Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Some Thoughts About PS3

Posted on by Viljami

What PS3 means to me as a gamer? It was originally released as early as 2006. It’s toughest competitor was Xbox 360. It was released in 2005. PS3 isn’t the newest gaming console today but you can only admire how long it has been a proper gaming system for many gamers around the world. It has been here for so long time. And it seems it has still something to give.

I first got introduced to PS3 in 2008. I remember that one of the first games I got for it was Final Fantasy XIII. I was already a big fan of this RPG series. It was only natural to get the latest Final Fantasy game. I soon got to play many different games. I really enjoyed all the racing games on PS3. I remember the summer of 2011. I played every day. I had a long holiday as I was studying in School of Applied Sciences. I definitely enjoyed Need For Speed Shift one and two.

Controllers of PS3 were wireless but I had to get a cable for them that was three meters long. I didn’t like using gamepads wireless since they ran out of current too fast. PS3 was my only gaming console back then. I mean I had still somewhere in storage my Sega Mega Drive but I wasn’t going to play it for a long period of time. It was years later, maybe in 2017, that I started to sketch my plans for my current corner in our house that would be dedicated for gaming.

I got a PS4 in 2014. Back the I was excited about the new system. I had to realize a bit later that I wanted also to play older consoles. First I got an original Xbox and after some time I got a PS2 also. That was also when I decided to connect also my Mega Drive to my television again. When we moved to our current home I bought a small bookshelf for all the gaming systems I then had. I have to write about that also someday. But PS3 was there for me for a long time. And it’s lifetime inside my small gaming corner isn’t about to end any time soon.

So PS3 had some awesome driving games. Colin McRae Dirt and its sequels and all of the Need For Speed games were among those games. You could enjoy NBA 2K. This posts featured picture captured some of my games from my collection for PS3. You can check almost any of these games and you wouldn’t be disappointed. I do have also some more games. It’s not hard to find a good game to play on a PS3.

PS3 today doesn’t cost a much. The price depends a bit of the model you are going to buy. Some PS3s are even backwards compatible with PS2. I think all PS3s are compatible with PS1 games. Technology althought has advanced. You won’t get the latest graphics out of this system. But you have to think that it has been 16 years since this console was released.

The meaning of PS3 is significant. I encourage you to get into some PS3 games. Also, today it is possible to run a PS3 emulator if you have a powerful enough computer that you can use for this. Okay. Maybe I’ll end this post by listing some of more of my favorite games for PS3. Here they are. Max Payne 3, Hitman Absolution, Alice – Madness Returns, Splatterhouse, Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 3 and F3AR, NBA 2K14, just to name a few.

What the Heck is MAME (and Why Should I Care)?

Posted on by Viljami

You might remember video games like they were in the 1980s or 1990s or even earlier. Games were mainly played in arcades. You had a device that looked like a large cabinet that had on one side a large screen and some controls like joystick and some buttons. You might have some other controls also, like a wheel and pedals or maybe a light gun that you could point to the screen. I mean, who doesn’t recognize a character like Pacman or a game as familiar to you as Pong. Do you know Asteroids? These all were first playable back in the days in arcades.

If you are a young person you probably haven’t been to a real arcade. This experience however left a permanent mark in my memories. It might have been the pizza restaurant that had a Pacman game in it. It might have been the supermarket that had Street Fighter II in it. It might have been one of those gas stations our family visited as we were driving to country side to meet the rest of the family. It definitely happened when I was in a realm actual arcade playing some Mortal Kombat with some friends. As a kid from the 80s I couldn’t have missed this.

Even if you have never been in an arcade you can still find some really nice games to play that were originally made to be played in an arcade. We actually have an open source application called MAME that is short from “Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator”. You can install it to a Linux or Windows PC. For you to play a game you also need a rom file. As you can expect I cannot post a link here to any rom file because of these legal issues. But you can look up some videos about MAME from YouTube or you can also search for games to see what kind of games it is possible to play on MAME.

There are problems if you really want to play games with an emulator like this. Capcom released some time ago a Home Arcade console that featured 16 games and some controls for two players. It can be connected to a display with HDMI. I am actually a bit reflective because there are so few commercial products available. And MAME could be a good personal project for someone looking to build something out of a basic PC with a custom made controller interface. Imagine if you had a gaming cabinet somewhere i n your hoime that you could play several of these games originally made for gaming arcades. That would be cool!

As time has progressed we have seen the rise of home gaming consoles taking the main role in our living rooms. We are getting more and more hardware that is meant to be placed in our apartments. If you are into emulators why not try also MAME. I am definitely going to get to this a bit more. I remember so many wonderful games from my past. It might be a good time to consider buying some more controllers that are capable of bringing the experience for you. Consider a joystick for fighting games, a racing wheel for driving or maybe even a light gun for shooting. Just remember this thing about light guns – they don’t work with modern displays so be careful not to mix these technical things.

You can definitely try to search for more content on this topic. I found good information from Google and also from YouTube. I think Bing or some other search engine can provide you also with some articles. I mentioned some titles in this post. There are so many games that you can play on MAME that  you have to go and see for yourself for the gems. So go ahead. Maybe you find something that you haven’t played before and that you really like.

Waiting for Forza Motorsport 8

Posted on by Viljami

Forza Horizon 5 was released in the fall of last year. I didn’t pick it up for some reason. Maybe I was so much into playing Diablo II Resurrected and Call of Duty – Vanguard. And to speak about it I’m not really such a fan of Forza Horizon series. I have to say that I am more into Forza Motorsport.

So there’s a new Forza Motorsport getting released soon. It is speculated that se might see it in the end of this year. However the final release date hasn’t been told. I have some knowledge of the first and also of the third game of this racing series. Actually, as you have probably seen from this posts featured image, I picked up, again, Forza Motorsport 3 and started playing it.

It is a very nice game. The graphics are a bit rude as you compare them to later games like Gran Turismo 7 on PS4. You have to consider how old Xbox 360 really is. It was released already in 2005. So we cannot compare it directly to these newer consoles. But if you put graphics aside you will find this game to be a nice and very playable. I am somewhat familiar also to the first Forza Motorsport game that was released in 2005. I don’t currently own a working original Xbox but you can however play this game with Xbox 360 because it has a backwards compatibility. Every original Xbox title doesn’t however work. I usually check a list from Wikipedia to see if a game is compatible. You can find it fast from your favorite search engine if you are interested.

I really like racing games. You might have noticed this. I first got into Gran Turismo and it was my first really realistic racing game. I played it a lot. Later I picked up some other racing games. At a time I had a keen interest in Need for Speed Shift one and two that I played with my PS3. That was maybe in 2010 or 2011. Back then I didn’t play so much retro games. And now, some years later, I found Gran Turismo again. I really didn’t like Gran Turismo 5. And of course I have to mention Colin McRae Rally series that progressed to Dirt series later. I think Dirt 3 and 4 were really good. I have some history also in Dirt Rally 1 and 2.0. Who doesn’t remember Richard Burns Rally? You have to really try it although it is already a bit old racing game.

So here we are. We are waiting for the next game in a series of racing games released for Xbox consoles. I think I will have some space left in my Xbox Series S for the new Forza Motorsport 8. I don’t know who won the race of these racing games. It is obvious that there is a competition between Xbox and PlayStation. I kind of finished Gran Turismo 7. I played it for about 40 hours. As there is some time I have to think if I should try finishing the third Forza Motorsport game. I have also played a bit Flatout 2 whic was develop by Bugbear which is a Finnish game company. You might want to check a game called Rally Trophy. I end this post by saying that Gran Turismo 4 was also a really good racing game.