Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: Retro

The Certain Appeal of PlayStation 1

Posted on by Viljami

What does PlayStation 1 offer that makes you just pick up the controller and play? It was released almost 30 years ago. I still find that it has a lot to offer even compared to modern game consoles.

I can only try to describe what it felt like playing PS1 back in the day. We, gamers, were excited. Technology was new and it was advancing at a high speed. You could literally see how games became more and more realistic. It was the dawn of three dimensional game environments.

Sound quality reached also the level that was offered by the CD format. There were many electronic music artists that produced some cathchy musical vibes to these new kinds of video games. CD-ROM as a platform for video games offered game developers way more space than everyone was used to. Games became more complex and gamers started to spend more time playing. Little by little it came acceptable for grown ups to play games, also.

PC games were also developing. It became clear that computer gaming offered several strategy games and also some very good first person shooters. You really didn’t play FPS games on a console. The first FPS console game is often considered to be GoldenEye 007 that was released in 1997 for Nintendo 64. The point where FPS really conquered consoles and made them break out from only being playable with a keyboard and mouse to getting controlled with a gamepad became when Halo was released for Xbox.

The games that you preferred to play on PS1 were games like Gran Turismo, some early games of Need for Speed series, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. These games had a combination of action, cool looking graphics and an excellent playability. This is how games of PS1 were presented and this is why they are still causing me to feel this endless joy and also nostalgia still after all these years.

Today I have a PSOne console along with my PS2. As you probably read form that earlier post I have been struggling a bit with my PS2. I currently have my PSOne in storage but I am thinking of moving it to my setup once again. It has luckily functioned very nicely since I bought it back in 2017.

I have a strong history in playing video games with PS1. It was important gaming console and it shaped my knowledge in video games and made me go deeper and deeper. It wasn’t my first gaming console. That spot is taken by Sega Mega Drive. I did play some PC games on DOS before I got to play with consoles.

It hasn’t always been clear in my life that games deserve a spot in my life. That is why I sold my PlayStation 1 back in 2000. I didn’t know if playing video games would make me progress in my life. I also sold all my games that I had. I think I had maybe 30 games back then. I do regret this. If I have to think something positive about this I can at least think that I made the buyer happy.

Today I have bought nearly all games I used to have back in to my collection. This featured image related to this blog post displays my current PS1 games collection. I have recently added games to it and it keeps getting new games to it all the time. I might have to update this image soon.

PlayStation 1 sold over 100 million copies. Its production was discontinued in 2006. You can still get your hands on a PS1 gaming console. You can get a used console for a bit below 100 euros. You can also get your hands on an emulator like ePSXe or DuckStation. For being a legit gamer you must rip these rom files that you use to play from game discs that you own. You also have to copy your BIOS from PS1 console that you own. And otherwise you are basically breaking the law. One other way to play PS1 games that I have to mention is to buy a PlayStation Classic console.

Some Problems with Retro Hardware

Posted on by Viljami

As you have probably noticed I have been lately playing lots of PlayStation 2 games. My console is fairly new. What I mean is that I have only owned it for under a year or so. It is now malfunctioning. I am having problems with audio and video being cut off in the middle of playing a game like Need for Speed Prostreet or Tenchu – Wrath of Heaven. They come back after some seconds but what it comes to playing this is very disturbing.

Well what can you expect? This device is old. PS2 was released over 20 years ago. Would you expect some similar device, like computer, to function after this long of a time? Probably not.

This isn’t the first time that I am coming across issues with old hardware. I have had Xbox, Xbox 360 and earlier I had one other PS2 that started to malfunction. It couldn’t read the disc anymore. Dust can be one issue. One issue is that these old parts just aren’t reliable anymore after all this time that has passed.

You can, of course, try to fix the console yourself. This can be tricky. Not everyone is capable of doing this on their own. You can contact your closest electronic repair shop and ask them how much would they charge for the repairment of your console. There is also one more option and it seems to be an interesting one.

I am talking about emulation. You have retro games but you aren’t able to play them since your gaming console is broken. Why not make copies of them for your own use? I think it is reasonable since the console is broken, right? And with games that are on DVD this shouldn’t be an issue. What we know is that PS1 and PS2 games can be ripped to ISO files (files that end in .iso) with proper tools (software).

There are many options available. Some years ago I came across NVIDIA Shield TV. It is a device that makes your regular television a smart device that is basically operating on Android. You can install RetroArch to it. It is this kind of a forntend that you can run retro games on. It combines several emulator together. I found this to be handy with for example PS1 games. You could even hook your PS4 controller to the Shield TV with Bluetooth. You can install RetroArch on several devices. Windows and Linux are also supported along with Raspberry Pi.

You can also use a full Linux operating system on any PC that you can also hook up to any television that has the connectivity required. That is means to transfer video and audio from your dedicated computer to your television. One popular opertating system of this kind is Lakka OS.

Lakka OS boots up to its own user interface. You only need to go through some menus with your controller. This can be any USB controller that you might have. Lakka OS supports several retro gaming platforms including NES, SNES, Mega Drive and so on. The full list can be found from your favorite search engine. I can tell you that this list is long.

What I am most interested about concerning emulation, like using Lakka OS or RetroArch, is playing games of PS1, PS2 and GameCube. I can currently play my NES, SNES, Game Boy, Mega Drive and Master System games with my Retro Trio console and with the assistance of some adapters (Master System->Mega Drive adapter and SNES->Game Boy adapter). I also have a Mega Drive Mini also for playing Mega Drive games. I also play PC games. I also play games on newer systems like Xbox Series X, PS3, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. As you can imagine my setup is huge.

I hope this blog post gave you some ideas concerning playing retro games. The hardware isn’t perfect. It does wear out with time. Software emulation might provide a more stable way for a gamer to enjoy his/her retro games for a long time.

My Take on Tenchu Wrath of Heaven

Posted on by Viljami

Tenchu Wrath of Heaven is the third game of series of Tenchu games. This game was released in 2003 for PS2. The first game of the series was released for PS1. This is also where my interest in this game series came to exist. I really enjoyed playing it. The name is officially Tenchu: Stealth Assassins.

Lets go over shortly about what kind of a game we are dealing with. I played Wrath of Heaven recently. This is not a review. I actually didn’t get too far inside this game. That is mainly because of its difficulty level. There are two characters to choose from. Both of them have ten missions that you can go through. I selected Rikimaru. The other character is Ayame. So, the first mentioned is male and other one is a female. There is also a third character but you have to unlock that feature by completing parts of the game.

This is definitely a game that depends heavily on stealth combat. The easiest way to defeat an enemy is to sneak behind its back where you can finish the enemy with one hit.If an enemy sees you before you strike you enter a combat mode and defeating of the enemy becomes much more heavier and you will probably loose a great deal of your health. In this kind of battle the enemy can take from three to five or even six hits to be defeated. You can try to block hits. Enemy is also very good at blocking your attacks. So battling is way more risky than catching your enemy off guard with a stealth attack.

Battling can be frustrating. There isn’t many ways you can better your situation during a battle. It isn’t a matter of skill. It is more about luck. You can try to block every attack of the enemy and try to hit as many times as you can but that’s about it. I think there is something in the source code of this game that makes winning battles a bit randomized. Timing your attacks doesn’t seem to matter as much and hits that are successful seem to come randomly.

Your weapon is a sword. You also have some health potions and also a grappling hook that you can move with. Sometimes while playing the levels seem like a maze. Poorly aged graphics of PS2 cause also some difficulties. It might help a bit if you have a PS2 HDMI adapter. I use my 4K TV to play also PS2 games with and a CRT TV would probably display the graphics of this game better. You will also get better graphics if you are playing this with a PS2 emulator.

This game is very difficult. I did get to mission 3 while playing with Rikimaru. I got frustrated with this particular mission. First of all the level is very difficult to move in. Controls aren’t as good with Dual Shock 2 controller. After I finally beat the level I had to face a boss. I could defeat the boss. But there is a but. There was another boss right after the first one which was way harder and of course I couldn’t defeat it. Then I died and had to start the mission three all over again. That makes me want to use a cuss word but I am however not doing that. So, I basically stopped playing.

The game might seem more to your like if you are familiar with these earlier entries in this series. I only have some experiences with the first game. For those of you readers that aren’t yet familiar with Tecnhu series I definitely recommend that you first play a bit of the first game before getting into this one. My opinion might change if I find the other character more into my linking some day. But today I might just change to another game for PS2 since I have lots of games for it.

I sometimes think that all games of this era of PS2 and its competitors aren’t always very good games to play today. Main points for this are poor graphical quality and outdated controls. Sometimes it just feels that many things are way better in today’s newer games. But also I have to tell you that sometimes you can definitely have this feeling of nostalgia. It just depends so much of the game. I have had some happy moments of nostalgia with some PS1 games. How poor are graphics and controls for those? It is nice that you can play PS1 and PS2 games on your PS2 console.

Right now I am going to continue my Sunday. I might play some other PS2 games that I have. I haven’t had time for all of them. I haven’t even tried every game that I own for this system. I have maybe 70 games now for PS2. I am definitely going to publish this post and add something about this post to Instagram and Facebook also. Did you know that I have a page on Facebook also? Well, now you know! Happy day for you the reader of this blog post!