Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Author: Viljami

Getting your old PS3 racing wheel and pedals to work with PS4

Posted on by Viljami

I had an issue with my old Logitech G27 racing wheel and pedals. I couldn’t get them to work on my PS4. Originally G27 works with PS3 and PC. I was a bit sad as I thought I’d have to spend hundreds of euros to buy a new product. It didn’t make any sense to me. I was glad to find a solution to my problem.

And the solution was simple. I found a company called Brook. It had a “Super Converter”. It actually had many kinds of converters, but I was interested in this PS3-to-PS4 functionality. It was hard to find, but finally I managed to succeed in my search. I found the piece needed and made my order.

This product is actually called, or named or whatever, Brook Game Controller Super Converter. Its main function is to transform any PS3 controllers, joysticks or steering wheels output to match PS4s. Don’t ask me so much about the technological side of this issue. Though I can tell you that I had to update this devices firmware to the latest. You can find this software from Brooks website. Basically you just plug the converter to a PC and run the update process. Once that is trough you can just plug the thing to your PS4 and plug your PS3 device to the USB block. So it’s easy to use and even more eaasier if you have some tecnical experience with PC and embedded software installations.

This product works nice. And it wasn’t so badly priced if the other option would be to buy a new steering wheel. Since my G27 is in great conditon, working nice and I’m very satisfied with it, I’m not going to buy a new one. There seems to be some problems with consoles not being compatible with each other. This is understandable when considering Xbox and PlayStation but I can’t understand why it isn’t possible to play PS4 with my PS3 controller or steering wheel. As we have seen USB devices being compatible I don’t understand the reason why Sony would want its users to not be able to do this. That would make gamers happier and maybe make their life a little easier. Money might be the reason. I had to pay about 80 € for this converter. But now I’m happy and able to play Dirt Rally 1 and 2.0 and maybe even pursue a career as eSports driver. Everything seems to be possible!

All in all this situation is not nice. You have a device that’s not working right. You do have a solution for this. You just have to pay some very clever electronics and/or software engineer working at Brook some money-money to clear this issue. It would be nice to have some standards, but you’ll find your way to solve this issue. And I’m glad to bring this answer to you and write a post to this blog.

Gaming can be a low budget hobby

Posted on by Viljami

Do you think gaming is expensive? My goal in this article is to convince you that you really can have a hobby like this and not have so large budget. In my opinion buying games and concoles isn’t as expensive as you would first think. We go through here some points how you can significantly save money while still having a nice relationship with your dear gaming hobby.

You can save a decent sum of money by going to flee markets. I bought my PSOne, for example, for fifteen euros. Before this self-containment caused by korona-virus I regularly visited some large flee markets here in Finland. I usually went through every single table and it took me about half an hour. There was hundreds of self-service tables. I felt excited every time I went through these. You never know what you will find. It is a blessing but I think that’s also a bit of a problem since you don’t know beforehand how much you will spend and what you will find. I recommend to prepare financially. Sometimes you don’t find anything but next time you might find PS1, some big box PC games and some other stuff that you only dreamed about when you were just making your way to local flee market. Typical products you can find almost every time is some PS3 or Xbox 360 game for five euros.

Flee markets provide a cheap way to purchase games and consoles.
You just don’t know for sure what you’ll find. If you are searching for a specific game or console and you know just what you are looking for there is an option. You can check your favourite small-time gaming store. I prefer online shopping but you can always (if there wouldn’t be this korona situation) visit the strore. You can also make your order and just pay and pick it up from the store. You can find many old games and you can also trade your old games, duplicates or the ones you don’t play so much.

The latest is always the most expensive. If you can’t afford PS4 Pro or newest Xbox you can always buy PS3 if you just want a console. PS3 has good quality. I know this because I’ve had this console for over ten years. You can also use your PC or buy a used one. Doing this reduces your gaming expenses greatly. Also remember to keep up with any discounts that you can find. One example that comes to mind was PlaStation Classic. It’s price tag was 130 euros. Since it flopped badly you could buy one for 40 euros. That’s the actual point of keeping up with the lowest prices.

Some advice about roms and emulators. It isn’t right to copy games and not pay for them. But I also think that if you have some game as hard copy you can confidently play it also on emulator. Same advice I have for consoles. If you don’t own the console don’t play it. If you have broken console? Then you can play it. These are just my own opinions and the law might say something different. To play safe don’t copy games at all especially if you don’t have a hard copy.

Golden Axe series

Posted on by Viljami

My experience with Golden Axe series begins as I find this series second game for Sega Mega Drive. Mega Drive was already very popular as it had more power under its hood than NES. These memories bring me back to the beginning of 90s. As a kid I didn’t understand so much about ongoing console wars between mainly SEGA and Nintendo. Their gaming consoles got released one after another. First NES was released in 1983. Then there appeared Master System. Then Mega Drive got released. After that SNES was released. This war got started some years after the crisis of video games occurred. In 1978 everything looked fine. Atari 2600 made its way to many homes. There were so many bad games released and it eventually left game developers with empty hands. But this crisis that lasted some years was over as Nintendo released its Entertainment System.

So Mega Drive was the console to have back in my childhood. Golden Axe 2 was the sequel to the game that had been released already on Master System with also Mega Drive version being produced. The game caught my attention and I think it strongly influenced me to buy this console a moment later. Even today I think Golden Axe II is one of the best games ever released on Mega Drive. When I now play it I think it’s still worth playing for some hours. If I could modify it, I’m not sure if it is even possible, maybe it is, I would add some roleplaying features and theability to develop the character that you choose to play as. It already has many moves and characters have different qualities. It was good so see a female character also.

Soundtrack of this game was very inspiring. It brought tension to the game and along with amazing graphical effects affected and appealled to me as a kid growing up. My little brother also loved this game. I don’t know what’s up with him playing all these violent games. It sure was only fantasy for us and all players that ever got involved in virtual axe swinging. Back in the day there weren’t so many limitations as there is now. You didn’t have this large sticker on every damn piece of video game that tells for every human being that “this game is so and so violent, so brutal…” and so on. It left the decision to parents solely. We played these games as the graphics were poor. Only limitations were that we had to study and go to school and to practise some sports. And back then gaming went after those. I don’t know how this relationship with gaming is doing right now in my life. I think it’s not a thing to worry.

So the first Golden Axe game was released on Master System, Mega Drive and also on Commodore 64. Many gamers had also an opportunity to play it in an arcade. It was also released on PC. So there were many gaming systems that it made its impact on. There was second and third game released on Mega Drive. There was a game released on Sega Saturn, but I really didn’t get into that so much. There was also newer game released on PS3 called Golden Axe: Beast Rider in 2008. After that we haven’t seen any new game in the series. This game is all about action in fantasy world. It brings the player to this world that is a mixture of fantasy and medieval. You swing your axe, ride with a dragon, fight against evil enemies and release spells as you collect your mana and health. I recommend this game when you are getting to know Sega Mega Drive keeping in mind that this game and system are both retro stuff. If you hate retro this game is not for you.