Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: Retro

What to Think About Diablo 1?

Posted on by Viljami

Diablo 1 was a real game changer when it was first released back in 1996. We saw a PC version and the game was also ported to Sony PlayStation 1. Diablo has been topical and we have seen lately games like Diablo II Resurrected and Diablo IV. After the first original game we saw a sequel, Diablo II, in 2000. This game was almost insanely good and it was the game that made me addicted to not only action-RPGs but to playing video games generally.

We saw also a third game back in 2012. After a long while Blizzard was able to bring fans a decent addition to Diablo games. As I already stated Diablo had these more recent games getting released lately. We have to add this one game to the list of Diablo games. That game is Diablo Immortal. I haven’t palyed that game at all but I heard it wasn’t actually up to these high standards that this series actually has.

I did play the first Diablo game with my PS1 back in the end of 1990s. You might think about that featured image I have attached to this blog post. This is the actual copy that I have bought several years ago from a flee market. I remember that it was ridiculously cheap. I think I bought it for one euro or something like that.

“How do you get this game installed?”, one might ask. If you don’t have, and few of us gamers actually do, an optical disc drive (CD/DVD/Bluray) in your PC setup you are going to need an external DVD drive. I have actually two of them. One is also compatible with Bluray media. I wasn’t able to rip PS3 games with this device but for installing Diablo 1 it is actually sufficient.

You can at first install the game as is usual. If you don’t want to use the disc every time you launch the game you can just apply a patch for the game to function without a disc. There are some procedures and you can find help online. I had to copy a huge part of the game to my hard drive and also apply some patches. After that the runs pretty well.

What is it like to play a game like Diablo 1 that has been released almost 30 years ago. The game feels pretty nice to me. Graphics are a bit outdated as you would suspect. The actual game play feels nice. I only played it with mouse and keyboard and found it very much functional. First you get to create your character. There are some character classes like “Warrior”, “Rogue” and “Sorcerer”. I went with the Warrior since I very much like the melee action that Diablo delivers.

It can take up to 14 hours to complete Diablo 1. I have to be honest and tell you that this time I only played this game for some hours. The point still is that Diablo 1 is still relevant as a game. The impact it had on the role playing genre of computer and video games is huge. Think something like Sega Mega Drive’s NHL 94 with some role playing elements added to the mix and you surely get the point here. I definitely recommend Diablo 1 if you are into retro games and/or gaming history. This game is very significant to wholeness of video games and it brought us many elements actually the first time for us gamers to enjoy.

You can actually buy Diablo 1 as a digital copy if you don’t have the physical one which can be hard to find. Just look from “GOG dot com” or “Battle dot net”. It does cost you (on Battle net) ten dollars. That’s a cheap price. If you are lucky you might find it somewhere as a CD ROM. I don’t think that you can buy it for as cheap price as I did as I mentioned earlier in this blog post. I was very lucky.

Tenchu

Posted on by Viljami

I think many of us old school gamers and maybe some retro game enthusiasts do recognize Tenchu. It was released for PS1 back in 1998. I can clearly remember these moments back in the day when I saw some footage from actual television about Tenchu. What made it interesting as a PS1 video game was that you were mainly using a sword as a weapon. The fact that this game was a stealth game more than just a simple action melee game that we saw many times in the mainstream of video gaming during the 90s. So, Tenchu was something different.

I do have played this. Not recently but it hasn’t been many years since I last time played the first Tenchu game. There have been several sequels. In actually had to search for some information. There have been at least thirteen games with some relevance to Tenchu. Tenchu 2 was released for PS1 in 2000. There were games released for PS2 and also to PSP. The latest in this series that I have played is Tenchu – Wrath of Heaven that was for PS2. I think it isn’t a bad way to start getting into this ninja combat series by playing the first Tenchu game on  a PS1.

The game did impress back in 1998 and it is still a very nice game to play even today. Maybe you have to have a certain retro type of attitude to actually enjoy this game. If we make a comparison to modern era there could be some improvements on the controls and graphics. So there is some adjusting in this sense. If you do like PS1 games I recommend this game especially.

So, what is the game all about? You try to move around in this three-dimensional environment and avoid enemies. If you get caught the enemies will call help and you usually end up  fighting too many enemies and you eventually end up dead. So, avoiding contact seems to be a working strategy. Also, when you encounter an enemy that hasn’t yet noticed you you can take that person out with only one stealth attack. If the enemy detects you the enemy will call help and you end up in a difficult fight.

You can use a grappling hook to move to for example up to some roof of a house. You use a sword to defeat your enemies. You also use throwing weapons try to take out enemies. Ther weapon, the sword I mean, is a melee weapon. This gives you a different feel of combat than if there were some ranged fire weapons used. The concept hasn’t been used in my opinion so much. Instead there are tons of shooting games available as retro and also as modern games. I think the idea of Tenchu is very good and original. Being that it is a game from 1998 makes it even more inventive as a video game. It was somewhat a pioneer as a three dimensional sword and melee fighting game.

Financially Tenchu was very successful in Japan and also all around the world in Europe and USA. It sold over 1,4 million copies worldwide. It was also successful as well appreciated game and received good grades in different reviews of gaming media of the time. Actually this many times meant magazines that were printed on paper. That was the method that was used back in the day. The gaming media wasn’t yet so strong on the internet. This particular fact has changed since Tenchu was first released.

Tenchu isn’t a pricey game to pick up. If you do find it from game shop I think it can be bought with a price tag of maybe 20 euros. I haven’t seen a copy available in a long time but that price of twenty euros was the price that I bought it for. It was one of my favorite games back in the 90s. It was also among the first games I wanted to own as I started collecting and buying PS1 games to my collection again about seven or eight years ago.

Resistance 3 (PS3) Is Finished

Posted on by Viljami

Resistance series, in which Resistance 3 belongs to, is a science fiction slash fantasy themed first person shooter game that was popular in the dominant era of PS3. The games in the series are PlayStation exclusives and you can play them on PS3 consoles. I have some experience about Resistance – The Fall of Man. I actually bought the game already some time ago. I really didn’t get into it. I didn’t somehow like it. It was too different from the experience provided by Call of Duty. I like CoD games very much.

I got interested again in the series after I found a book related to the video game series from flee market. The price of the book was 2 euros and I recently read it completely. I had some curiosity against the Resistance series and decided to try the third game which is actually Resistance 3 the game that we are dealing with in this blog post.

So, how is Resistance 3 as a video game? The controls take a bit of time to get adjusted to since they differ from CoD and Halo a bit. After you get the basics which means in this case the slight zoom, which button does fire your weapon and how different weapons work, where to throw a grenade and everything else related to basic gameplay of Resistance 3, you really get to enjoy the game very much.

I assume that the budget of Resistance 3 was a bit bigger than the first games’ budget. This shows as better graphical output. Also the cover seems to me somewhat more pleasant. The game uses horror and science fiction elements and reminds me at times of games like FEAR 2 and 3 and also the already mentioned Halo series. There are several different weapons available. The number of weapons increases as you progress deeper in to the game.

There are some strategic considerations that have to be discussed here. There are lots of enemies and sometimes it is better to try to progress with not taking out every single one of them and instead try to progress to the next checkpoint so you get through and actually move forward. I have only so little to say about the plot. The main character is the hero of the game and is making his way to New York as the evil alien “Chimera” is trying to conquer the planet Earth. There are different types of enemies from huge monsters to regular alien soldiers. You even get a chance to fight these enemies with a melee weapon (it’s a huge sledge hammer). There is also a strange weapon that I did use in the game that was called “mutator”.

I really enjoyed this game. Graphics are somewhat awful if you compare them directly with the display of graphics in some modern games but this is still a good game to play if you just consider it as a bit older game that actually does count as a retro game already in 2025. If you can handle PS3 games’ graphical poverty you can definitely play and also enjoy this game. Resistance 3 offers a nice about 8 hours of time of a playthrough. I think I used something like that while I played the single player campaign with “Casual” as the difficulty setting. You can of course play the game again with increased difficulty level if you wish to play the game through again in this way.

I really don’t have anything to say about multiplayer experience since I mainly play all my games as single player. I didn’t even bother to try the functionality of this game in this way. I don’t know if the server are still up. I think assume they might not be. Resistance 3 was published in 2011 for PS3 as an exclusive game. It might be nice to see a remake of some sort some day. The game is very good and it was the first Resistance game that I played and also finished.

I just yesterday finished purchasing and also installing the new Silent Hill f game that actually was officially released yesterday. I was positively surprised that it is now easier to pay your purchase in Steam app. It is possible now to use Trustly and functions of your own web bank. This makes acquiring money to Steam wallet easier for me. I am waiting for the weekend so I can sunk my teeth in Silent Hill f. I have now a new Windows 11 PC that I am going to play it on. The Xbox Series X version of the game was 10 euros cheaper but I prefer more power in the graphical end. So, I chose to get the PC version. Have a nice weekend, everyone!