Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Some Other Gaming Blogs and News Feeds

Posted on by Viljami

Gaming is a popular topic. So there are lots of posts on many different gaming news feeds and blogs. This blog post is going to give you a view of some of my favorite sources of information that I use to be aware of the most current news concerning playing video games. Here we go!

There are many sources of information. Sometimes I watch a YouTube video and sometimes I find something interesting from Instagram or Facebook. This text is handling only blogs and other news sources. I am going to explain what is RSS feed and what is my favorite Feed Reader. I am going to give you some names and titles but I keep straight links out of this blog post. I am giving you an advice of where to find information but I think this blog is still your number one source. Why would I want you to move from my blog to another with a direct link?

I usually find my information from Feedly. You can get to know this powerful tool too. Just type feedly dot com and you will get to the login page. You can login with Google or Facebook or you can create your own username and password for feedly. You can search for different RSS feeds. Just to the menu that is on the left and select “Follow Websites…”. You can then add your favorite blogs that you discover. There is also a web app of feedly available.

Using feedly to read all your RSS feeds is my recommendation but it isn’t the only option available. You can track and search your feeds from anywhere on the web and just copy the link to their RSS feeds and add them to any RSS feed reader. I give some good suggestions of some of the blogs I follow. Some of these are in Finnish so I only give you ideas of blogs that I follow that are in English.

Mega Visions is a nice blog and also a website of a magazine. I don’t have a subscription but it is possible to get this magazine as a digital or a paper copy. Mega Visions provides news concerning especially SEGA games. Another feed I have in my list is a site called SEGA-16. It also concentrates on SEGA games as the heading title clearly indicates. I have also an interesting feed that I follow called The Psychology of Video Games. I also follow The Video Game Critic and VG247 which are very valuable resources for a gamer that wants to keep up to date with latest information.

The list goes on. I think I have also some feeds I follow on Facebook but lets get our listing from feedly to end. I follow also blogs: VGJUNK, that has stopped writing new posts but their older posts are readable, Wired.com gaming blog and RetroCollect. From Facebook some good sources are: Nintendo Life, PC Gamer, Indie Retro News, GT Planet and Gamerant. You can find more as you explore the contents and make searches through Facebook, Google and Feedly.

So I just gave you some, but not all, my sources. I definitely follow besides these lots of magazines written also in Finnish. I think there isn’t any direct magazine or blog that would give you all the information you need. So I think you must follow many different sources and make yourself a collection of RSS feeds or maybe links that you collect to some format. It makes it easier to follows the news that are most important to you. This was the post this time. I hope you learned something and got something out of reading this blog post.

My Favorite Coffee Mug

Posted on by Viljami

I usually start my day with a cup of coffee. In our home we have many different coffee mugs. Some are generic. Some have some meaning to them. For example a mug that says “Boss” would be perfect for a person in that position. The mug in this blog posts featured image is Fallout themed one. It reminds me of some good times I had back in the days playing the first and second game of this role-playing-game series.

I have also a PlayStation coffee mug. It is fun to have these kinds of mugs that are themed after some of my favorite subjects. My wife rarely drinks coffee from these mugs. So it’s also a sign of whose cup it was or is. These mugs seem to be very common as almost every game store has them. I have picked these mugs actually from supermarket. I don’t know if there are any left anymore as they seem to be very popular.

A mug like this costs a little under 15 euros, maybe 13 euros, or something like that. For me these products represent a bit of nostalgia. They are themed with these retro games that I liked to play or actually the PlayStation one represents a system I remember I played way back. I can hardly believe it has been already over 20 years. That’s how time progresses. And games do too.

If you think about PS1 and then think about PS2 and even PS3 you can definitely get the idea of how much there has been a progression. Although some things that were very meaningful to me then are still some of the most influential things I’ve had in my life. Of course there are big things in life but I will always remember how it was when I was a young teenager.

I am not going to tell you where to find these mugs. Here in Finland they have been popular for some time already. You can probably check your favorite game shop. I almost bought also a DOOM themed coffee mug. There was some variation to these themes. So if you pick up one you can have one that suits your nostalgic feelings the best.

Grand Theft Auto

Posted on by Viljami

Do you find the mindset of Grand Theft Auto a bit weird? You go around driving a car and you accidentally drive over a person. Oops. The next thing that goes on is police starting to chase you. So what do you do? It wouldn’t be GTA if you wouldn’t shoot all the cops coming after you. Next thing you know is military coming after you. Maybe you end up driving a tank.

This is all a reality in Grand Theft Auto. But did you know that this game wasn’t at first meant to be as violent and somewhat absurd? That is the case. They were developing something and as they were working they got the idea of how the game actually could turn out to be. This of course was something that was never done before.

The first GTA game was released in 1997. At this time gangsta rap was dominating musical entertainment. Games like Fallout were released. This harsh realism seemed to be the trend. Hopes for better technology were rising. And there was also a hope for better tomorrow through using latest technology.

GTA series definitely wasn’t a one hit wonder. The sequel was released in the end of 1990s. What really pushed the gaming industry forward was the release of GTA III for PlayStation 2. It provided the player a full open world experience of violence and stealing cars in the midst of completing different kinds of missions for gangster bosses. At its time this was something revolutionary.

This wasn’t however the end for this game series. It wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning. There were more games released. The first of them was GTA IV. It was a deep experience in this dark criminal world. This was followed some years after as GTA V was released. There were several remakes done for the fifth game. Now we are hearing some talk that there would be a sixth game coming to stores soon.

Grand Theft Auto manages to bring different aspects of gaming together. It has an open world to explore. The driving in this game has an important role. It takes influences from shooters also. So this game brings you a solid experince for almost any gamer not depending on what kinds of games you like to play. It is a very diverse experience in overall.

I have enjoyed playing GTA. I remember seeing it the first time back in 1997 being played on a PC. It has remained at its spot as one of the most popular games though the history of playing games. And I am hoping to see the sixth game also soon.