2020s Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Waiting for Forza Horizon 6

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Viljami

Forza Horizon 6 will be released 19th of May this year (2026). It will be available at the launch for PC and Xbox Series S/X. There have been some very unofficial discussions about this game getting released also for other mainstream gaming consoles. This just seems to be the viewpoint today. There might be such things as exclusive releases soon as every PlayStation title seems to be getting released for PC and now also for Xbox.

So, what I have been up to lately, one might ask. Mainly I have been working and keeping myself busy in that way. There seems to be less time for video games as I get older. However I have played some games and this blog post deals with that part of my life now. I have played Crash Bandicoot 4, Doom – Dark Ages, Half-Life 2 and also more and lately Dirt 5 which seems to be a nice racing game to start to get ready for Forza Horizon 6.

Dirt 5 was originally released in 2020. It isn’t the newest game that has been developed by Codemasters but it still remains as a part of this legendary series of racing games that might even been started by Colin McRae Rally already back in the end of the 90s. There have been many great games in this series. I especially want to mention Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and Colin McRae Dirt 2. Those might be the best games out of this series.

Dirt 5 has a lot to offer. I have already spent a bit over 7 hours playing it. You get to drive with several different vehicles and there are several types of driving you will get involved in during playing. There are many camera options to choose from. You can set the camera to the surface of the road or then set it to display the whole car from the back. I chose to set the camera so that I can see the whole car I am driving. This makes it somewhat easy to play Dirt 5. You do have to control the vehicle precisely. I have played this game with a game controller. I really don’t know how a driving wheel and pedals would make the game seem to feel like.

Dirt 5 is a nice racing game in overall. It is almost unfair to make a comparison between the earlier games in this series because they are just so good as racing games. If we put it into this perspective Dirt 5 is a good game. There might have been some issues early when the game was released but I think that in 2026 this game is still a fun one to play. It has received the “metascore” of 79 out of 100 on Metacritic.

I originally picked up Dirt 5 just some weeks before the upcoming release of Forza Horizon 6. It currently has a price tag of 21 euros on the Xbox store. So, it is a cheap game that can help you to better deal with waiting for Forza Horizon 6. This time I bought a game as a digital copy. Although I decided to order Forza Horizon 6 as a physical copy. There will be a long installation process since the game takes a bit over 130 GB of space from my Xbox Series X. Do remember that there is also a PC version available.

With having already made the purchase I am waiting to get my hands on the new Forza game at next Tuesday. Today I am having a day off and I am currently enjoying it an drinking some coffee while I type this post that you are soon able to read. I really have nothing else to say right now. So, until next time my dear readers.

Going Back to Diablo IV

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Viljami

Diablo IV has gone through some serious updates already as it has been available since 2023. I remember how it felt to play it for the first time. I was already a bit disappointed since I got the game just maybe two days after its official released date. I sent back then an angry email to the local game shop that I ordered Diablo IV from. I got an appropriate message back that they were really sorry but there was no way for them to post it any time earlier. The game had I tight release schedule and they weren’t actually allowed to post it sooner.

I was after all happy that I was finally able to experience Diablo IV. There was nothing wrong with the game’s graphics, look and feel and also the overall design. There just was something missing with its game play. I didn’t feel hooked. I didn’t feel any passion towards playing it. This feeling lasted all the way through as I played the game for over 30 hours.

There have been many updates to Diablo IV. A friend of mine mentioned this game as one good game that he now was able to play on his new laptop computer. He asked me if I had already tried it out. I had to tell him that I really gave it a try back in 2023 and I didn’t like the game back then. He was sure that this game was really good.

I started thinking about if I should give Diablo IV a second chance. The game would be available from Steam or Battle dot net. The price would be 50 euros. I thought this seriously for a moment. If I would pay 50 euros I would be able to play Diablo IV on my powerful and mighty Windows PC that I had acquired at the end of year 2025. I thought about it. I still had the physical copy of the game for Xbox Series X. I decided that I would give it a try. I had really nothing to lose.

So, how did Diablo IV feel like to play almost three years since it was first released? It does take about two and a half hours to install. In decided to install it yesterday just before I headed to sleep. The first thing today I did after drinking some coffee was to fire up Diablo IV that was already installed. I did play it for maybe three hours or something like that. It felt a bit different. I kind of enjoyed playing it. At the same time I am thinking how was this game even released as it has gone through some very serious updates. It feels sort of like an experiment that the developers have been doing with this game.

I do have very warm feelings towards Diablo game series. My history with this action RPG series did start with the first game that In did play on PS1. Later on I discovered Diablo II which I played on a PC. Diablo II was the game that got me really hooked. I later played through also Diablo 1 on PC. The PS1 port is a bit like reduced version of the game. If you want to experience the first Diablo game I recommend getting it for PC. There was also a game released just some years ago and it was called Diablo II – Resurrected. It was released just maybe a year or so before Diablo IV.

I really don’t know what else to tell you about Diablo IV. I only played it today for some hours. I don’t know as I am writing this if there is going to be another Diablo game released and when would this release see a daylight. The thing I want to stress is that Diablo IV might not be for you. It is a bit different as an experience. I am not saying that it is totally a waste of time. It is just different. Maybe I too learn to like it some day.

My day has been a typical Saturday as it is a day off work for me. We are currently enjoying some sunny weather here in Finland. I just installed Shadow of the Tomb Raider for my Series X. I hope to get to play it and I might do so later. I am wishing a nice weekend to all my dear readers worldwide!

Some Problems With Corrupted Memory Card

Posted on April 10, 2026 by Viljami

I have had some problems with my Raspberry Pi 5 and its memory card. I have Recalbox installed on my Raspberry Pi. The problems started when I turned the power off from the button that this Raspberry Pi 5 has while it was running a game. This corrupted my memory card. Luckily it was quite easy to fix this problem once I got to understand what should I do to fix this matter.

So, the problem was that Raspberry Pi 5 wasn’t starting. The screen wasn’t detected and my television didn’t display anything. I had to search for some guidance which is nowadays easy. You just have to use a search engine that also preferably has a mode in which you can utilize some AI power. I first thought that I would try to run some commands directly from SSH connection. I tried to run this Linux command (“fsck”) but I couldn’t get it to work. I would have needed to unmount the memory card first and then I would’ve had to run that command.

I didn’t feel so confident trying to unmount the memory card. Luckily the filesystem that Recalbox uses is compatible with Windows. I found out that it would be possible to run a Windows command (“chkdsk”). The filesystem of a boot partition in my memory card was FAT32 and the other partition had a exFAT filesystem. I first only repaired the FAT32 partition. I obviously had removed the memory card and inserted it in my Windows PC. Now I inserted the card back to my Raspberry Pi. Of course it didn’t load. However there was a picture.

What I had to do was to also repair the larger partition of this memory card that had the exFAT filesystem. So, after I had repaired both of these partitions, the Recalbox system now started just as it did before the memory card became corrupted. So, the problem was eventually fixed.

The memory card of a Raspberry Pi is quite vulnerable and it can get corrupted easily if you switch the power off in a wrong way. You can also access your Recalbox system by opening a web browser on a computer that is connected to your apartments nertwork and going to address: “recalbox.local”. This enables you to for example restart and shut down your Recalbox system.

I recommend to use for storing your roms and bios files some other way than just a memory card. I have a 512GB USB stick that stores currenlty all my data that is used in Recalbox. This is just huge enough for some older game roms like PS1, Mega Drive and NES just to give you an idea. I have another device that I run some newer retro games, like GameCube and original Xbox, that has a bit more power and also more storage space. A Raspberry Pi 5 isn’t so powerful that you could run for example Xbox games on it. My other device doesn’t however run Xbox 360 or PS3 games. This would require a bit more power.

So, my usage of Raspberry Pi 5 continues. I have been waiting some more news also about Valve’s Steam Machine. It would be a considerable part of my setup in the future. It would provide some power for playing retro games with emulation. We just have to wait for the announcement of price and release date. I am also dreaming about purchasing a PS5 console to empower my gaming setup even more.

The problem has now been fixed. Recalbox for Raspberry Pi 5 uses these two types of filesystems that are very much compatible also with Windows along with the compatiblity with Linux systems. It was eventually easy to fix this issue. Everything now works with this device as it did already some time ago.