Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: Retro

Some More Hype for The GameCube Gaming Console

Posted on by Viljami

The game I have been playing lately is Medal of Honor – Frontline for GameCube. I managed to get a copy of this game and it’s a cheap purchase. If you consider the hype that surrounds GameCube nowadays the price for this game was low. I have seen many GC games sold for hundreds of euros. I am not going that way…at least not yet.

What do I think about the game? It’s a nice and kind of early first person shooter. There was a  Medal of Honor released also at the same time for PC. They somehow wanted to separate the console version from PC version. This happened in 2002.

GameCube controller brings this games input a bit more sensitive. It is although far from perfect. If you compare this FPS game to what we see and feel today it is not even decent experience. But I am not a person that purely rates games and especially when they are retro games. You got to just give props to the makers. It has been over twenty years and a game that you can play today is valuable in this way in my opinion.

We can take Halo and compare it to Medal of Honor – Frontline. Where Halo wins is the smoothness of controlment. Just the way that your crosshair moves over the screen feels magical. I think Halo was the first FPS that actually worked very nicely in this matter.

I somehow still like the feel of this game because it just brings so many memories to my mind. If the controlling is a bit clumsy there are still elements in this game that I like.

I have many other games for GameCube. It’s a nice gaming console. The controller is unbeliavable especially when you consider that it’s over 20 years old. If you like retro gaming I can definitely recommend for you to get yourself a GameCube.

Impact of Final Fantasy VII

Posted on by Viljami

There has been many Final Fantasy VII remakes, be it HD or some other, but the fact remains and that is that it was first released in 1997 for the first Sony PlayStation. My experiences with these types of games begun when it was the end of the 90s and I picked up this role-playing-game. Graphics were fascinating. There was also a lot to play. The game came packaged in three CDs.

It also took some time to complete this game. I remember playing it for well over a hundred hours. There was lots of discussion and dialogue in this game. In remember reading carefully every conversation and still failing to deeply understand the plot in overall. I am not going to go throught the plot som deeply here.

Characters of this game are very relatable. You can name the character as you want butI found it funnier to keep their names as they were. You have, of course, Cloud, that is the main character. There is also a romance between two of the characters. Sephiroth is the main bad guy in this game. Also, chocobos are introduced.

The gameplay works in a kind of a turn-based way. Combat works this way. You have to keep close eye to your health points of all your characters. For me it worked well to have a sort of a healer in the group and also one or two characters that could cast some effective spells that you could attack against your enemies. I found it effective to keep Cloud fighting with his sword and maybe learn a spell or two.

If you haven’t ever played Final Fantasy I have to tell you how it basically works. You get to towns and cities from a world map. When moving you are getting randomly into a fighting scene. You have to defeat your enemies that are also randomly selected. You get experience points that give you more health and mana and so on. This is very different than the way that action RPGs like Diablo function.

For many consumers in Europe this game was the introduction to games like Final Fantasy. The first Final Fantasy game was released for NES. Then there were several released games for SNES. But actually FF VII was the game that made a real break through in Europe. So, FF VI got also released for PS1. I wrote about FF VI a while ago. Its graphics don’t actually differ much from what is seen on SNES.

PS1 was the gaming console that made PS1 even more popular and also acceptable for adults also to play video games. As CD-ROM was beginning to be used there was a powerful way to represent longer and better looking games that appealed to older people. Video games weren’t kids stuff anymore. There were many other games also that made this break through possible. I am talking about games like Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo and maybe also Colin McRae Rally. These games will remain in my memory bank for the rest of my life. And its cool that I can get to play them anytime I want.

Prices of Retro Games Are Rising – But for How Long?

Posted on by Viljami

I have noticed that prices of retro games are rising. You don’t necessarily have to make a reasearch to find this out. It is enough to just browse through games and their current prices. Some already sold games, that still appear on a webshop, can make this very clear. It seems like this progression only took a short amount of time.

I got to think about this as I was looking for some GameCube games. The rising is present in PS1 games also. What will the future be like? Will we see more games with more increased prices? Who is buying all these games? Who is selling them? I think you do have to do some sort of a research before you sell your game related property nowadays.

Of course retro gaming systems are getting older alll the time. It would make sense that these consoles are going to be broken ones one day. I mean, technology doesn’t last forever. Where are all methods and ways to repair your broken gaming console? I guess we, game consumers and retro gamers, are too foolish to even demand a service like this. It seems easier to just buy another classic mini console. Well, I don’t think that everyone would have the opportunity to own one since there is a limited amount of new devices available.

“But Viljami…What about emulation?”, you might be asking. Well, that’s an interesting question. There are ways to install an emulator to so many different devices. You can use your desktop PC for this. You can also use Raspberry Pi. Why wouldn’t you get a dedicated PC and install Lakka OS or some other Linux type of operating system? There are lots of possibilities.

Aren’t game roms and emulation illegal? Yes, basically they are. But if you think about it, you might have to consider this with a common sense. Can you really buy a game? Is it really available in where you live? Of course, some games get published as remakes or something like that. But this is not the case in every situation.

Should we wait for a remake on every possible and popular retro game? I think old games are valuable. And I mean this in a way that’s not the actual amount of money you get from it. I actually think games are part of our culture. When you consider Commodore 64 games there already is a website that can be accessed by everyone that is dedicated to bringing C-64 fans their favorite games. I don’t know if this is actually illegal but it makes sort of a sense.

Should we just not care about copyrights anymore? Maybe there should be a more strict law that handles old video games. I think music has a copyright that gets sort of out of date when the music is old enough. What if there would be a law that makes a 20-year-old game to not have a copyright.

If we once more use our common sense, I think that if a game is not anymore available as a new game or even as a used game, it would make sense that it wouldn’t have a copyright anymore. And maybe we should just avoid some major cases where there is a certain benefit for someone in not respecting a copyright.