Are We Lacking Excitement?

I barely remember the beginning of the 90s. No, I wasn’t partying hard back then. I mean that I was only a young child that didn’t have this ability to understand some things. I got the idea for this blog post as I was once again playing some Golden Axe 2 for Sega Mega Drive. It was first released in 1991.

I remember that this was one of the most popular games we had that time for Mega Drive. I definitely connect this game as a defnite Sega game. There are some games that just make me feel this way. We can mention games like Sonic and Outrun. This can tell you only how skillful these engineers and game designers were. They were not playing with their technical skills.

If we think about technology we can think about 1980s and how Commodore 64 influenced several young people to commit a huge amount of time to programming and getting into this technical field as a hobby. Some might have even made it to the industry as a professional. I can think of people like Linus Torvalds right here. Did you know that he is also from Finland? Well, he is.

While users of Mega Drive gaming system weren’t able to program or design their own games with this device there definitely was some sense of excitement towards technology, computers, games and everything else related to video games.

If you play Golden Axe 2 for a while you can notice how thoroughly the makers of this game have thought about many aspects about this game. First of all we have here some very carefully designed characters. We also have these surroundings that can make your imagination take a dive in to the wolrd this game presents. There is also a light story among with some enemy characters. All this just explains the quality of this work. This is defnitely a good game of this era.

The gameplay is very nice also. Graphics could be better. It’s a shame that we haven’t seen a new Golden Axe game for a while now. There was a game released for PS3 and/or Xbox 360 some time ago. But I think that this game looks good if you think about it being released back in 1991.

What would I add to this game if I had a change to modernize it? It lacks some character development in my opinion. I could see this game being a very nice action RPG if it would be brought to this day. If there would be experience points and some way just to develop your character. The story and surroundings are just so detailed. This game has taken some influences about some phantasy literacy and maybe even movies. So it would be a good fit for a role playing game.

Mega Drive had a deep impact to game development. Did you know that Diablo was inspired by NHL 94? Well, it was. Turn based role playing games were dominating the markets before Diablo was released. The developers at Blizzard thought that they should bring these action features to the world of role playing games. At the same time real time strategy games were beginning to become more popular.

But we should return to the main question that I set in the beginning of this blog post. Were things different back in 1991? And if so how? The biggest change there has happened is that video games are a way bigger business today. Do we have enough room here to create something unforgetable? Are we still excited about new technology and with the same time about building new phantasy stories, worlds and characters?

I think we haven’t lost all of our excitement. But if we wish to progress in this world of gaming we have to keep this matter in our minds. Money is important, I know that. But it shouldn’t take away these opportunities and all this excitement. So let me say, once again, don’t loose your dreams! Don’t loose the excitement…

I Picked Up Something Good to Play

So I started playing Resident Evil Village. I was a bit frustrated because NHL 97. It clearly was a disappointment for me. Resident Evil Village was released some time ago. It isn’t the newest game that would have been available. It just happens that I like very much the whole huge series of Resident Evil games. I have always simple loved these horror survival games. This has been the case since I first picked up Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation back in 1998.

What I really like to do before getting into a game is to take a look at how long will it take for me to finish the game. I like many types of games. It’s just that if I start a new game that takes 60 hours to finish I have to make a sort of commitment in playing it. That’s why I like to play shorter type of games that take about 10 to 20 hours to beat. That’s one reason I don’t play so many role-playing-games today. I mainly like racing, sports and shooting games but if there is a good game that I’ve heard good things about I might just go and play that.

It was maybe two weeks ago that I got myself these two Max Payne games. I got the first one and the second one released in this series. They weren’t in sale in Xbox store. I did find the latest Resident Evil game for about 20 euros. So I went and bought that also. I have been curious about this game for a while. Although I didn’t immediately start playing it the matter stuck to my mind. I had to play it when I would have some time.

It is one thing to try to find time for playing video games. It is also a thing to find something reasonable and that has a good quality. Today I had the joy to have time and also interest in this game. The graphics are amazing. After playing a graphically poor ice hockey game on SNES this definitely was a blast for me. The graphics come as sharp as my 4K television can display them. The game looks really neat.

What it comes to story the game doesn’t deal with huge multinational company this time. I am talking about the Umbrella Corporation. Instead the story starts developing from the end of the last Resident Evil game. This is definitely a horror game. You get a gun, a knife and also a shotgun. There are some bullets left for you but you must use them wisely. There are typewriters but there is also an automatic saving feature.

I haven’t found anything to complain here. At least not yet. I have played only for about two hours. It is said on “How Long to Beat” website that it will take about 9 and a half hours to finish this game. So there is a good feel to the game. The game has as I mentioned good graphics, interesting characters and a nice story that keeps developing forward. This game is definitely worth my twenty euros. It is also nice to see in what direction Capcom keeps moving with this series of survival horror games.

Some changes we have seen – Gaming from 1984 to 2021

I am going to go through the most important changes that have happened inside gaming from my birthday to this day. Back in 1984 we had already NES in some gamer’s living rooms. This wasn’t the first gaming device that I ever played. That place was conquered by PC. Computer games in the 80s might have had black and white or eight color graphics. Some games might have had 16 colors from which the graphics would be presented. The resolution was much lower than what we are used to today.

For games’ sounds there was only this horrible noise that was produced by the computers own speaker. In the 90s it was possible to buy a sound card for your PC and some gaming consoles, like Mega Drive, offered a better quality of sound. We were still far from a CD quality of sound effects and background and theme music. The quality of sound progressed as more and more and better consoles became available and as the technology advanced.

Getting the input from player has progressed. From keyboards, joysticks and simple controllers to game pads like Dual Sense and Xbox Elite. We have seen the beginning of real virtual experience. If you compare the controller that is seen in the related picture to the latest Dual Shock you really can see the difference. When the NES controller has only axis buttons and four other buttons my Dual Shock 4 has way more buttons. You really cannot compare these two in the means of human engineering.

What else has progressed? Designing games has taken major steps forward. Consider for example how much games like Doom and Diablo have influenced almost all types of video games. Besides bringing more technical advancements these games brought us some improvements in pure game design. Many games today have taken influences from role playing games. These features include developing and choosing a role or abilities to develop inside the game. You can gather experience and rare items that are able to be gathered by the player.

We have also seen how social media and internet have both made an impact. Did you at some time go to LAN parties? Well, I did. Haven’t been in those kinds of happenings in a while and this is also the trend as connectivity has increased so that you can get online almost everywhere in the world. Also the size of computers, mobile phones and consoles has been getting smaller all the time.

So if you would travel back to 80s you would see a different world. I think today we are dealing with lots of devices and activities that require more and more these skills that can probably be called something like “digital skills”. These skills include using social media and even marketing and using your visibility in your own advance and in collaboration with your friends and people also that you work with. We are all connected together and there is huge amount of data moving in these networks all the time. As some of us have combined sport activities to the new digital world I think that the amount spent exercising has decreased in overall.

Time will show in what direction we are moving. It has become clear that skills with internet, mobile devices, laptop and desktop computers and different kinds of networks are required. And so are also skills in teaching and providing a decent support for the final users of this technology. Big data has already made it’s impact on games that are actually gathering all kinds of data from within the game as the player makes its moves and progresses in the game.

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