Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2010s

Playing Xbox One Exclusive from Remedy Entertainment

Posted on by Viljami

I sort of missed Quantum Break when it was originally released back in 2016. I surely didn’t have Xbox One then. I actually had only PS4 connected to my main screen that was Full HD 32 inch television. It also had SCART-connectivity. PS4 was my only gaming console that was connected to my television. It would have been possible for me to purchase this game  from Steam and install it for my PC. So there was a possibility that I didn’t choose to follow for some reason or other.

I am a huge fan of Remedy Entertainment. I have been that way since early games like Death Rally and Max Payne series. I did play Alan Wake and I have also played Control. Being a fan of Remedy can partly be explained with the fact that this game company is based in Finland. Sami Järvi actually was the person that gave Max Payne his face and he is also currently the Creative Director of the company.

If you have followed what I’ve been lately writing about you surely know that I recently got myself Xbox Series X. I actually removed Xbox Series S from my setup and replaced it with Series X. This more expensive model of the latest Xbox has an optical drive and two times more disk space for installing games. I also get to enjoy the backwards compatibility. I get to play Xbox One games also with the latest Xbox model Series X.

There are some really nice games that have been only released for Microsoft’s devices mainly being PC and Xbox. Some titles worth mentioning are Gears of War 4 and 5, Dead Rising 3 and 4, Forza Horizon series and Halo series. As I was ordering WRC10 and Back 4 Blood for Series X I decided to go also with copies of Fallout 4, which was sold for only 4 euros, and this Xbox One exclusive, Quantum Break.

It was about a week ago that I received the order from post. I have played lots of WRC10. I started playing Quantum Break just this morning. I have already completed 11 percentage of the game. It isn’t a long game and that is perfectly fine with me. Based on a fact that I found while browsing the web it takes about ten hours to complete Quantum Break. It is a nice game. It includes nice graphics, as you can see from the screenshot related to this blog post. It also has elements from action and shooting games. It also has already offered me some puzzles to be solved. It reminds a bit about Max Payne but at the same time it is a completely own kind of a game.

This far I have very much enjoyed this game. Remedy has once again done a great job. While it’s not the latest of latest it still offers a solid experience. If I would have played this back in 2016 when this title was released I probably would have enjoyed it maybe even more as it is always exciting to play some game that has just been released and is using the latest so to say tricks. I don’t want to give it a grade. The Metacritic has given it a score of 77 out of 100.

 

Having a Break From a Game?

Posted on by Viljami

This week I have spent almost five hours playing only Darksiders Warmastered Edition. It’s not actually a new game anymore. It was released in 2019. It is a good game and there is no argument. And to back this up I can say that it has a score of 77/100 on metacritic at the moment. You must also take in consideration that it is a remaster of a game that was originally released in 2010.

Playing Darksiders is fun. But sometimes a gamer needs a break. Some of this games puzzles had me almost sweating. When I first started playing it was Thursday. I took a break and continued to play it again today for almost three hours. There are things like meeting other people and working so I cannot play every day. So I have to take breaks. But how long of a break can you have from a game and still come back to it to finish it eventually?

I don’t have any data to back up my opinions and thoughts. As with almost any of my experiments the greatest source that I have is my experience. So I have had long breaks while playing a game. I think the longest break was maybe two years. It happened when I played Silent Hill Homecoming. Well, I didn’t finish this game. Finishing a game has become for me a rare occasion today. I have a big backlog and the time I can spend on a game is decreasing all the time. I didn’t have that problem when I was younger.

Sometimes it really helps if you are honest with yourself and just give up and start playing a game all over again. There must be some sort of recommendation for how long you can play one game, right? If we think about concentration I guess you can keep yourself concentrated for from 45 minutes to about three hours. That comes from my experience. It actually comes from playing games but you can also think about how long can you concentrate for a lesson while you are studying.

So, there’s a limited time that you can spend playing a video game. Why are games so long then after all? This has everything to do with the medium in which games are released. The amount of disk space that games take is increasing all the time and this has happened for a long time already. First there were CDs, then DVDs. Today we are seeing games that take over 30 hours to beat common.

There are things you can consider when thinking about how long of a break you can have and do you actually have time for playing. One important thing is how long does it take for a game to be beaten. You can find this out as there are websites that can tell you how long a certain game takes to beat. You can choose the kinds of games that you like and that you do have time to play and also finish. Driving games don’t take so much time while some RPGs can take hundreds of hours. I hope you have enjoyed these thoughts. Just remember that there is lots of information that you can find online.

I am Keeping my Xbox 360 (and here are the reasons)

Posted on by Viljami

Some days ago I got myself a Xbox Series X. I finally managed to purchase one. It wasn’t easy. The availability of this new Xbox console was poor and it was so for over a year until this week as I noticed that it was actually finally possible for me to actually just buy it.

Xbox Series X is a great console. It can play a lot of these older or so to say retro titles. So it can play games of original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. But all of them aren’t playable. You can probably just check this from your favorite search engine. If you type in the search field something like “original xbox games compatible with xbox series x” you will get a list that can tell you actually which of original Xbox’s or Xbox 360’s games can you play with the latest Xbox.

So we now have this information. It turns out that only 63 of all original Xbox’s and 632 out of all Xbox 360 titles are playable on Xbox Series X. I have also this older gaming console that is Xbox 360. It, of course, can play all of Xbox 360’s games. Also, it can handle 464 out of all almost 1000 officially released original Xbox games.

Of course, if you have original Xbox, you don’t have this issue of owning some games that you just cannot play on any device. Since my original Xbox broke down about two years ago I am going to have to rely on my Xbox 360 and I am still not able to play all these games I own. Actually, also my PlayStation 2 broke down about the same time. I don’t think I have so much trouble playing it’s about 60 games that I own since I have reliable emulators available on my computer. Xbox however doesn’t have so solid emulation on a PC.

I actually removed from my own game shelf all of the titles that I currently am not able to play today. There were several games I liked involved. Sadly I only have a limited amount of space in my gaming setup. So, I could have bought a new used original Xbox that would have fixed my issue. But  decided not to. Also what might disappoint a real game collector and game hobbyist is that I at least currently lack the skill to repair my original Xbox. If you actually want to try to repair your game console there are instructions for you in internet.

I had to give up on some of these Xbox titles. But at least there are tens of games in y game library that can be played with my Xbox 360. And that’s one reason for me to keep it and try my best to maintain it’s condition. Xbox 360 was first released back in 2005. So it is an old gaming console. The original Xbox was released in 2001.

Some of my favorite games of original Xbox that I can still play utilizing my Xbox 360’s backward compatibility include Forza Motorsport, Halo 1 and 2, Colin McRae Rally 04, Black and Shadow the Hedgehog. Titles like Second Sight and Silent Hill 3 and also Colin McRae Rally 3 aren’t playable on Xbox 360.

As there are lots of popular titles in all of the released title library of all Xbox consoles that may not be playable on these more recent devices I wouldn’t be so much surprised if there would some day be some kind of Xbox mini classic console released for all of these retro gamers and fans of classic Xbox titles. There is also an ongoing and huge effort on bringing PC emulation for Xbox to be the reality.

Maybe these were all the reasons for me to stick to my Xbox 360. I am currently playing Forza Motorsport 3. After I have completed it I am planning on starting to play Colin McRae Dirt 2 which is a very good game in this Colin McRae Rally series of rally games that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to play a lot. I am hoping to complete it also. You can find today a Xbox 360 game console from any gaming store online and it doesn’t cost you a lot. You can probably get one for around 100 euros.