics are as good as can be if you consider the systems that were running these games. This is finally what brought the need for new gaming device and that device was PS2.

Games were changing and improving in many sides. People were starting to take gaming a bit more seriously. It wasn’t anymore just a hobby for children. And I think this is what makes that era in gaming so important and special.

Developing Own Game Using HTML Elements

Posted on by Viljami

Let’s go back some years. Actually let’s go back 20 years. In the beginning of 2000s our family bought another electronic device. This time it was a brand new computer. The processor was 400 Mhz. It barely ran some games like Diablo II, Hitman, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and Colin McRae Rally 2.0.

This was a time when HTML was the most popular way to make websites. And websites were definitely more simple than they are today. You could even use some WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver. The scene was very different than it is today. Internet was accessed mainly with personal computers screens instead of mobile devices and tablets. CSS was already available but JavaScript was a bit different than it is today. If you had will and skill you could learn something like PHP programming or you could even get into databases.

So this was a time for me to get to know how a web browser basically works. I didn’t get so deep in this topic back then. But I did design some websites. You could say that making websites was my hobby. It took me ten more years to actually apply to study programming. I have been interested in computers for a long time of period. And finally I ended up also working in this field.

If you know some HTML you understand that there are elements, like headers, paragraphs and images. You can interact with the system by clicking links and hovering the mouse cursor over some element. All this is done as you run a website on your web browser. HTML displays the structure of the site, CSS styles, sets the colors of fonts and backgrounds of div elements, and JavaScript handles events and manipulation of the elements presented. All this is done inside the web browser.

There are different web browsers available. Today, they don’t differ form each other that much. Back in the day there were wars between browsers. You had Internet Explorer that understood JavaScript in it’s own way. You had to produce code that could be handled in every browser that existed.

This text is nothing like a tutorial in game development. I decided to write this blog post to give you an idea about how you can approach this topic. You don’t necessarily have to start learning something heavy like C programming or OpenGL. You can start with something like HTML. Some might say that it isn’t a real programming language. And actually it really isn’t. It still provides you some ways to create something that can be used when developing a real game.

You can even use a database in your design. You can also use a JavaScript framework like React or Vue or something like that. Making a website is easy and fun. You can make your website to be a game. If  you don’t think that you would want to make a game that can be run in a web browser you can also find tools for converting your game to a desktop application. Only the sky is a limit in this matter.

Xbox Documentary Series on YouTube

Posted on by Viljami

It’s been 20 years from the release of the first Xbox or should we call it original Xbox. This was Microsofts successful attempt to get into game business. The path was rough. There were several obstacles on the way.

So the history of this gaming console has been collected to a form of a documentary series. It has six episodes in it that are about 40 minutes per episode. It is possible to view this series from YouTube for free. I can definitely recommend this for someone that has been interested in gaming for a while or to someone that just finds this content somehow interesting.

I have watched five episodes out of six. They have covered topics like the dominance of PlayStation as a gaming device in consumers living rooms and how Microsoft felt that their business was in danger. They just had to react and go from producing software to creating some hardware in the form of a new game console. It wasn’t always clear that there would be a product like Xbox now is in the markets.

So the first chapters describe how Microsoft started in the gaming business. I think everyone that has been involved in consuming games can say that they remember these problems that Xbox 360 had. There were so many consoles returned. It was said that the console was rushed. It wasn’t properly tested. So lots of products ended up returned. Microsoft handled this problem as well as they could and it cost it a lot of money.

I am going to watch the last episode of this series soon. The story is now in the beginning of the battle between Xbox One and PS4 and how Xbox declared that its console would fit perfectly in almost everyones living room. It is also clear that Nintendo had to play its cards in this game also. Did you know that Microsoft made an offer to buy Nintendo way back? If you are interested in this documentary series you can find “Power On: The Story of Xbox” from YouTube.