Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: 90s

Games That Brought Consoles to 2000s

Posted on by Viljami

I remember clearly my first steps that I took towards game consoles. My first device was Sega Mega Drive. I could keep playing for maybe two to three hours back then. Games were simpler than today. They were challenging but they were also very repetitive. Graphics weren’t anything amazing. Controlling your character with the game pad was simpler as there were less buttons to use than gamers today have.

I got to know PlayStation soon. I have gone over this already several times in this blog. It was about 1997 and I got my PS1. I got to play Gran Turismo. Racing seemed to be perfect genre for console players. I am talking about consoles here because there are clear differences between computer and console games especially in this time period. There was something great about games back in the 90s. It gave players a hint of where this field was heading.

I don’t see today anymore such a great difference between PC and console games. Back then we were excited about PlayStation. It was easy to plug in to the television. It had awesome new kind of game controllers that were never seen before. A bit later analog sticks made it possible to move even smoother inside the game’s three dimensional world. Consoles seemed to have conquered our living rooms while computers had their position in our home or work offices.

So PlayStation had ruled for a couple of years. It was clear that some day there would be even more powerful device in our living rooms. This was PlayStation 2. It had a capability to play DVD content. It had its flaws also. It didn’t have Ethernet or hard disk drive. But it had something we lack today and that was the extreme backwards compatibility of games and even memory cards and controllers. What were the games that pushed console gaming more and more towards the leap that was ahead?

I was a bit busy in my life this time. I was away from gaming for several years. Althought not completely but I made some choices that made an impact personally. I sold my PS1 and all my games and other accessories. I totally skipped PS2. I only got to know a bit about this era of gaming as I played some PC games and original Xbox games later. I was interested for a short period of time later about PS2. I have to say that I am not so interested in getting to it anymore. I enjoy newer games more and PS2 games don’t give me such a rush of nostalgia that PS1, NES and Sega Mega Drive are able to bring. But there were these great titles that I used to play. And now is a good time to get to them and to how they revolutionized console gaming.

If you think about it, it becomes more and more clearer. This was what would eventually happen. Games would become more and more popular and more and more acceptable as a hobby of an adult person. Think about titles like Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. You can move in these games to any direction. There is a lot to discover and explore. They have a story in them. Graphics are as good as can be if you consider the systems that were running these games. This is finally what brought the need for new gaming device and that device was PS2.

Games were changing and improving in many sides. People were starting to take gaming a bit more seriously. It wasn’t anymore just a hobby for children. And I think this is what makes that era in gaming so important and special.

Gaming Has Evolved

Posted on by Viljami

I have been playing video games all my life. It all began in the 1980s. I first played some PC games on our family’s computer that was running some version of MS-DOS. I really can’t remember it so clearly but I played games like Bubble Bobble and Leisure Suit Larry. These gaming session were a bit short as a young boy was starting to get attracted to gaming. And games were different in those days.

I took another step in my path to being a gamer that I am today. It was probably 1993 as I got a Sega Mega Drive. This was something different. I had played some NES games with my friends. Now I had a 16-bit gaming console. The first game I played on it was Sonic The Hedgehog. It came with the system. I remember playing it and some other games for some hours. I maybe played for three hours. I never played longer than that.

Gaming was progressing but it was still mostly considered to be something for children. If there were some older people playing Sega or Nintendo they were considered to be a bit childish. And that’s how games were back then. They were mainly targeted for not so mature audience. What would you think? We had a plumber collecting mushrooms to become larger and a blue hedgehog that was running really fast. But there were some role playing, fighting and sports games that were going to make some adults gamers too.

I was beginning to mature. And so did video games. It was around 1997 when I got a PlayStation 1. It was the first gaming console that also a bit older people would play. It made way for gaming as a hobby for a person of any age. There were no limits anymore. You could find your friends father playing video games. And it wasn’t even that awkward. Not anymore. How exactly were games now different? They had much more to give for gamers. There was action. But there was also a sharp detail of graphics. 3D modeling brought better experience. Games also had a story that would keep you entertained for long period of time.

I played longer sessions with my PlayStation than I did with any other console earlier in my life. I remember playing Diablo for six hours one week end as I was a young boy. So the time I could spend playing had doubled. I remember that I had at least 20 games for PS1. It might have had even 30 games. I had beat most of them. I think I spend maybe 20 hours for a game. That’s a lot of playing video games for a young person. This was actually nothing if you think about how much time beating a video game today might take. To make a comparison I can tell you that I have recently played Diablo II Resurrected for almost 50 hours and Gran Turismo 7 for 30 hours. And I haven’t finished them yet.

You can have gaming as your hobby. You can also spend a lot of time playing games. There are several devices that you can play games on. There are gaming consoles, mobile devices, handheld consoles and computers. If you are good in playing video games there are things today like eSports that can transform your gaming hobby to being a professional competitive gamer. If you like gaming you can do like I do and write to a blog or even to some gaming magazine about games. So you can become a game journalist. If you are interested in the technical side of video games you can try to become a game developer or game programmer. You can even be a game designer that doesn’t even program. There are lots of roles in gaming industry if you want to make your hobby also a profession.

Gaming has really evolved. I started getting into gaming as a young kid back in the 80s. I grew up playing games. It has been a hobby for me for a very long time. On my path I have seen how games have become more realistic and the audience has grown and it has also become more diverse. Now everyone can play. It doesn’t matter that you are old. It doesn’t matter what gender you are. Everyone can play video games today. And that’s one great thing to keep in mind.

Is the Era of Audio CDs Really Over?

Posted on by Viljami

I remember when I first got my PS4 back in 2014. I came to understand that from the beginning it didn’t have support for audio CDs. I had to rely on another device for listening to my huge collection of CDs. A while ago I quickly counted how many CDs I have today. It seems that I have over 500 CDs.

My collection of CDs is huge. It has grown more as I have bought several classic hiphop, trance and dance CDs from flee markets. I have this old CD player that I bought for a cheap price. It was used when I got it. It probably didn’t even cost 20 euros. You can today get a new CD player for about 100 euros.

My CD player was always connected to my amplifier through RCA-connection. Earlier today I ordered an adapter that allows me to connect my audio device to any device that supports Bluetooth. Wireless connectivity is a common feature among new CD players. Now I got an update to my device. And it cost me only 40 euros.

So, is the era of CDs actually over? This format of audio has been present since the 1980s. It once decreased sales of vinyls considerably although listening to music from vinyls never completely stopped. When I was a child in the 90s every kid had a CD stereo system and some CDs in their own room. You also had to have a portable CD player since there were no mp3 players or if there were they were very expensive.

Today CD still provides digital quality of audio for different audiences. Some artists still release their music on CDs. Streaming services have made listening to music easy and cheap. The latest gaming console that I have that also supports playing audio CDs is PS3. You can get many kinds of music very cheaply on CD from several flee markets. Prices are for used CDs something form 0,50 euros to 3 euros.

The surface of a disc is very sensitive for getting scratches or dirt on it. When gaming went to storing games in CD format consumers were thinking that children wouldn’t be able to keep these discs working. Nintendo even decided to use cartridges when Nintendo 64 came available. What was the impact of mp3s becoming so popular? It waas clear that you could easily have more than just 700 MB of digital music with you. Actually you soon had something like 4 GB (thats 4000 MB) of space and the advancement of smart phones made the transition to listening music with mp3s or as a streamed service.

I still listen to CDs. I still sometimes even buy new CDs. If I do get some new record I often rip it for my personal use. I transfer then the music to my phone so I can listen to them everywhere I happen to go. Mostly I listen to Spotify. Sometimes I listen to it from my personal computer, like I do right now, and sometimes from my tablet computer. I rarely listen to Spotify from my phone. Spotify seems to be the new standard for listening to music. You can definitely see this when you think about audio CDs and how they are supported by newest gaming systems. Damn. We have this digitality coming from everywhere. We have more and more games and consoles that are only available as digital and not physical. I guess that’s just how the future is currently shaping.