Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 2020s

My Favorite Coffee Mug

Posted on by Viljami

I usually start my day with a cup of coffee. In our home we have many different coffee mugs. Some are generic. Some have some meaning to them. For example a mug that says “Boss” would be perfect for a person in that position. The mug in this blog posts featured image is Fallout themed one. It reminds me of some good times I had back in the days playing the first and second game of this role-playing-game series.

I have also a PlayStation coffee mug. It is fun to have these kinds of mugs that are themed after some of my favorite subjects. My wife rarely drinks coffee from these mugs. So it’s also a sign of whose cup it was or is. These mugs seem to be very common as almost every game store has them. I have picked these mugs actually from supermarket. I don’t know if there are any left anymore as they seem to be very popular.

A mug like this costs a little under 15 euros, maybe 13 euros, or something like that. For me these products represent a bit of nostalgia. They are themed with these retro games that I liked to play or actually the PlayStation one represents a system I remember I played way back. I can hardly believe it has been already over 20 years. That’s how time progresses. And games do too.

If you think about PS1 and then think about PS2 and even PS3 you can definitely get the idea of how much there has been a progression. Although some things that were very meaningful to me then are still some of the most influential things I’ve had in my life. Of course there are big things in life but I will always remember how it was when I was a young teenager.

I am not going to tell you where to find these mugs. Here in Finland they have been popular for some time already. You can probably check your favorite game shop. I almost bought also a DOOM themed coffee mug. There was some variation to these themes. So if you pick up one you can have one that suits your nostalgic feelings the best.

Grand Theft Auto

Posted on by Viljami

Do you find the mindset of Grand Theft Auto a bit weird? You go around driving a car and you accidentally drive over a person. Oops. The next thing that goes on is police starting to chase you. So what do you do? It wouldn’t be GTA if you wouldn’t shoot all the cops coming after you. Next thing you know is military coming after you. Maybe you end up driving a tank.

This is all a reality in Grand Theft Auto. But did you know that this game wasn’t at first meant to be as violent and somewhat absurd? That is the case. They were developing something and as they were working they got the idea of how the game actually could turn out to be. This of course was something that was never done before.

The first GTA game was released in 1997. At this time gangsta rap was dominating musical entertainment. Games like Fallout were released. This harsh realism seemed to be the trend. Hopes for better technology were rising. And there was also a hope for better tomorrow through using latest technology.

GTA series definitely wasn’t a one hit wonder. The sequel was released in the end of 1990s. What really pushed the gaming industry forward was the release of GTA III for PlayStation 2. It provided the player a full open world experience of violence and stealing cars in the midst of completing different kinds of missions for gangster bosses. At its time this was something revolutionary.

This wasn’t however the end for this game series. It wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning. There were more games released. The first of them was GTA IV. It was a deep experience in this dark criminal world. This was followed some years after as GTA V was released. There were several remakes done for the fifth game. Now we are hearing some talk that there would be a sixth game coming to stores soon.

Grand Theft Auto manages to bring different aspects of gaming together. It has an open world to explore. The driving in this game has an important role. It takes influences from shooters also. So this game brings you a solid experince for almost any gamer not depending on what kinds of games you like to play. It is a very diverse experience in overall.

I have enjoyed playing GTA. I remember seeing it the first time back in 1997 being played on a PC. It has remained at its spot as one of the most popular games though the history of playing games. And I am hoping to see the sixth game also soon.

How Has Learning Computer Science Changed?

Posted on by Viljami

I was reading this book about JavaScript programming as I thought came to my mind. The book was dealing how you can launch a new web browser window  and how you can do it in JavaScript. I started thinking a bit about this.

I have always programmed something on top of a heavy operating system like Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux. I am able to create a new window inside a web browser. I am able to produce code that can manipulate the contents of a web page inside the browser. What about the machine level functionality? How computer works inside?

I came to think about this for a second. Earlier, like back in the 80s, computer hobbyists had a computer that they could program a bit simpler and deeper with. It was Commodore 64. This device was partly an electronic device and partly a early personal computer. You could learn programming in BASIC or you could, if you had the talent and will to learn, program in assembler.

Assembler means that you are talking to the machine as close as possible. You get to temper with how the machine uses memory and so on. Commodore 64 was a perfect device for someone to learn skills like programming.

Today we don’t have such hardware. We do have complicated systems running complicated operating systems. You might get yourself a Raspberry Pi but that isn’t the same thing. I recently watched a documentary that was dealing with this issue. Back in 1990s there were people going to study Computer Science in universities. Nearly all of them had some background with C-64. Now there just isn’t a good enough source that you could basically learn and build on to learn some more about this field.

Things in computer technology have been progressing. It has become more and more difficult to learn the basics. It is also required for you to learn more about frameworks and software that runs on these complex systems. But you must remember that there is always the user in this field also. That’s where you can learn a lot.