Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Author: Viljami

What to Expect From Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4?

Posted on by Viljami

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 will be released July 11th this year for many gaming consoles including Xbox Series S/X, PS5, Nintendo Switch and PC/Windows. Original releases of these skateboarding games were very nice and they had a good and solid gameplay. They didn’t go too far from some of the features of two original games. Some later games that were based on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games were titled Tony Hawk’s Underground 1 and it also had a sequel.

My own experiences concentrate on the beginning of the series. I remember very clearly playing the first Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on PS1 and also the sequel on Windows PC. I later bought also the third game that was titled Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. The fourth game in the series was solid and good while the fifth game sadly flopped in quality and also eventually in sales.

We have seen Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 collection that was released in 2020. I just recently bought this collection for my Xbox Series X. It is a very good compilation that includes the first two games with some more modern controls and graphics and also many achievements that you can try to beat. It is common knowledge that this is a good product as a whole. The collection received positive feedback from video game skateboarders world wide.

So, what do you expect from the new collection? Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 will definitely find its way to my video game shopping list. I believe this is going to be very satisfying collection of two games that molded the whole series. We are going to see nowadays graphical quality and I believe also that the whole soundtrack is going to be something amazing. I can clearly remember hearing Xzibit’s Paparazzi on the background.

I do have also Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 for GameCube. It is quite frankly difficult to try to have every version of a game. This just seems how my video game collection seems to be working. It was a very nice to play this game with the controller of the Nintendo GameCube. It was something a bit different. I have played THPS games with many different controllers.

The new compilation will be available soon. It is said to have a price of 50 euros at least here in Finland. There is going to be a physical copy and a digital copy available. I am going to to probably get the physical copy. I do not have information about if there is going to be a physical collectors edition available. So, we have to wait and see. There is going to be some different and more expensive options if you choose the digital way to buy this collection.

This seems to be for me something to wait for. It has to be kept in mind that there is going to be a new Doom game also available soon. Actually it seems that it will get released in May 15th this year. This fits my gaming plan perfectly because I just recently started playing Doom Eternal once again. Earlier I played it on my now already old PlayStation 4 and now as I bought it for only 10 euros as a digital copy I get to experience it on my Xbox Series X. What a joy!

This last paragraph is written for all  you readers of this blog. I am going to continue writing this blog. I don’t yet know what we are talking and thinking about the next time but I will bet that it will be something very interesting. It is already some light and warmth shown when I take a look outside. You know, the spring is coming right now and that means that summer is near. You would understand if you lived up here in the north. So, until next time…

Just Finished Sonic CD

Posted on by Viljami

Where do you recognize Sega? Well, from its blue mascot, Sonic The Hedgehog, of course! Sonic was made to be the competitor for Nintendo’s Super Mario. Of course there are many other titles and many other characters but Sega seems to be very well known when it comes to Sonic. We can talk about Wonder Boy or the main characters of Golden Axe. We can even mention a character like Kid Chameleon. There really isn’t a competition after all.

The first Sonic game was released in 1991. It was titled simply Sonic The Hedgehog. This was the game that actually shipped with my Sega Mega Drive back in the day. The graphics were very nice for its time. I can clearly remember playing it for hours. The action and speed made a permanent impacted and pushed me further towards this hobby of gaming. Later I got to play many more Mega Drive titles. There are too many to mention but lets say that Streets of Rage series, NHL 94 and NBA Jam were some of my favorites back in the day.

You could pick some other way to get back to these Sonic titles. I chose to get a copy of Sonic Origins Plus for my Xbox Series X. I bought it for about 20 euros. It was cheap. It also offered a possibility to see how much of this compilation you have completed. Also saving your progress wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish. If you play any of these games on the original hardware you don’t have an opportunity to save your game.

So, the compilation has games like Sonic 1, 2 and 3 and also Sonic CD. Today I spent some hours and managed to finish Sonic CD. This is the Sonic game that was released for Sega CD. If you are wondering what is Sega CD I can explain it briefly. Sega CD is an accessory that you can apply on Mega Drive. It uses CD-ROM technology to store the games. Of course these meant that there were hundreds of times more space for these games. There were more than 200 games developed for it. It wasn’t as popular as Mega Drive and games and any related hardware is thought to be rare. Mega Drive Mini 2 featured several Sega CD games along with tens of Mega Drive games.

Sonic CD is a nice and speedy 2d platform game. The fact that the game was made to be released on a CD-ROM meant that the sound has a maximum quality compared to some of the limitations that Mega Drive had. Graphics of the game are detailed. I did spend many hours playing Sonic CD. How Long To Beat website tells me that it takes only two hours to finish the game and six and a half hours to complete it.

You can find enemy characters like Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic in the game. Sonic has a bit more moves to make if you compare these abilities to something that was present originally in the first Sonic The Hedgehog game. If you manage to pick up 50 coins in a stage you get to a bonus stage. There are seven levels that all have three stages to play in this game. The speedy running and a minimum amount of thinking seems to work as a good game plan. However there are some spots in this game that require a bit of problem solving or you could even call it a strategy. But the less you worry and the better you complete your presses of buttons the more you will advance in this game.

Sonic Origins Plus is a nice compilation of Sonic games. I did finish two of the first games, Sonic 1 and 2, earlier. I think I played them last summer if I recall correctly. So, I do have some more playing to do if I want to finish also Sonic 3. There’s lots of content all in all. If you are a definitive fan of Sonic games or if you want to reminisce on some retro content this might be something worth getting your hands to.

Rainbow Six

Posted on by Viljami

Rainbow Six is a book written by Tom Clancy. It was published in 1998. There were also several video games made based on this book. My favorite game from this series is Rogue Spear. I have also played Rainbow Six 3 – Raven Shield. The latest game in this series was released in 2022.

This book is a long one to read. It took me several weeks to get through it. There were almost 900 pages that were written with a small font. Tom Clancy is a clever and very good writer. He manages to keep you strained throughout the whole reading experience of this book. I have recently read also Power Plays by Tom Clancy.

If we discuss about the games I can tell you that they are kind of first person shooter types but you have several soldiers for you to control. There are many strategic points that you must take in account. You get to chose the teams and plan your actions. There are many ways to complete the missions. You have to be precise with your shooting and everything that happens around you.

The weapons and also other gear are being described very clearly. The precision with the action is very needed. You can also enjoy multiplayer mode if you want to. I think one good game to start from in getting into Rainbow Six would be Rainbow Six Siege that was released in 2015 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and also for PC.

Rainbow Six is only one part of this whole group of tactical and war-related video games. There also do exist games like Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Endwar, H.A.W.X. and The Division. All of these games are inspired by these books that Tom Clancy wrote. Sadly, Tom Clancy died in 2013. These games still live on and many from these games mentioned above are still getting sequels and updates. So, the legacy of Tom Clancy still lives strong.

Rainbow Six was a nice book to read. I wouldn’t have picked it for me to read if it wouldn’t had anything to do with video games. I think that this book was although very long to read. I think it was something like reading The Lord of the Rings book or maybe some book from Stephen King. I usually read books that take me about one week to finish and I read mostly non-fictive books.

Today Rainbow Six and every game in the series has a lot of meaning for me. I still have Rogue Spear as a big box standing on my game shelf. I actually have two cases but only one of them still holds the disc. I had the original box but the CD was missing. So, what I did was I bought another copy from a local Finnish game shop as it was luckily available for purchase.

Tom Clancy has written many books throughout his career. His first book was “The Hunt for Red October” and it was released in 1984. Many of his works were also made into cinematic movies. The movies were directed by John Mc Tiernan, Philip Noyce and also Robert Lieberman. His style of writing was very suitable for also movies and games. This whole load of material can be somewhat categorized as having everything to do with warfare.

You can find more information about Tom Clancy from websites like Wikipedia. There is all-in-all a lot of information available. You can even use a search engine to search for this information. I think artificial intelligence would have also something to say about this writer. I just wanted to express how I felt about the book and also my relationship to these video games. I can recommend this book if you like thrilling moments and closely detailed action just take my advice when I tell you that the book can take some time to read.