2020s Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Finding The Right Difficulty Level

Posted on December 13, 2025 by Viljami

At times it can be hard to find the right difficulty level. Especially when you are trying to find an interesting new game to play. Some games are basically harder than others. Some offer many types of difficulty level. Some are just way easier to play than some others. Also the matter that you have actually played a type of a certain game can make it harder or easier for you to get into a game.

Basically most games are trying to get you hooked. They are easy to get into but hard to master. This does apply to most video games but maybe not every one of them since there are many ways to approach this matter of difficulty level and adjusting it just so that it fits your playing skills. Of course you will learn a lot especially when you are starting to play a game.

If we consider a game like Dark Souls you are constantly trying to beat a part of the game. It is a hard game. And it takes many times and a lot of repeating to try to master the game. Some games approach this difficulty issue in a somewhat different way. We can actually talk about something like a learning curve. If a game has a steep learning curve it takes a lot of time to get into. Some games have a gentle learning curve so that it is easier to start getting into this kind of a game.

You can talk about learning curves while having a conversation about any type of a thing you are trying to learn. I think I first discovered it while I was still studying my computer science degree. We were dealing with some PHP programming frameworks and you could say that one framework would have a steep learning curve while some other might have a more gentle learning curve. There were options, we were discussing about what framework we should use for a project, like Laravel, Symfony and CodeIgniter. We actually went with Symfony after all and that was the tool we were using in that project back in 2015.

Actually programming and writing have many things in common. I find writing to be a lot easier. I guess it really is a matter of how much time you do spend practicing your actual skills. I have always enjoyed thinking about design issues while developing software of any sort. Of course are talking right now about hobby projects in programming or maybe some projects that a student of this field would come across while studying. I am not a person that really actually enjoys writing software. As you might have figured, already, I do enjoy writing and I do enjoy it a lot. You can say that it is easy and it comes naturally for me.

If you check the featured image of this blog post you can see my new keyboard. This keyboard is “Ducky One 3 TKL RGB”. It didn’t cost so much as I bought from a “black friday” sale deal. I like this keyboard and it looks cool also. I usually do play with a game pad while I play on my Windows 11 PC. I use my new keyboard mainly for writing blog posts or any social media content. I am also active in some discussion forums. This is currently not so popular but I somewhat enjoy staying active on that front also.

Lets get back to where we started. We were talking about how to choose a difficulty level. Many games are designed in a way that you first start with some difficulty level and then you advance and eventually you get to a state in which you are trying to beat the game and try to finish it so you can move on to the next game that you have in your gaming backlog. It can add a great value to a game if it is possible to play it over again with a tougher difficulty level. This actually makes you want to spend some more time with playing this certain game.

It can be at times tough to try to find a game that you can really spend tens, or maybe even hundreds, of hours playing. You go from actually trying to learn the basics of some game to just concentrating on it. Then one day you check the timer of that game and you might be a bit surprised to find actually how much time you have spent. This is actually a state that I like to call something like a “flow” state. You just forget everything else and keep playing for some hours forgetting all the matters that do sometimes bother your mind.

I myself have been trying to find something nice to play this week. I started with these games I mentioned in the last blog post and the game that I chose to play was God of War (PS4). I started with the easiest difficulty level but soon found it to be too easy. I figured that this game wasn’t a right game for this moment. So, I went to my PS2 library and chose to play Flatout 2. I played it for about five hours. I actually started also playing Zelda – Tears of the Kingdom but I got stuck in the beginning and gave up. Yesterday I picked up WRC 7. I played it also today on my Windows 11 PC.

So, it can at times be hard to find a game that offers you as a gamer a proper challenge and you get to adjust also your chosen game’s difficulty level. Lets hope everyone finds a nice game this weekend that they can really enjoy! We will get back to some gaming content next time I decide it is a time for a new update or just when I feel like writing some more content to this blog.

My Huge PS4 Backlog

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Viljami

Yesterday I went through my PS4 backlog. I found actually nine games that I haven’t really properly even tried to finish. Also, I would like to at least play these games for some hours. So, I could define if I really even want to play them. Maybe I could finish some of them? This all happened after I played Art of Rally for some time. I wanted to play something else. Also, what I forgot to completely tell you about was that I earlier spend about 80 hours trying to finish Gran Turismo 4. I actually gave up since at he end of the game it was starting to get difficult. I gave up on trying to finish it. I think I had already seen enough with that game.

The game that I started with my task to get into my PS4 backlog was God of War that was released already in 2018. About a year ago I was close to finishing God of War Ragnarök. I actually made it to the final boss and that’s where I lost my interest finally. It was a good game although. I did remember that I didn’t finish the God of War. So, I decided to start playing it again. I am thinking that I could try to finish it this time.

Why do I have so huge PS4 backlog, you might ask me. It’s just that I have had the opportunity to buy every game in this pile for a reasonable price. Only game that I do remember that did cost a bit more was, I think, Blair Witch, which did cost me about 35 euros. It was a sealed copy but also a used game. Final Fantasy collection was also a bit more expensive. I might have paid over 40 euros for it. Grand Theft Auto V has been in this pile for many years. I think I bought it for under 30 euros. I don’t fully remember every price of every game in the pile. Some of them I have owned for many years already.

Some of these games are still sealed. Final Fantasy collection actually holds six games. The Last of Us Part II had a really cheap price. I bought it from flee market for 5 euros last summer. There are at times many people that some would call “scalpers”. They buy games for a cheap price from flee market and then they sell them to some individuals that are willing to pay more of them. This actually bothers me a bit but I think some people are not so much into collecting games. They are more into making some small amount of money out of this and they are most likely buying some newer games. Some people actually have only a few games. Could you imagine? I have loads of games and good ones but also some bad ones that I don’t so much play anymore.

So there’s a lot to play for me in what it comes to my PS4 backlog. I really should play GTA V. I really haven’t played it which is a somewhat embarrassing thing. I had a conversation about this some months earlier with a friend of mine. It is a bit awkward to say that I haven’t, yet, even started playing it. It is already an old game. Maybe PS4 version of it would be the perfect way for me to experience it.

I am waiting to install all these games and try and figure if I could finish even some of them. I wonder how many people actually have this problem that they have way too many games in their backlog. I think many people have to face this issue. The industry is pushing new games to the markets all the time. This isn’t actually a bad thing. We as game consumers would just have to adjust to this. Maybe I should think if I really need every game that I do buy. And there is also the matter that prices of games do drop heavily some months after they got released. If you wait a year or two you get the game for a very cheap price. At least that’s what many times happens. The games start to pile up and there we are.

Going Back To Art of Rally

Posted on December 5, 2025 by Viljami

My details indicate that I have played Art of Rally for over fifteen hours. I noticed this matter as I went back to playing this rally game again. I wanted to play something new on my Switch 2. So, I bought Hades II maybe a week ago. I didn’t buy it right when it was released. I also noted that it is a tough season to buy video games from web stores since it is Christmas very soon. They don’t have enough time to deliver fastly these basic items that I very regurarly need and do order from these web shops.

Art of Rally is a very good rally game. It is very original. The game is called “art” for a reason. You actually don’t so much compete in the campaign mode but you actually enjoy this game – its graphical display, the unique gameplay and the pleasurable audio or should I say music. In order to progress in the game you need to figure out the style of driving. Graphics are nice but, I have to say this, they also aren’t that realistic. The game isn’t trying to compete with games like Dirt Rally or WRC series. Instead it brings you a very inspiring gaming exeperience. I must also say that Art of Rally is definitely an indie game.

There are options to adjust the difficulty or AI cleverness of opponents and you also get to adjust the level of damage that crashing causes. The driving style is a bit different with every car. Now, I don’t get so much, in this blog post, on about how the car acts and how the actual driving experience is programmed. I do not have a clear view on how this is achieved inside the lines of code that has been written. Driving the car works nicely and after some hours you get to understand how you can handle the car better.

It is actually very nice to come back to this game. I already finished playing this, I played the campaign through once, and just installed it again to my Switch 2. I had the game installed on my old Switch 1 console. The Nintendo account holds all saved game information and data so I didn’t have to start playing the game all over again. What I did was I continued playing with every track unlocked and kind of actually went to playing this game again. The game asks if you want to race the season and all tracks involved again. After you anser “yes” you get to play the season once again.

After all these Switch 2 games that I have already acquired I am currently enjoying very much playing, again, Art of Rally. We are going to see, soon, some more games released for this console. Yesterday Metroid Prime 4 was released. We are going to see the new Terminator video game in this month. There is also the Mortal Kombat collection going to be available soon. Also I am waiting for Resident Evil 9, or Requiem, that is going to get released next year in the end of February. I think right now that I am going to buy the Generation Collection that features Resident Evil 7 and 8 also for Nintendo Switch 2. They cost pretty closely the same amount of money. So, why wouldn’t I spend maybe ten euros more for the collection?

Actually the version of Art of Rally I have is “Deluxe Edition”. I also have this game for PC. I bought it from Steam a while ago. This game looks and feels amazing on a 4K display. It can be called, and actually is called, Art. Also, the Switch 2 Pro Controller works fine with this rally game. The controller is a bit expensive but I think it was well worth the price. It costs right now actually about 90 euros.