Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

All PS3 Racing Games (That I Own)

Posted on by Viljami

Today I started first playing a game for PlayStation 3. This game was Castlevania – Lords of Shadow. I played for some time. I had an idea of a new blog post about some of my favorite games for PS3. I thought about racing games because these are my favorite type of games. I remember many good games that can be said to be in this category.

First I thought that I would like to introduce all my driving games for PS3. I started picking up these games. Suddenly I understood that there were many titles that weren’t so good. I didn’t spend time with them so much. Some titles I had bought from flee markets and I haven’t played them at all. So there is a wide variety of games introduced here. I decided to write a paragraph of every driving or racing game that I currently own. So, here we go.

First in this pile of racing games is Test Drive Unlimited 2. I remember that I was excited about this game when I first got it. Test Drive is a classic and retro type of a game that was released for PC back in the day. However, I didn’t enjoy this game so much. I was actually a bit short of money and I thought twice about even buying this game.

Next we have Dirt 3. It is the third game in a series of Colin McRae Rally Dirt games. This is a very good rally game. I played it for so many hours. I also got my first experience of a setup that I used a racing wheel and pedals. This game I can definitely recommend.

Then there’s Ridge Racer 7. I am sorry for the picture is a bit dark and I can actually barely see the title of the game in this picture. This game is more of an arcade racing game but don’t let that fool you. There’s lots of stuff in there if you play this game. The feel of driving is very different than in any other racing game.

Need for Speed – Undercover is one these games that I’ve found from flee market. Actually I think I have never even launched this game with my PS3. I think it is a typical NFS game that get released so so often. So I don’t have a much to say about this.

Gran Turismo 5 is the first Gran Turismo game that was released for PS3. I played this for some time but I didn’t like it that much. It is a decent game but I think Gran Turismo 6 and 7 are better and of course Gran Turismo 4 might be the best out of all games in the series.

Colin McRae Dirt is a very nice rally game. I think Dirt 3 is still better. I just liked it more. Dirt 3 has also a very nice soundtrack. There is also a second Dirt game for PS3 but I only have it for Xbox 360 and not for PS3.

I really liked Burnout 3 Takedown. So I was anxious to buy this new Burnout game back in the day. And this game was Burnout Paradise. It has a funny soundtrack. That’s where the title of the game comes from. It had a huge open world of diffeerent kinds of roads and goals. I didn’t play this game so much.

Need for Speed Shift is a game that I was practically addicted to back in 2010 and 2011 when this game was actually the best racing, at least in my opinion, game that was available. Very nice game. In can definitely recommend this one if you like this genre.

F1 2011 was sort of an update to F1 2010. I never played this game. I didn’t buy it when it was actually first released. I got it many years later from flee market for very cheap price. Might be a good game. I don’t have anything more to say about it. Maybe I have some day time to get into it. Well, there are some newer F1 titles available so I will probably not.

This is a bit longer post than what I usually write. But it’s a nice subject. So, lets move on to the next game of this pile of racing games. And it is Shift 2 Unleashed. It is a sequel to the first Shift game. I found this game to be very enjoyable. And you can figure why I went and bought this sequel. Because I of course liked the first game so much.

F1 2010 begun a series of high quality F1 games. It was a decent game. I just didn’t play it all the way through. It offers a variety of difficulty. I tried this game also with wheel and pedals. This is a nice game. I can recommend it if you are into this genre and platform.

Last, and maybe the least, heh, is a game titled Formula One – Championship Edition. I think this cost me three euros. So, what the heck…why wouldn’t I pick this up. I remember that the disc was in a decent condition. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bought this one. And…I never have played this game.

There you go. We just went through all racing games for PS3 that I currently own. And, I almost forgot one game. That is Gran Turismo 6. I just played this recently so it wasn’t directly on my shelf. It is a very good game and you should play it.

Diving Even Deeper to Master System

Posted on by Viljami

Yesterday I got Bubble Bobble for Master System. I was lucky to find it directly from one of the best gaming shops that I often buy retro games from. It did cost a bit. It was 75 euros. But, you know, I had to buy it. I also got Soulcalibur II for GameCube. That’s the fighting game that you can play as Link from  Zelda.

I first encountered Bubble Bobble as a child. I played it on a PC. It was a good game. I really liked it. It would have been nice to have a controller back then. I played with a regular keyboard as I did then with any game. We had some sort of a joystick but it was wack to play with it. It’s been a long time. You start to think how nice things are today. We have lots of variety in gamepads that can be connected to any PC with a USB or even with some kind of a dongle and wireless.

This game originally got released in the 1980s. This Master System version, however, was released as late as 1991. This gives you the correct idea that Master System had many fans. It was an 8-bit gaming system but even in 90s when game consoles were developing fast it held its position as a favorite game console for some gamers.

It is said that this version of Bubble Bobble is the best one. It was released also for Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and PC. This simple game delivers great game play. It even gives you some minor puzzle type challenges. You might have to figure how to get to the upper corners of the level. You have to think different ways to get rid of enemies that are also trying to hurt you.

You get two health points which get increased if you get some more points. You get points by eating different delicacies. I think these are placed almost randomly to the level you are playing. After you have gotten rid of all enemies you have some seconds of time to eat everything you can grasp. Then you have to move on to the next level. There are over 100 levels. I am currently somewhere in level number 40.

You get to continue your play session in a mean of password system. This works pretty well. You can always start the game also from beginning. You have to understand Master Systems limitations. This also makes me think about some remakes. I am not aware of any good remakes as I am writing this. But I definitely have to search for one and find out if there is one.

The screen doesn’t scroll like it does in some games like Super Mario Bros. So this game is not a platformer type of a game. Basic idea is to trap enemies inside of a bubble that shoots out of the main characters mouth. I guess it’s a some sort of a fantasy dragon that you are actually playing as. The gameplay is very nice. This is very good game. While it doesn’t make you play tens of hours without a single break it gives you a challenge for an hour or so at a time. You can play it for some hours but I found myself playing it for about one hour without breaks and then leaving the game for a while just to come back to play it later.

This is clearly the best gaming that Master System can offer. I had some difficulties with the hardware. It makes me want to start playing with a PC and emulator. I even have a matching USB game pad. It is a controller that looks and feels like a Sega Saturn controller. If just there would be some way to digitize legally all these retro games that I own. Then I would definitely switch to playing with emulators. There is this idea of retro games sometime in the future being kind of “public domain”. It think this is already the case with Commodore 64 games and maybe even some of these DOS games. You have to keep up with this progress, you know!

My Tiny Collection of Sega Master System Games

Posted on by Viljami

I have an adapter that can bring me to games of the game system that was originally released before Mega Drive. This gaming console is Sega Master System. It wasn’t the first console that was manufactured by Sega. It was although something that could be a challenge for Nintendo Entertainment System. NES was released in 1983. Some years later Master System was released.

The complete game library of Sega Master System has a bit over 300 games. Mega Drive was strongly advertised to be a 16-bit system. Master System is a 8-bit system. It sold something from 10 to 13 million units worldwide. After all this was not enough for Sega that wanted to dominate the markets. The sligt failure of Master System caused Sega to really invest in the development of Mega Drive.

What am I playing my Master System games with? Well, I have a Retro Trio console that I can play Mega Drive games with. Already some years ago I was lucky to spot an adapter that enables you to play Master System games on a Mega Drive. It was also cheap but very difficult to find from any game shop or even elctronics web shop.

I have collected for Master System already some time. About a month ago I bought three more games for it. I already had this game that features Mickey Mouse. The game is titled Castle of Illusion. It’s a fun platformer type of a game. Three other games are Wonder Boy, Super Space Invaders and Psycho Fox.

It has to be said that if we make a comparison between NES and MS and think about all games that were released NES has more of them. In fact NES has about two times more games than MS. This is of course clear since NES was such a popular system back in the 80s and especially before the release of its serious competitor Sega MD. In fact it is said that back in 1988 Nintendo held 83 percentage of the video game market (in North America alone).

The latest addition to my Sega MS collection will be Bubble Bobble. I have ordered it but it hasn’t yet arrived (that’s why it isn’t in the featured image of this blog post). Bubble Bobble is an exciting game and it was released in the 80s for several gaming systems. It was released also for PC, C-64 and  NES. You can probably right now hear the theme music already playing if you are familiar with this game. This game is familair to me and I was introduced to it in the form of a PC game. I used to play it a lot when I was a kid. Today, I enjoy more the console version because I can use a game pad to play it. It is said also that the MS version was the best.

I can recommend any of these MS games if you got interested. These four games weren’t actually so expensive. Psycho Fox was 40 euros. Other games were something below 30 euros. Bubble Bobble was a bit more expensive. It cost me 75 euros. I have seen these prices going up a bit in last five years or so. Retro games seem to have a higher price today as this hobby seems to be popular.