Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

What to Think About Diablo 1?

Posted on by Viljami

Diablo 1 was a real game changer when it was first released back in 1996. We saw a PC version and the game was also ported to Sony PlayStation 1. Diablo has been topical and we have seen lately games like Diablo II Resurrected and Diablo IV. After the first original game we saw a sequel, Diablo II, in 2000. This game was almost insanely good and it was the game that made me addicted to not only action-RPGs but to playing video games generally.

We saw also a third game back in 2012. After a long while Blizzard was able to bring fans a decent addition to Diablo games. As I already stated Diablo had these more recent games getting released lately. We have to add this one game to the list of Diablo games. That game is Diablo Immortal. I haven’t palyed that game at all but I heard it wasn’t actually up to these high standards that this series actually has.

I did play the first Diablo game with my PS1 back in the end of 1990s. You might think about that featured image I have attached to this blog post. This is the actual copy that I have bought several years ago from a flee market. I remember that it was ridiculously cheap. I think I bought it for one euro or something like that.

“How do you get this game installed?”, one might ask. If you don’t have, and few of us gamers actually do, an optical disc drive (CD/DVD/Bluray) in your PC setup you are going to need an external DVD drive. I have actually two of them. One is also compatible with Bluray media. I wasn’t able to rip PS3 games with this device but for installing Diablo 1 it is actually sufficient.

You can at first install the game as is usual. If you don’t want to use the disc every time you launch the game you can just apply a patch for the game to function without a disc. There are some procedures and you can find help online. I had to copy a huge part of the game to my hard drive and also apply some patches. After that the runs pretty well.

What is it like to play a game like Diablo 1 that has been released almost 30 years ago. The game feels pretty nice to me. Graphics are a bit outdated as you would suspect. The actual game play feels nice. I only played it with mouse and keyboard and found it very much functional. First you get to create your character. There are some character classes like “Warrior”, “Rogue” and “Sorcerer”. I went with the Warrior since I very much like the melee action that Diablo delivers.

It can take up to 14 hours to complete Diablo 1. I have to be honest and tell you that this time I only played this game for some hours. The point still is that Diablo 1 is still relevant as a game. The impact it had on the role playing genre of computer and video games is huge. Think something like Sega Mega Drive’s NHL 94 with some role playing elements added to the mix and you surely get the point here. I definitely recommend Diablo 1 if you are into retro games and/or gaming history. This game is very significant to wholeness of video games and it brought us many elements actually the first time for us gamers to enjoy.

You can actually buy Diablo 1 as a digital copy if you don’t have the physical one which can be hard to find. Just look from “GOG dot com” or “Battle dot net”. It does cost you (on Battle net) ten dollars. That’s a cheap price. If you are lucky you might find it somewhere as a CD ROM. I don’t think that you can buy it for as cheap price as I did as I mentioned earlier in this blog post. I was very lucky.

Need For Speed Shift Series

Posted on by Viljami

Need For Speed Shift was first released for PS3 in 2009. There is also a sequel to this game (Need For Speed Shift 2). I remember these racing games very clearly. I have only good memories when it comes to Shift 1 & 2. I was in a situation with my gaming hobby in which I only had one game console attached to my television. It was already a modern tv and not anymore a CRT television. PS4 was still in the process of development and wasn’t available yet. I also played some games with my PC but PS3 was my main game console at that time.

I had a wheel and pedals which I had received as a gift. Although I played some PS3 games with wheel and pedals I did play Need For Speed Shift only with a game pad. I have went back and forth with using my racing wheel but I have always returned to playing racing games with a game pad. I also had at one moment an adapter (I think it was 2019) that enabled me to play with this wheel on PS4. Actually the wheel and pedals were Logitech G27. I did find them to be of great quality. Also, I think if you want to play these more realistic driving games you should also have a decent driving chair.

I did spend tens of hours playing Need For Speed Shift 1 and 2. I especially remember one summer. It was 2011 and I was having a long holiday free from my studies. Time flies when you are young and enjoy your time. I didn’t think that PS3 games would have had a low video display quality. Today they don’t stand a comparison to some more modern and newer gaming consoles. It is a bit sad that the series didn’t continue later on. We have seen many NFS games but we haven’t seen a new Shift game for a long time. Maybe some day we will see a remake?

What Need For Speed Shift games had to offer was somewhat realistic driving and a solid single player campaign. They offered together tens of hours of play time. “How Long To Beat” website tells me that it takes 13 hours to finish the frist game and 20 hours to finish the sequel. You get to choose a sports car for yourself. The driving feels nice and I often times found myself in a nice flow. It was a pleasure to spend those hours playing something like this.

Need For Speed Shift can be a pleasure for you to play if you enjoy single player driving and do enjoy playing still PS3 games. Today, I have, again, my PS3 connected to my 4K television. The graphics for me already seem a bit muddy. But if that doesn’t actually bother you you can enjoy these driving games. I have recently played some PS3 games. One of them was Resistance 3. I also actually read a book related to this title. I discussed this booka and Resistance 3 in an earlier blog post. If you think you would enjoy reading my old post just try and find it. It was written some weeks earlier.

What more do I have to say this time? I try not to write too long blog posts. I have had this as a bit of a habit of mine that I end up writing very long texts. This happens also in other forms that I do write. It happens even with some music lyrics that I also do write. I write them in Finnish but this blog is completely written in English. So, without further conversation we must stop here for this time and for this blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

Mafia: The Old Country

Posted on by Viljami

I just finished Mafia – The Old Country. I played it for about 12 hours which is also the length of this game on “How Long To Beat” website. This time it was natural to follow the plot and i is actually a huge part of the whole experience that Mafia – The Old Country offers. I am not going to spoil the plot but it builds on romance and personal story of the main character of this game. I liked this game. It is also the only Mafia game in this series that I have played through.

The gameplay offers fighting (with knives and guns), conversations and a bit of driving around on horses and cars. A car means here something very old since the game takes place in the beginning of 1900s. Knife battles are challenging and you have to time your moves, swinging the knife and trying to dodge your enemy’s attempts to hit you, very well. When it comes to guns I found out that shotgun, preferably the pump-action one, that can have more ammo loaded, was my favorite weapon. You can actually hit your target from a very long distance. It is also a bit easier to hit if compared to the basic rifle that is also available, at least at times. You can also use the rifle if you want to hit even targets that are a bit more far away from you.

The graphics in Mafia – The Old Country are beautiful. The catchy accent of the characters feels just right. I found myself, as awkward it may seem, babbling the dialogue to myself in this italic accent. So, I have to say that the voice acting is in a good form in this game. It is a big budget game after all. I bought the digital copy of this game and played it on my Xbox Series X. I didn’t even have to think about any performance issues which in my opinion is a good thing. The digital copy had a price of about 50 euros.

I really don’t have the option here to compare this game to some earlier games in the Mafia series. This was the first game of this series that I ever have played. I think we can talk a while about other games in this series. The first game was released already in 2002. The series has also games Mafia II and III. The second  game was released in 2010 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. The third game in this series was released in 2016 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. There has also been a game called Mafia – Definitive Edition that was released in 2020. It was a remake. There is also a collection named Mafia – Trilogy. It was released in the same year that the remake was.

What did Mafia – The Old Country have to offer for me as a gamer? The story was immersive. You start as a young mine worker and advance to a mafioso. There is also the love story involved between Isabella and the main character, Enzo. I am not going to reveal the ending. The plot is important in this game. If you enjoy the plot I think you should choose a lower difficulty setting. If you prefer fighting, with knives and guns, you should pick a more challenging difficulty level. You might also want to first finish the game and then increase the difficulty level and play it once more. There are also lots of collectible items that you can try to find as you progress in the game. I found Mafia – The Old Country to be a comfortably enjoyable game that is well worth its 50 euros price. The game is of course available as a physical copy. Its just a matter of which format you prefer. The choice is yours to make.