Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2020s

Stray (Switch)

Posted on by Viljami

The next game that I wanted to play was Stray. I first played it on my PC as I bought it from Steam. As I might have told before I am identifying myself as a “couch gamer”. So, this means that I just had to buy the game also for a console. I picked the Switch version since I have liked my Switch 2 very much and been playing on it. It was for me an easy decision to make. Why am I a couch gamer? I like to play my video games when I wake up and I have found out that I easily fall asleep in the morning if I am on my personal computer. Am I getting old or something? Lets just say that I today prefer console gaming.

So, I am a cat fan. This is because it was 2007 when my parents got a cat. Sadly the cat died just a few years ago. He was an old cat already. But this is the main reason that I almost instantly started to like this game. In Stray you are controlling a cat in a fantasy/sci-fi scenario. Basically the game is about finding a path to the next location by choosing where to run and/or jump next. There are some puzzles also included.

Graphics look nice. I also liked the soundtrack which features your typical electronic music that sounds very nice to my ear. If you know anything about my habits in the field of music production I think you find it not so surprising that I am actually thinking of maybe sampling some of this stuff because it sounds basically very good.

The game takes (according to HLTB website) about five hours to complete. This is a somewhat relief for me as I had to pause my journey into Final Fantasy VII Remake after I had played over six hours of it. I had to pause because I kept thinking that the game would take over 30 hours to finish. That might be too long for me. So, at this point five hours seems just enough.

I have spent almost 4 hours now playing Stray. The game isn’t the most newest one while it also is a very fresh one. It was released in 2024. I have to say that the game does look better on my PCs screen. If you like to keep your graphics sharp you might want to actually play the PC version. I don’t know how the Xbox Series X version would look like. Currently there isn’t a Switch 2 optimized version available. At least not as a physical copy. I do like to play most of my Switch and Switch 2 games as physical copies.

If you like cats and also realistic 3D graphics and adventure games with some mild puzzle game elements Stray is a game for you. For me it cost just some euros under 40 euros. I also bought Star Wars Dark Forces Remaster for Nintendo Switch at this same moment. I hope I get some time to play also this game. Just yesterday I gathered every Switch game I have bought recently and haven’t had, yet, time to even install and I came up with some 15 games. Very many of these games were actually still sealed. What can you say? I am buying lots of video games at this moment.

There are still all the games for PS3 and also some games for PS2 that are still in a “not-yet-played” condition. The latest PS3 title I played was Need for Speed Most Wanted. I almost ended up writing a blog post about it. I played it for over 15 hours. It is a good game but not so straightforward as I would have wished for. There is a lot of goods luck involved in the game-play is what I basically mean.

Resident Evil Requiem

Posted on by Viljami

It has been only some weeks since Resident Evil Requiem was released. The game has sold already millions of copies worldwide. I decided to pick up the generation bundle which included also Resident Evil 7 and 8. It did cost some 20 euros more but I am glad that I got my copy as soon as the game was released. This time I didn’t have any problems with the delivery. I don’t know if I am going and when I am going to play the other RE games included. I did decide to install Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrade after I finished this game. I soon noticed that it takes 90 GB of space on my Switch 2. That is a bit much since I only have a memory card that holds 256 GB at the moment. So, I might have to buy a larger one soon. I don’t know what I will have to do with all the data and if I am able to setup the larger memory but I guess I’ll figure it out one way or another.

FFVII Remake Integrade is right now installing. This game is getting installed as a “game key card”. This format is something that has become more and more familiar for the users of Switch 2. The format is a bit boring. It does require the card for the installation but holds only so little data in it that you are going to need to rely on your internet connection to actually download the game and finally install it. This is done this way because the card can only hold a limited amount of data. So, it is a physical copy while actually not being a fully physical copy at all.

But now lets get back to Resident Evil Requiem. It is the ninth game in the main series. We did saw some remakes of classic RE games just a while ago. Resident Evil Requiem is a great game. I did spend eleven hours playing it and I finally finished it just today. There are parts of the game that you play with Leon that are kind of action type of part of the game and then you play some survival type of parts with another character called Grace. I think the game is something that fans of the series will definitely like. Also, if you are new to the series I think you will like this game and you might want to check out some earlier stuff in the series. I can recommend playing some PS1 titles as they still hold up even today.

The action and survival parts of Resident Evil Requiem differ in that that you get more ammo and there are more monsters attacking you in the action part while playing with Grace in survival parts requires some stealth skills and tactics since there is not so much ammunition and you will have to think about when you are actually saving your progress. I only played the game on an easy level of difficulty but I think there is more value in this game that can inspire you to play the game through again with maybe a bit more difficult degree.

What more there is to say about Resident Evil Requiem? The graphics look very beautiful on Switch 2. There is a bit of an alteration of the camera mode. It gets switched from 3rd person to first person as you change your character that you play with in the game. There’s lots of weapons. There are some puzzles but nothing overwhelming. I think there is a nice balance with action and survival in this game. I would recommend Resident Evil Requiem for almost everyone. This game is very violent and can be upsetting at times. So, beware that this game has been recommended to be played only by persons that are 18 years old or older than that. This is a recommendation. I think the game can be oppressive at times.

Finding The Right Difficulty Level

Posted on 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.