Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: History of Gaming

Physical, Digital or Something Else?

Posted on by Viljami

Physical game cartridges and later discs (CDs, DVDs and so on) was how games were sold way before video games were available as downloads from internet. Internet came to be during 1990s and it was only in 2000s when game consoles started to be connected to it. First there were consoles like PS2 and Xbox that could be connected to internet. Later it came a norm that discs only held parts of the game and you actually had to download some parts of the game. This is also how many games were patched or updated even after they had been released.

The progress towards faster networks and downloading games has been a slow one. However just some days ago Sony announced that it will discontinue physical game discs in the year 2028. This makes a gamer think about the release of PlayStation 6 and the matter that it probably won’t have a disc drive at all. We have seen this kind of progression already in PCs. Steam and other software web shops have provided us the games that we play today and this has been the norm for already several years. You can buy yourself an internal or external DVD or Bluray drive for your PC and this can make you some trouble and you have to pay for it.

If we go from the beginning to end and inspect how have games been delivered to customers through times beginning from 1980s when Nintendo, or NES, was first released. Now, Nintendo wasn’t the first home console but it was the most successful console in the 1980s with some competition from Sega’s consoles. Back then games were delivered as electronic cartridges that you actually inserted into your video game console. The space that a game like this takes is only some tens or hundreds of kilobytes.

After cartridges we moved forward as the technology progressed to compact discs. First we saw CD-ROMs that could hold maybe 700 megabytes of information. So, the amount of information was 700 000 kilobytes when NES could onyl deal with games of maybe 100 kilobytes. So, the amount of data became 7000 times bigger when games began to be delivered as CD-ROMs. Later the technology progressed and we moved to first DVDs and then to Blurays and later to 4K discs. So, now Sony announced that the progression of discs is going to end in 2028.

It is very easy to rip PlayStation 1 and 2 games. You only need a regular CD-/DVD-drive. I am myself using an external one. I do buy physical game discs for both of these systems. I just want to always rip the game disc from the media I have purchased so I am not limited to use only the physical disc. This way I can play the game on a PC and on an emulator. So I mainly use emulation for PlayStation 1 and 2 retro gaming. I do have in my setup a PS1. I mainly use it for some games that have multiple discs so the swapping of discs is smoother. It might be possible to use emulation also with multi-disc games but to today I haven’t found a way to solve this matter.

So, actually the game disc can and maybe even should be ripped to a digital format. When you rip the disc it becomes an image of the disc that you can burn to a disc or utilize it to play the game that it holds. It takes only about 15 minutes for my computer to rip the disc and then I am moving the image to the PC that has Batocera as its operating system that is connected to my home’s network. That way the disc isn’t required but it is a sign that you actually do own the game and it is not just downloaded from internet as a pirated copy.

Is it pirating if you just copy a game that you don’t own? I think it can be considered as something like that. Now when games might become fully digital the matter of who actually owns a game is becoming more unclear. Actually instead of huge shelves in our homes that hold some game discs and cartridges should now become digital libraries of games that you can install and uninstall. But what happens if the system that holds this digital library becomes somehow unavailable? The matter that you own a physical copy of a game makes sure that you do own it even if some web service game library platform becomes obsolete. And this seems to be the biggest part of the debate that has already been risen. Here were my thoughts about this matter. I think it is now time to stop and think about this a bit. Maybe I form some opinion about this later. You, my dear reader, can also think about this and maybe have a conversation with some gamer like you.

Some Turtles Stuff

Posted on by Viljami

I was playing today a fairly new Turtles game called Splintered Fate for Nintendo Switch. I was playing it on my Switch 2. Just recently I have also bought the Turtles movie trilogy in 4K. I also had the Cowabunga collection that features plenty of Turtles games from the past. I am a big fan of Turtles. Of course I have been a fan since I was a child.

So the trilogy includes the original movies that were made back in the beginning of the 1990s. I like to own this collection. Having these movies as 4K is very nice as an experience. When I was a kid I was so young that I wasn’t able to go to see the first two movies in a cinema but the third one I at least got to see. I am watching these movies with my 4K television and Xbox Series X. I did also get a sort of a discount. Currently the trilogy does cost about 76 euros. Also I have to remind that these movies don’t have Finnish subtitles. I liked to tell you about this in case you my dear reader are from Finland or from any other non-English country and are wondering about this matter. I didn’t actually find any difficulties with the level of English I have currently.

The Cowabunga Collection features many retro games from systems like NES, SNES, Game Boy, Mega Drive / Genesis and also from arcade. It is kind of nice to have the disc and also the cover case. Although I wouldn’t mind if I only had this collection as a digital edition. Also many of these games are already available for me to play on my retro computer that happens to be my Raspberry Pi 5 that runs Recalbox. But if you like to get into some retro style of Turtles games and happen to also see this collection available I can definitely recommend it.

What about the Switch game – Splintered Fate? I am actually still playing this one and I have only spent a bit over two hours playing it. It is cool how they have made the game as a Turtles themed one. The game reminds me a lot about Hades. I used to play Hades about a year or two ago. Also there was Hades II released just some moments ago. There is a lot of repetition. I think that it would have been nice to see a deeper story evolving during the game but the game actually isn’t a bad one.

This tiny collection is just a part of my huge collection of video games and movies. I wanted in this blog post to display it to you my dear readers and tell you about my passion towards Turtles. I know I have some other collectibles also but I think a huge part of them are still in my parents house where I lived my childhood in back in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. I did have Turtles action figures, some comic magazines and also a board game. I also had a pair of running shoes themed with Turtles but I think they aren’t anymore in any condition at all. Actually I think we threw them eventually away as is usual with old clothes.

Some of this Turtles stuff is related to my childhood closely. I sometimes like to reminisce about all this stuff. It brings me so many memories. I used to watch Turtles cartoons especially on weekend mornings. We used to wake up with my brother because we were used to waking up since we were in school every weekday morning as is usual in where I live.

So, Splintered Fate is a decent video game. Cowabunga Collection offers a lot of nostalgia. Turtles 4K Trilogy offers you the collection of these original movies. If you are interested in this stuff just look around in your favorite shop of games and see if they have these available. Splintered Fate is also available for PC and PS5 and Xbox Series S/X as is also The Cowabunga Collection and they are both released as a digital and also a physical copy. There was my take on Turtles for this time.

 

Aladdin (Sega Mega Drive)

Posted on by Viljami

Aladdin is a very good Sega Mega Drive game. It isn’t a long one but it surely is of a good quality. It only takes about two to three hours to complete. This is what we were actually used to back in the beginning of the 90s. So, I am writing this whole blog post about this game Aladdin.

As there have been some discussion about the release of Neo Geo console I have to make a brief comparison of these systems. Sega Mega Drive as a gaming console had a completely different strategy if compared to Neo Geo. The latter one seemed to invest in power and also had a higher price. Mega Drive was competing with Nintendo’s NES and was a whole lot cheaper gaming system. This also meant that the games weren’t as impressive graphically. This did also mean that Mega Drive was available to more consumers and was way more popular than Neo Geo.

Sega Mega Drive is also very important to me personally. I do have today maybe 40 games for this system. I do have also still every game that our family had when I was kid back in the 90s. I have kept them and haven’t sold any of them. I also have the console which is replaced in my gaming setup by Retro Trio since it you can play also SNES and NES, and also Master System and Game Boy games with the adapters I own, games. This way my setup doesn’t take so much space. I sometimes use real hardware and sometimes I play games with an emulator. I do buy games for Mega Drive at times and Aladdin is one these games that I have bought.

I remember buying Aladdin for a decent price. I think it was 40 or 60 euros. And this was already maybe two years ago. It might be difficult to try to find the actual physical copy of the game from a web shop. It is a bit of a rare game although it isn’t the rarest of all Mega Drive games. What really makes some games expensive is if they are good games and if there have been only a low amount of copies produced in the first place.

Aladdin as a video game gives everything that a Mega Drive game can give. The 2D graphics look beautiful on the system. The game is all about slight problem solving combined with platformer elements and some moments of action. The main character can jump and sling his sword at the enemy characters that usually take maybe three or four hits and then they disappear. There is a lot of jumping and path finding. The game play fits perfectly for Mega Drive’s original pad that only has three buttons along with the start button and the directional buttons.

I can definitely recommend Aladdin if you like games from this era. Playing this game is a must if you love Disney’s Mega Drive games. There was this certain appeal in these two-dimensional environments. The graphics look very nice. The game doesn’t last but only two to three hours as I already mentioned in this blog post.

Today is Saturday and it is also the time for schools to shut down for the summer vacation times here in Finland. I do remember when I was that young. It has been a long time. I also do have a summer vacation. It is for four weeks. In Finland it is common to have a long summer break be it that you were a student or an employee. I know that it is common in USA to take only a two weeks break at maximum per year. This is how different some things are if you compare USA and Finland. This is actually my 400th post to this blog!