Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 90s

Is Diablo III (Switch) Worth Playing in 2023?

Posted on by Viljami

Diablo as an RPG series is definitely something. The story first started back in 1997 when the first game of this series was released. My first experiences playing Diablo were achieved as I played it on my PS1. I remember my brohter playing it more than I did. He really liked the game. There were many limitations compared to Diablo 1 on PC. I can definitely confirm this.

The second Diablo game was so effing awesome that I spend one weekend six hours straight playing it. This happened in 2000 and I was playing it with a PC. Playing this fast-paced game trying to find rare and powerful items and developing you character made me an addict. I ended up finally finishing the game a bit later.

Diablo has brought action to role-playing. It might have created a completely new genre of video games. It was among first real time role playing games. As turn-based games have their supporters moving and making attacks in real time is really something else. It is said to have taken inspiration from this hockey game of Sega Mega Drive called NHL 94 which was released only some years earlier.

Blizzard had really hit the jackpot. There are many other games, like some strategy games, that were released. I am talking of course about Starcraft and Warcraft. Games seemed to be moving forward and starting to form as real time games where quick thinking is definintely a requirement.

Today, we are seeing the rise of Diablo 4. It has been released for latest consoles just couple of months ago. It has received good ratings from many reviews. We are still waiting for it to take its final form as there are many updates and patches also being applied to this game.

Is it still relevant to go back one step and play some Diablo III? After over ten years of being developed, the third game of Diablo series was released, finally, in 2012. It even caused a serious problem in which the internet was heavily used and the connection was finally lost. This happened globally when Diablo III was released. The game required the player to connect after the game was installed.

We are still waiting how Diablo 4 will take its final, or at least stable, form. I found Diablo III to be a bit of a disappointment when it comes to graphics. Well, the game is over ten years old. I am currently playing it with Nintendo Switch. Controls are fine. I am satisfied in what the game actually offers. It can take tens of hours to finish Diablo III one more time.

I really like graphics of Diablo 4. Also, I really like the game pad of my Xbox Series X. It is a bit better than Switch’s Pro Controller. I really think Nintendo should include Pro Controller or a similar to the package in which the console is sold in. It is cheaper than some other consoles although. We are also hearing some rumours about the next Switch console being released next year. We might see, finally, 4K graphics in a Nintendo console.

Some Very Enjoyable First Person Shooters of 90s and Early 2000s

Posted on by Viljami

It was just yesterday as I started to play an old classic FPS game. The game was Quake II. I have to say that there is going to be a remastered version of this game released this year. I am of course very interested in this game. Quake is just so legendary as a PC game.

As I started playing I although noticed some flaws. If you compare this to modern FPS games you are likely to find out that when you shoot an object the impact isn’t so realistic or accurate. There has been lots of improvement in realistic shooting games since this game was released. I also started to wonder if I can come up with some other FPS’s of this era. Quake II was released in 1997. It is released very early in the life of FPS games. We must remember that Half-Life was released in 1998.

I did get my thoughts to some 90s and early 2000s FPS’s. I actually have a copy of Kingpin, Red Faction and also Soldier of Fortune. I have finished Kingpin and Red Faction. I remember that I got stuck with Soldier of Fortune in some level as I played it with my Windows XP PC very many years ago. Today, I have also a retro PC. I should just install Soldier of Fortune some day and give it a one more try.

These games were released way before Call of Duty which transformed this genre to a new era. I first got to play the first Call of Duty back in 2006. I played it with my original Xbox. There are also many newer games like Battlefield and Doom and Doom Eternal. It is a bit sad that we haven’t seen a new Soldier of Fortune game after the third one flopped a bit. In its time Soldier of Fortune was as realistic as a shooter can be. You were even able to shoot your enemy’s leg off. This was a time when realism and brutality combined to form something new and also something a bit terrifying.

As has been stated many times we can say it one more time. Violence in video and computer games doesn’t directly produce violence in real life. I think this has been already proved scientifically. So there’s actually no debate on this matter anymore. There should be limitations of course. It might not be okay for a very young person to witness such a graphical violence. This everything was new to us back in the day. Of course we see this all the time. Graphics are improving and violence seems to still exist.

I can definitely recommend these three games. If you have them you are lucky. If you want to buy them on Steam or some other game store just go ahead. They also can tell you something about how PC gaming has evolved and continued to develop. There might be something else I should write here for you but I think I must stop here and wait for your response. I will keep writing these posts here now and then.

Should Retro Games Be Declared as Public Domain?

Posted on by Viljami

How popular are old NES or SNES games? Just think about how popular were NES Classic Mini and also the one that had tens of SNES games on it. I remember that I was working in a game shop as we had hundreds of customers that had ordered a NES mini. They had to wait moths to get one. This same happened with SNES mini. Although customers started to understand and not order a device that couldn’t even be delivered in a reasonable time.

This is exactly the matter when we are talking about the popularity of retro games. These games were released 30 or 40 years ago. They aren’t properly available to us gamers. Nintendo has made them available on their web service. That alone doesn’t make me want to pay for the subscription. You can get a console, maybe original NES or some other type of console, that you can play original games with. This however is expensive. You might have to pay 40 euros for a game. Some games are sold for hundreds or even thousands of euros.

Publishers seem to be holding on to these game titles. How does this make sense? If someone buys a used game from a game shop that is a private entrepreneur how does this give any more profit to the publisher of the game? There have been many sore comments on Facebook ads of this certain web shop that offers money for used retro titles. They pay you about fifty percentage or maybe even less than that for your rare games of the price they are actually selling it. This makes producing and downloading so called pirated copies of these games popular and tempting.

I just today read a story that was dealing with the ability to play old games that were released in 2010 or earlier. This is actually very hard. The writer was very concerned about older games just disappearing somewhere. These games are valuable in a certain way. Future game designers can learn a lot from old games. Someone might be willing to play these games. And many are having this certain appeal to these games now and also in the future.

What would be the solution? I think that certain games should be made a public domain. You could download them and share and even maybe modify them freely. We should have devices available that could convert the game cartridge to a rom file and they should be easily available. There could be devices dedicated to this in libraries or maybe in some other places. I have to tell you that we are already seeing all sorts of video games available in libraries already today.

So, to conclude, we should, in my opinion, share these old games and make them as widely available as possible. We already have these most important video game systems emulators available. Someone might support legalizing some mild drug. I am right now stating that I support the freeing of retro games. This is even today illegal. Who is this statute working for one might ask. I am not supporting or saying that you should break law. That is not the case. I am saying that we should change the law since it seems that old games are getting hard to play and to enjoy.