Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Moving Slowly Towards Wirelessness

Posted on by Viljami

Wireless controllers have been around already for a long time. I have been a bit slow in utilizing them. I first encountered this issue back when PS3 was the most powerful PlayStation console. The battery life wasn’t so great back then. I went and bought two three meter long cables for my two Dual Shock 3 controllers so I wouldn’t have to charge them all the  time. If there were some practical charging stations I am sure that I didn’t have one back then.

Back in 2014 I removed PS3 from my setup completely and replaced it with PS4. As you can probably imagine I didn’t have any retro consoles or at least I didn’t include them to my setup. I have talked about this earlier in some other posts in this blog so I am not going to go through this again.

So I got a PS4 that had a wireless controller. I wanted also this new Dual Shock 4 controller to transform into a wired type of device. I used the cable that I already had and bought an adapter. I had to do this since Dual Shock 3 had a different connector than this new Dual Shock 4 controller. This however wasn’t enough and I went and bought another three meters long cable. The point here is that I didn’t like wireless controllers.

I got many retro consoles. But I didn’t get a new latest console until I bought Xbox Series S. This was in 2021. It had a very good wireless controller. I was still a bit unconfortable with it being wireless. For a long time I had a cable for this controller. It was only when I got a good charging station that also had modified lids for battery slot and also two batteries with it that I got really into using wireless controllers.

If you read my last blog post you already know I got a Pro Controller for my Nintendo Switch yesterday. It is wireless. It came with a short charging cable. The first thing I did was that I charged it. It takes six hours for it to charge fully. I am trying to use it mainly as a wireless controller.

The controller feels nice. As mentioned earlier it doesn’t have those annoying trigger buttons at the back of the controller. I played some NBA 2K with it. If there would be some good quality charging station for this controller I would have a use for it. I haven’t found one at least not yet.

Many retro consoles do have wired controllers. For a younger gamer it might seem odd that I am so used to playing video games with a wired controller. There is also a one difference in Pro Controller of Switch and the one that is for Series S and X. That is that Xbox’s controller has a removable battery which makes it more modifiable compared to the Pro Controller. Also PS4 and PS3 controllers don’t have a removable battery in them. I haven’t opened a controller like this so I don’t actually know if the battery can be somehow be replaced.

This was once again such an interesting topic and I wanted to write about it. So, thanks for reading and have a very merry Christmas my Dear Reader!

Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch

Posted on by Viljami

I got myself a Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch. I first played with joycons and then got a cheap wired controller but since I wanted to get the best possible gamepad and not pay too much of it I made my decision. The controller cost 70 euros. I also bought Grand Theft Auto 2 for PlayStation. I got my package just some hours ago.

I connected my new controller to my Switch with a cable that was included. It isn’t a long one. It takes six hours for the battery to charge fully. The controller feels nice. You don’t have to worry about hitting accidentially these trigger buttons that my old controller had. It was a bit frustrating to have those buttons and they were only making things difficult. I kept pushing them for a long time but got used to them a bit. I didn’t find them to be practical.

So this is a licensed Nintendo Switch product. Even if it’s already 2022 Nintendo keeps assuring the quality of devices produced for its hardware. This was one of those actions that led to video gaming becoming popular again back in the 1980s after Atari effed up almost everything. If you don’t know what I am talking about we can make it clear. I am talking about the video game recession that happened because there were too many games released and a lot of them were of poor quality. You can probably once again use your favorite search engine to find information about this.

I am going to try this controller after it has charged fully. How do I like Nintendo Switch compared to Xbox Series X or PC (those are the only “new” game consoles I have)? The screen resolution isn’t comfortable in Switch. There are however lots of games released for it that aren’t released on any other console. I really like Switch because it enables playing in handheld mode. I have regretted about buying Switch lite two years ago. Currently I don’t have use for it.

There is just something charismatic in Nintendos whole brand. I mean that this is the company that brought us Nintendo  Entertainment System some decades ago. Nintendo Switch was released in 2017. It has been almost six years now. There have been rumours already about the new Nintendo console. While we are still not ready to see it there is always a possibility for a gamer to get a Switch. Currently available are Switch, Switch OLED that has a price tag that is a bit higher and of course there is Switch Lite that works only in handheld mode and cannot be connected to a televeision but is also much cheaper.

Why would you buy a Nintendo device? Because it keeps amazing us gamers. There are always new games released for new gamers and also for those that have been Nintendo fans for several tens of years. I highly recommend Nintendo to all those players that want to know more about video games.

Why Am I a SEGA Person?

Posted on by Viljami

Sega was my key to this whole video gaming hobby. I think it was 1993 when I got my Sega Mega Drive. I played a lot of it. This was of course making me not to play so much NES, SNES and even later Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Lately I have tried to catch up on Nintendo’s retro stuff. I have even studied some Game Boy games.

Nothing created such a rage inside me than a Mega Drive game that I was trying to beat. You can say that Mega Drive games are a bit repetitive in their nature so you had to be perfect on a try and if you failed you had to start all over again until you eventually would run out of lives and after that continues. Yeah. We didn’t have lots of memory for saved games back then.

Sega also made me to be angry to my mates that were playing some Streets of Rage 2 with me in collaboration mode. It became aggresive so suddenly. As I was playing with my brother we had many arguments. We were told that we took the game too seriously. We were separated and we both couldn’t play Mega Drive for that day anymore. This made me think even when I was a small ten-year-old child. And I didn’t take it so seriously. There was just something about how Sega made players a bit frustrated. I think that is some of the appeal of this franchise.

After Sega my life with Nintendo’s gaming products was again pushed towards later times because it happened that I bought a Sony PlayStation in 1997. This of course made me distant also to Sega Saturn. I have only lately been again interested in it. As PlayStation had real 3D games I thought it would absolutely have so much more to offer compared to Saturn. This thinking has changed, maybe just this year, and I have been interested in Saturns games which aren’t actually so much 3D games but it has some very interesting titles that Sony doens’t have.

So these choices made me to play certain games. Today I understand that the variety of different and good or decent game titles are from many different consoles and every consoles have at least some good or decent games be it that many of the best games are released on certain systems. This makes me definitely interested in exclusives. And this interest hasn’t faded when it comes to modern consoles.

What I was essentially missing a lot as a child were mainly NES, SNES and Game Boy titles. Later I missed some Saturn titles and N64 and GameCube titles. I also didn’t ever get a Dreamcast. So what caught my attention was first Sega and then Sony. Did I follow Sony a lot? Maybe not. I never had a PS2. Can you think about this? I hardly can.

All in all we can say that there are for all of us these gaming consoles that brought us to the hobby or maybe to some to the profession. It is your own curiosity that makes you want to dig deep and try to discover some old games that you haven’t yet played. And this is also what makes video gaming interesting.