Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2010s

All PS3 Racing Games (That I Own)

Posted on by Viljami

Today I started first playing a game for PlayStation 3. This game was Castlevania – Lords of Shadow. I played for some time. I had an idea of a new blog post about some of my favorite games for PS3. I thought about racing games because these are my favorite type of games. I remember many good games that can be said to be in this category.

First I thought that I would like to introduce all my driving games for PS3. I started picking up these games. Suddenly I understood that there were many titles that weren’t so good. I didn’t spend time with them so much. Some titles I had bought from flee markets and I haven’t played them at all. So there is a wide variety of games introduced here. I decided to write a paragraph of every driving or racing game that I currently own. So, here we go.

First in this pile of racing games is Test Drive Unlimited 2. I remember that I was excited about this game when I first got it. Test Drive is a classic and retro type of a game that was released for PC back in the day. However, I didn’t enjoy this game so much. I was actually a bit short of money and I thought twice about even buying this game.

Next we have Dirt 3. It is the third game in a series of Colin McRae Rally Dirt games. This is a very good rally game. I played it for so many hours. I also got my first experience of a setup that I used a racing wheel and pedals. This game I can definitely recommend.

Then there’s Ridge Racer 7. I am sorry for the picture is a bit dark and I can actually barely see the title of the game in this picture. This game is more of an arcade racing game but don’t let that fool you. There’s lots of stuff in there if you play this game. The feel of driving is very different than in any other racing game.

Need for Speed – Undercover is one these games that I’ve found from flee market. Actually I think I have never even launched this game with my PS3. I think it is a typical NFS game that get released so so often. So I don’t have a much to say about this.

Gran Turismo 5 is the first Gran Turismo game that was released for PS3. I played this for some time but I didn’t like it that much. It is a decent game but I think Gran Turismo 6 and 7 are better and of course Gran Turismo 4 might be the best out of all games in the series.

Colin McRae Dirt is a very nice rally game. I think Dirt 3 is still better. I just liked it more. Dirt 3 has also a very nice soundtrack. There is also a second Dirt game for PS3 but I only have it for Xbox 360 and not for PS3.

I really liked Burnout 3 Takedown. So I was anxious to buy this new Burnout game back in the day. And this game was Burnout Paradise. It has a funny soundtrack. That’s where the title of the game comes from. It had a huge open world of diffeerent kinds of roads and goals. I didn’t play this game so much.

Need for Speed Shift is a game that I was practically addicted to back in 2010 and 2011 when this game was actually the best racing, at least in my opinion, game that was available. Very nice game. In can definitely recommend this one if you like this genre.

F1 2011 was sort of an update to F1 2010. I never played this game. I didn’t buy it when it was actually first released. I got it many years later from flee market for very cheap price. Might be a good game. I don’t have anything more to say about it. Maybe I have some day time to get into it. Well, there are some newer F1 titles available so I will probably not.

This is a bit longer post than what I usually write. But it’s a nice subject. So, lets move on to the next game of this pile of racing games. And it is Shift 2 Unleashed. It is a sequel to the first Shift game. I found this game to be very enjoyable. And you can figure why I went and bought this sequel. Because I of course liked the first game so much.

F1 2010 begun a series of high quality F1 games. It was a decent game. I just didn’t play it all the way through. It offers a variety of difficulty. I tried this game also with wheel and pedals. This is a nice game. I can recommend it if you are into this genre and platform.

Last, and maybe the least, heh, is a game titled Formula One – Championship Edition. I think this cost me three euros. So, what the heck…why wouldn’t I pick this up. I remember that the disc was in a decent condition. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bought this one. And…I never have played this game.

There you go. We just went through all racing games for PS3 that I currently own. And, I almost forgot one game. That is Gran Turismo 6. I just played this recently so it wasn’t directly on my shelf. It is a very good game and you should play it.

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.