Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

My Current Tiny Collection of NES Games

Posted on by Viljami

I didn’t have a Nintendo Entertainment System when I was a child. It didn’t prevent me from getting my hands to this console. I remember that at least two of my friends from school had this gaming system. We played Super Mario and Mega Man just to name a few of my favorites. This nostalgic feeling is the reason I started collecting NES games.

I have a retro gaming console that can handle NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy and Master System game cartridges. That’s right. I play my 80s and 90s retro games from real physichal cartridges. I have used also emulators on different computers, including Raspberry Pi, but I find it satisfying to play my retro games the way that I do.

I have also an original NES controller that I use while I play NES games. Let’s get to my collection. I have 12 NES games. I have been collecting games of this game console for about three years. That’s when I got the first game of this system.

The first game in this collection was Super Mario Bros. 3. It is in my opinion maybe the best game and definitely the best platformer game for this legendary gaming system. If you look carefully to this image we have here you can find that I have Double Dragon 1 and 2, Big Foot, Gremlins 2, Kid Ikarus, Gradius, The Adventure of Link, Tetris, Total Recall, Ice Climber and Gauntlet 2.

There are still some games I would like to buy and add to my collection. Some of these games are Mega Man, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario 1 and 2, Punch Out, Probotector and some others that just don’t come to mind right now. There are also many great games that I don’t even yet know about. I have imagined that I would some day get a CRT television that would enable me to play shooter games like Duck Hunt. There are also some very good shooters for PlayStation 1.

How much have I paid for these games. I think the most expensive from these games is the Zelda game. It cost me 80 euros. I just had to buy it. This game is a bit rare so I was lucky to even have an opportunity to buy it. I buy my NES games usually from different game shops. Sometimes I find a game from flee market. Because of corona I haven’t been to flee markets a lot lately but this I know is going to change. The cheapest games in this collection are somewhere around 15 euros.

So for this small collection you can probably spend something from 300 euros to 500 euros. I suggest that if you are going to play your NES games also and not just collect them just buy them like two or three games at a time. This way you can enjoy playing them. I think one of the most important ways to enjoy games that bring you nostalgia is to just give them enough time. You can definitely spend two to three hours for one game. You can also try to complete them. To this day I haven’t been able to beat Super Mario Bros 3. I have spent lot of time in trying to do so.

I think you have already some good ideas for starting to collect NES cartridges to your own collection. Buying retro games can also be a way to invest your money in case you become financially challenged some day. There are lots of collectors out there. I almost forgot one good title and that is the first Final Fantasy. This is a one rare game. Also some NES games are very expensive today. You can see a game that costs several hundreds of euros or even more than that.

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.