Easy to Get Into, Hard to Master

My original idea was to start playing just something on GameCube. I had already played Need for Speed Underground for a while. However my GameCube started to malfunction. So I turned to my Xbox 360. It is always a reliable option that you can actually run NFS UG 2 on. So I started playing a new game again without finishing something I had started. That made me wonder about what I am going to write about here today in this blog post.

Gaming systems can be expensive. Actually manufacturers sell their consoles at a lower price than they even spend producing them. This amount of money is gathered back through games that are sold. Gaming consoles enable gaming. Games bring game companies their money which then brings salaries to game designers and all the other people that are involved in the process.

People are buying games because they are attracted to them. They might find a remake or a sequel satisfying because they have played the original game. There is lots of consumers considering gaming to be a great hobby. Back in the 90s video games were thought to be for children. Now those persons that were playing video games as a child are grown ups. This is how the world changes. Today gaming is the biggest business in the world! Even movie and music industry aren’t as popular.

There is this kind of a formula that keeps coming up. You buy a game because you are interested in it. You have maybe read a review or two. You have seen the trailer and maybe a bit of game play. You buy the game, finally. You have start somewhere. This is when the game is easy. You spend lots of time trying to figure out how to control the character or interact in some other way. You are trying to figure how to play the game.

Then you start to really get into the game. You start figuring out how to succeed and process in the game. There are harder parts. There are easier parts. You might have to check something from YouTube or some other source. You might have to read a chapter of walk through. If possible you try to figure out and solve the problem you are facing in the game by yourself.

After all you have played the game for several hours. Maybe three hours, maybe ten hours or maybe several tens of hours. Some games, like for me, NBA 2K22, you have to spend hundreds of hours. Today I have played over 100 hours of this notorious basketball game. And I feel that I haven’t yet mastered it. I haven’t completed it like 100 percentage. It takes a lot of time to master a game.

So this is the way games draw you into them. But what do you do when you get stuck or the game becomes only a source of frustration? Do you abandon the game you have only some weeks or days ago bought? Well, that is sometimes the case. You change the game that you are playing. Because you feel it hasn’t got anything to give to you anymore. Today there are more and more games that are like this.

Expectations for a game have risen. Maybe you could be satisfied even more if you would spend more time on more better game? How could you find out what game you end up palying for hundred hours instead of buying many games, like tens of games, that you only play for two hours? That’s a tough question. And the stakes are, as you can imagine, very high. I have in recent years bought only some, maybe five or even less, new games in a year.

What is a possible solution and also my humble tip for you gamers? Here it is. Buy new games just some weeks after releasing. Then you can find out if they are full of bugs. Also their price will come down quickly even if they are popular games. You can also buy good but old games. You dive deep into retro gaming and find games you never thought even existed. nd always compare the price of a new game.

The Enemy of My Dear Hobby

Where should I begin. Firstly I must admit that I am frustrated with this issue. GameCube seems to be very popular retro gaming system right now. It has been maybe six moths that I bought this console. GameCube was released in 2002 in Europe. So this console might be 20 years old. Who knows, exactly?

Of course the hardware has its limitations. It would be much nicer if I could just rip the games that I have to a rom file and install for example Batocera or some other Linux OS to any computer that meets the system requirements to play these GameCube games. Currently there is no solution like this. There is nobody selling any kind of hardware to ripping your roms to be used by you only…and you already own these games!

Small gaming stores have a responsibility. But that responsibility for me is very limited. I understand that they can only give you a guarantee of one or maybe three months. But where are the experts that are able to repair these old gaming consoles?

What is my issue here? The answer is that my GameCube refuses to handle game discs properly. I have already cleaned the disc reader very carefully. I did that once. After that the console worked just fine…for maybe an hour! I have also unplugged the power and AV cables and plugged them in again. This also makes GameCube do something but it clearly isn’t the right solution.

This is the same problem I had also with my original Xbox and my older PS2. Both of these machines are out of use and I am keeping them in a storage right now. These consoles are definitely of a low quality. If you compare these devices to for example my Xbox 360 or my PSOne you definitely get the picture.

These problems make me think once again if its really comfortable to spend so much effort to getting an old physical device to run your retro games on. It makes me, and maybe even you, consider buying some newer hardware. But why, oh why, aren’t there a solution here for us retro heads? Why can’t you make a new GameCube mini console? Or maybe a device that we could rip our games to another device or computer?

GameCube is right now a popular device. For a while ago I also bought a HDMI adapterto my GameCube. There are plenty of games available right now. Prices of these games are also high. There seems to be a certain appeal to this system. And I defionitely would like to play these types of games.

We are desperately waiting for Nintendo or maybe some other party to release a better console for playing the games of this system. I can guarantee that it would make you some money. And please…make it available also in where I live and that is of course, Finland.

The State of Final Fantasy Series in 2002

Only some days ago I got a copy of Final Fantasy VI. I do have all other FF games that were released for the first PlayStation. These games are VII, VIII and IX. And also one game that I don’t actually own is Final Fantasy Tactics.

There has always been a sense of strategy in FF games. They also offer you a nice and long story and the ability to develop your character or even characters. I have this habit of not giving a name for a new character and to go with the name that is as default. That way you can have a discussion on a certain character if you have a friend that also plays these role playing games. I love also chocobos…if you don’t know what they are you propably haven’t played FF as much as some of us have.

I first got into FF as I got Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation back in the end of 90s. I really liked the game. It was maybe two years old when I got the game but it still had a lot to offer. This makes me, again, to think how stupid for me it was to sell my PS1 and all the games I had. It was actually the summer of 2000 that I finished FF VII. I had a long vacation in that summer. I was just about to start in high school and I did actually in the fall of year 2000.

Final Fantasy has its roots in NES and also SNES. The first FF game was released for NES. There were some games released for SNES. Back in 2002 when FF VI was brought to PS1 there was already a new PlayStation console available for gamers. It features graphics that make you think very strongly that this is actually a SNES game ported to PS1 that can also be played with PS2. My edition actually holds a  playable demo disc for PS2 that has Final Fantasy X in it.

What was going on with this title back in 2002? We had already seen many FF games for PS1. FF X was to be soon released. It was the first FF game that had an audio dialogue. All of the earlier games of this series’s dialogues were only in text format. It seems that releasing also FF VI brought something more for the fans of this series. It also brought some money for the developers of this game.

I have only started playing this game. It seems to be very good RPG. I don’t mind if the graphics are simple. I haven’t played so much FF games on SNES. So, graphics are just fine. You do need a PS1 memory card, if you are playing this with PS2. The game actually fits on only one CD. I know that FF VIII was delivered in a package of 3 or 4 discs.