Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

NES Games That Are Still Relevant in 2024

Posted on by Viljami

You might not spend so much time with NES games as you do with modern games that directly aim to keep you focused for tens or even hundreds of hours. This has everything to do with quickly advancing technology. Designing games goes forward also when the developers learn more and more and more hobbyists are starting to get into the world or playing video games. In this blog post I go through some NES games that are, in my opinion, still relevant today.

There are practically hundreds of games in the whole gaming library of NES. If you don’t have a clue what gaming console I am referring to I can tell you that NES comes from words Nintendo Entertainment System. It is a retro console that was introduced to us, gamers, in 1983. I have picked up these five games that I own. These all are very good games and I can definitely recommend them.

I have a Retro Trio console that plays NES, SNES and Mega Drive games. I can also use an adapter to play Master System or even Game Boy games. These adapters I have bought for a cheap price. I think I paid just under 40 euros for the Master System adapter and maybe 35 euros for the game boy adapter. It is very nice to play Game Boy games this way. The screen is very clear and bright compared to the screen of Game Boy or Game Boy color. There are some other ways also that you can play Game Boy games but lets not get carried away too much.

You can of course take your chance and use any NES emulator to play NES games on your PC. If you are going with this option I definitely recommend to get a replica of the original NES controller that you can attach with a USB cable. This brings the certain sense of authenticity to your NES games. These physical copies can be a bit pricey. They can cost anything from I think 15 euros to even 100 euros. Some rare games are even more expensive. So, I totally understand if you go the emulator way at least when you are just starting to get into NES games. The USB controller I mentioned earlier has a price tag of maybe 20 euros. I have never got into troubles with the compatibility and you can probably get it to work easily even if you use Linux.

You can sense that for example Super Mario Bros, that was released in 1988, has this certain lightness in the whole gaming experience. I mean the fact that it uses only so little memory. You can talk about randomly accessed memory or even hard disk. As I think you have witnessed NES doesn’t have a hard disk at all. You can use saved games in some games since they have an extra battery that enables long term memory usage. With emulators you can of course go around this and use saved states that come with your favorite NES emulator. So, this is one more reason to use software emulators instead of old retro hardware.

Graphics are two dimensional in these games. Sound is of course pretty terrible. If you are deeply into “chip tune” musical genre you might even like it that way. I personally think it is some kind of miracle how they could program the music for these games with all these limitations. Same goes to the overall design of these games. There are over 600 NES games that were released. These five are the ones that I have managed to grab. I have a total of maybe ten or twelve NES games in my collection. I did buy these all already some years ago. I can definitely say that I enjoy these games even if they are old and even if the time keeps moving forward. I think Nintendo did  agret job!

What Made Tomb Raider So Appealling?

Posted on by Viljami

I wrote some time ago about Tomb Raider and how it’s 3D modeling made an impact to the whole industry. Now, we have seen Tomb Raider trilogy remake and I think it’s time to get back to this game once again. I actually got the remake collection and gave it some hours. The question here clearly seems to be that how and why was Tomb Raider so popular.

First of all I have to say that this game was a product of its era. 3d worlds were just beginning their story. The controls are clunky and not so good if we compare them to some more recent video games. There are many situations that you have to face when playing Tomb Raider today that just make the game seem a very old one.

The biggest problem seems to be how you control the main character Lara Croft. Jumping is hard and the camera is at times in a very bad angle. These 3D environments aren’t so impressive as they appeared to be back in 1990s. Tomb Raider was released in 1996. I have a copy for PC and PS1. The original game, that I happen to have in the form of the original CD, I think, can be updated so that the graphics will look even sharper.

What about the main character? Lara appears to be a female. This was still an exception back in 1996. Lara Croft was definitely one of the first female main characters. Of course these games are directed to these nerdy guys that are also into 3d and C++ programming. This was, back then, something for the real nerds.

You can feel the excitement as you play the original game. You get to interact with some very edgy and exciting environment. This can, of course, bring you many memories and make you feel the nostalgia. You start to think how could you yourself create a 3D game like this. And this game also gave programmers many ideas not to say anything about a mod that was available that made Lara seem to be totally naked in the game.

I really like Tomb Raider. Would I spend tens of hours playing it once again. Well, maybe not. Time has progressed heavily. Biggest flaw is the controlling of Lara. It just makes playing the game a pain. If you pick a good 3D game from an era of maybe even five years after 1996, say 2001, you can get something much more enjoyable. Why would you pick this one when there are many better games available.

How about the PS1 version that we have on this featured image right here? Well, it is the same game that was released for PC but with worse graphics. It is nice to handle Lara with Dual Shock controller. You can also pick a retro PC, one that has 486 processor, and play the game.

In conclusion, I don’t recommend going back to the world of Lara Croft. The game was something different. Take a note on the use of the word “was”. I know how inpiring this game was. Its impact was enormous. It broke the ice for something bigger and better. So, I suggest you get something some years newer for a new game that you would like to play.

Every Gaming System Is Unique

Posted on by Viljami

I have a gaming setup in my living room (or maybe “gaming room”) currently that has total of 8 gaming consoles. Some of these devices are old and some of them are more recent. I have a Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X that represent a more recent of a gaming system. I do have retro consoles also.

These are Sega Mega Drive Mini, PSOne and Retro Trio Plus. The last-mentioned is capable to support Mega Drive, NES and SNES games. I have also some adpaters that enable a gaming system like Master System or Game Boy to be played. I have also PS3 and a PS4 in my current setup. I almost forgot my Nintendo GameCube.

Here we are getting some kind of an idea of my gaming setup. The idea was to ponder on how every gaming system is unique. This comes in mind when you are thinking about game controllers. Every system has its own kind of a controlling device. NES has a very edgy controller while PSOne functions with a DualShock 2 controller that is originally a PS2 game pad. It is nice to have this kind of a compatibility between PS1 and PS2.

Some devices have backwards compatibility with games or some accessories. Nintendo Wii is a very special gaming console. It has this sort of a “magic wand” that you operate and control your games with. Wii is also backwards compatible with a legendary gaming system – GameCube. I liked the last-mentioned better and even went as far as replacing my Wii with GameCube in my setup of gaming consoles.

Some games can be expensive. While it seems to be a good idea to run some sort of an emulation gaming system there is one particular question that comes to mind: What controller should you use? There are two approaches to this matter. You can change your controller to support any gaming system or you can go with the latest and best controller for any gaming system that you are emulating.

You can think about a gaming system and consider how powerful it is. Every device cannot be as powerful as some newer device. If you want the most powerful system you should get yourself a PC. There are however many other matters that take count when you consider about which gaming system you prefer to play your favorite games with.

How is Switch able to compete with Series X and/or PS5? The gaming library can be one matter. Nintendo has games that feature characters like Super Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Kirby. Of course these games aren’t going to be released for these competing consoles. What Switch lacks in power it makes up in originality, design and content of its games.

Some factors that make game consoles unique have to do with their part in the history of video games. Technology is always improving. We are moving on all the time. We hear every day gaming people talk about what would be the newest console to appear in the markets. We have already heard about Switch 2 and PS6. What does the future hold for us gamers? We can only wait and see.

We have dealt with different gaming consoles. Some of these facts that make a system unique can be summarized are the design of the controller, library of games that are available, performance and raw power and backwards, or any other, compatibility between other gaming consoles.

I collect and play old and new games. It is a very tempting thought and I have already considered to just install an operating system like Lakka OS (or some other OS) to a device like Raspberry Pi 5 or maybe on an old desktop PC that I do have laying around in my home. In this way it would be possible to play many games from many devices. Physical copies can be pricy at times.

Game consoles are usually sold for cheap price. Companies like Sony manufactor these devices and sell them with a loss just to increase the console base world wide. Then they release games for the system. Games are where these companies get most of their profit from. This makes it a definitive fact that games do in a way make the gaming system to be also kind of unique. What do you think?