Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Impact of Final Fantasy VII

Posted on by Viljami

There has been many Final Fantasy VII remakes, be it HD or some other, but the fact remains and that is that it was first released in 1997 for the first Sony PlayStation. My experiences with these types of games begun when it was the end of the 90s and I picked up this role-playing-game. Graphics were fascinating. There was also a lot to play. The game came packaged in three CDs.

It also took some time to complete this game. I remember playing it for well over a hundred hours. There was lots of discussion and dialogue in this game. In remember reading carefully every conversation and still failing to deeply understand the plot in overall. I am not going to go throught the plot som deeply here.

Characters of this game are very relatable. You can name the character as you want butI found it funnier to keep their names as they were. You have, of course, Cloud, that is the main character. There is also a romance between two of the characters. Sephiroth is the main bad guy in this game. Also, chocobos are introduced.

The gameplay works in a kind of a turn-based way. Combat works this way. You have to keep close eye to your health points of all your characters. For me it worked well to have a sort of a healer in the group and also one or two characters that could cast some effective spells that you could attack against your enemies. I found it effective to keep Cloud fighting with his sword and maybe learn a spell or two.

If you haven’t ever played Final Fantasy I have to tell you how it basically works. You get to towns and cities from a world map. When moving you are getting randomly into a fighting scene. You have to defeat your enemies that are also randomly selected. You get experience points that give you more health and mana and so on. This is very different than the way that action RPGs like Diablo function.

For many consumers in Europe this game was the introduction to games like Final Fantasy. The first Final Fantasy game was released for NES. Then there were several released games for SNES. But actually FF VII was the game that made a real break through in Europe. So, FF VI got also released for PS1. I wrote about FF VI a while ago. Its graphics don’t actually differ much from what is seen on SNES.

PS1 was the gaming console that made PS1 even more popular and also acceptable for adults also to play video games. As CD-ROM was beginning to be used there was a powerful way to represent longer and better looking games that appealed to older people. Video games weren’t kids stuff anymore. There were many other games also that made this break through possible. I am talking about games like Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo and maybe also Colin McRae Rally. These games will remain in my memory bank for the rest of my life. And its cool that I can get to play them anytime I want.

Some Thoughts About a Book

Posted on by Viljami

There was a huge clearance at a very popular mall in Helsinki some weeks ago. I didn’t find anything except two books. The first one was about games and how they shape you and your personality. The another, in which I am not going to go so deeply in, was about astronomy. But I will tell you a bit about this book about gaming. I have read the book. It was written in Finnish and I don’t know if it is going to be translated or is translated. Anyways, I will write about it.

The book is written by Aleksandr Manzos. I hadn’t heard of him earlier and this was first book of his that I have read. I haven’t even read any of his articles. There is a note on the back of this book that introduces him as a journalist and especially some sort of a gaming expert. He has written many books. The book basically tells a story of how video games have made an effect to Manzos throughout his life.

The name, “Pelattu elämä – miten pelit tekivät minusta minut”, can be translated, a bit freely thought, into “how gaming formed me and/or changed my life”. There is a kind of a wordplay here also that cannot be easily translated. “Pelattu” means “played” and “pilattu” means “spoiled”, so he has changed that one letter right there in that word and he is making a slight joke there.

The book begins with a story about Fallout. You might know this role-playing game. So you get to choose your gender. And Manzos makes very clear that he likes to pick a female character instead of a male one. He then explains how he likes to play as a female. He likes to pretend that he is a she. He continues to talk about this and explains that this doesn’t affect his sexual orientation and he says he is a straight person in that way. He just likes sometimes to be a cute person just like the picture besides his note in the book that introduces him shows.

There are lots of topics that are dealt with in this book. There is lots of thought about the characters in games and how you in a way empathize with them. Manzos writes about video games in the 90s. He is born in 1988 so he is about the same age as I am and there are lots of same influences in games that I can share with him. He talks about Final Fantasy VII and how it brought FF series to European gamers. There is lots of history that he explains in this book. The reader gets to think about worlds of different games from shmups to roleplaying and also to Tetris and Mass Effect.

I have to admit that it was a bit awkward to first read about how Manzos felt about playing as a female character. It was a sort of thing that you have to process a bit. I enjoyed reading this book. I think this writer has many interesting thoughts about games and personality all in all. I kind of have to give him props for his attitude on his personality. I am a bit lame about this matter. I have enjoyed playing as a macho male character in many games. Maybe that isn’t always how people want to present themselves. And it is now crystal clear to me that he is truthful in a way that he even gets to talk about sexuality. This is a sensitive subject. It is easy to misunderstand someone that has opinions in this matter. There are so many people in the world and I think they are all unique.

There are lots of books about games and gaming available worldwide. I have a privilege to live in a country in which language this kind of a material gets published. There are also many journalists that also have a privilege to write about games here in Finland. One other writer whose books I really like is Juho Kuorikoski and he has written many good books. As I don’t know if this particular book is going to be released in English I don’t know what this blog post has to give to an international English speaking game fan. I wanted to write something about this book. It was an interesting read.

Won The Championship, Finally

Posted on by Viljami

First of all, I have to say that I have played this game a lot. I am talking about NBA2K22. This was my fourth full season that I played with my player. I have worked with this game for about 140 hours. That’s a long time for a sports game. But you know how NBA2K games tend to be. So, it’s not a big surprise.

My player is a small forward. I have had in previous NBA2K games a player that was a shooting guard. I have also tried to play as a point guard and also as a center. I don’t really remember if I have already created a power forward. My main skill as this player was scoring. I wasn’t so good at shooting three-pointers. Well, I was decent, after all. I didn’t also have so much height. This made me not to get so many rebounds even if I was positioned well to grab the ball.

I really like NBA2K series. I previously finished, some years ago, NBA2K14. This was the one that I finished as a shooting guard. I have played also several other NBA2K games with PS4, Switch, PS3 and now with my PC. This game brings the most realistic and entertaining basketball out of, I think, all basketball games released, ever. Well, I have to say that NBA Jam holds a special place in my hearth.

As an addition I too have a background in playing basketball. I played for seven years in a competitive level. We had a good team. Eventually things got very serious. It was also tough to study in high school. I had very tight schedule. It also doesn’t pay your bills if you only play basketball. So after many glorious, so to say, years in a hobby, I decided to quit playing basketball. I haven’t played in a team since then. And it’s been over 20 years since I quit. But, I do have some knowledge and you can say that I am a big fan of basketball in many ways. I even have had some plans to make a basketball simulation strategy game but that would be another topic for another blog post, I think.

I have a Xbox One Elite Pad and I played this time this game with my PC.  I am a bit dissatisfied with my current display. My computer has a powerful graphics processor and it gives a clear 4K picture. It would give if I had a sharper screen. Why am I still playing with a Full HD display? The main reason is that my work station fits only a 22 inch screen. And the other is the price. You might have to spend several hundreds of euros for a 4K display. I think it is soon time for me to buy a new Xbox Series S/X controller for my PC. I am going to buy a regular controller instead of a new Elite pad. I might write something about it in the future.

So I kind of completed my journey inside NBA2K22. Actually, I have already bought NBA2K23. So things are looking like I am going to play some more basketball, soon. I have thought about also some other games that I would like to get into. I have thought about starting to play Space Quest series and especially the third one in the series. I finished Space Quest II back in the day. This is the only Space Quest I have finished. It would make sense and it would be very interesting.