Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: backwards compatibility

The Highlights of Xbox Series X

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am going to go through how I actually feel and think about some experiences of Xbox Series X. We are going to take a look at this console while its lifespan has lasted right now almost five years. There are new consoles going to get released, some this year, some later, and it is a good time to take a look back on what this console, Xbox Series X, had to offer. Soon it will not anymore be the newest console.

I remember back in 2020 that I was thinking about how my PS4 would not be the newest console anymore. In the fall of 2020 we saw PS5 and Xbox Series S/X released. Being the newest gaming console can be a sort of a responsibility. We are used to seeing new consoles getting released every about seven years or so. While PS4 hasn’t been the newest console in years I, and many other gamers, have been playing on their PS4s during these years. I am very glad, since I haven’t to this day bought a PS5, that the newest games for PlayStation were also available for PS4. Some of these games are Gran Turismo 7, Spider-Man (the first and Miles Morales) and God of War (the first game and Ragnarök).

Back in 2021 (I wasn’t the first one to absorb this time) I first bought Xbox Series S. We were well in the pandemia which begun already in 2020. There was a huge shortage concerning about PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. There were lots of consumers that would had liked to buy a console but couldn’t. I would have bought an Xbox Series X at first but it just wasn’t available. I finally got my Xbox Series X maybe a year later or something like that. Nintendo, in the mean time, was selling lots of Switch consoles as the shortage didn’t affect it so much.

I ended up buying also Xbox Series X because I already had a 4K capable television and I liked the thing that Series X had more space for installing games and it provided the means to watch actual 4K movies through optical 4K discs. I also ended up buying the official disk space upgrade. I always thought it was very expensive. I did buy the option that included 1 TB of extra space. Xbox Series X also provided a better screen resolution and was more powerful in running the games.

Besides playing games Xbox Series X provides the ability that actually lacks in PS4 of playing music CDs. It is also capable to watch DVDs, Blurays and 4K movies that are sold as optical discs. You can also enjoy games and movies in digital format. I have had a smart television so I haven’t actually used my Xbox Series X as a media center. I do watch video content on my TV and I don’t actually use my Xbox console in that way.

I would like to mention and give some thanks to the Xbox app that I installed on my Android smart phone soon after I had installed my Series X. It is very nice. The way you can share and save your actual screenshots is very nice. I have to say that PS4 performs poorly in this manner. Using PS4 you have to have a USB memory stick to move your screenshots to your PC where you can then transfer them to some social media whenever you have a need like this. Nintendo also doesn’t perform so swiftly in this field. The Xbox app is very functional and many of these Series X screenshots I have shared at Instagram or in this blog have been processed using the app. You can also see from the app how long have you been playing a game and also track your overall Xbox gaming score.

What about the games? Lets first talk about the backwards compatibility. Series X i compatible with 63 out of 989 original Xbox games, 632 out of 2155 Xbox 360 games and all of Xbox One games. This makes the game library very strong. The console already has almost 3000 games that you are able to play. There is an idea also that if you like to play more Xbox 360 and/or original Xbox games you would actually like to have a dedicated and original console also. There are options to emulate the hardware also. But when it comes to Xbox Series X is does provide a nice, although not complete, support for older Xbox games.

Some good older games that can be played on a Series X are old Call of Duty series’s games, original Alan Wake, first three Bio Shock titles, some Silent Hill games, Max Payne series (first three games), Quake I and II, Split Second, Skyrim, Halo series and the Master Chief Collection, just to share some of my favorites. Some best new games, in my own opinion, include titles like Forza Horizon 5, Forza Motorsport, Resident Evil 8, Alan Wake II, Diablo II Resurrected and Control.

All in all I have enjoyed Xbox Series X. Would I have done without it? In have to say maybe. I could have utilized an old Xbox 360. I could have bought only a new 4K movie player. There were only so few actual new games that got released. Right now my thoughts are into the soon to be released Nintendo Switch 2. It is getting its release 5th of June. It is very soon. Switch 2 then becomes the first game console in this new generation of consoles. I think Xbox Series X did well.

Today and also yesterday I have spent some time playing Hogwarts Legacy with my Series X. I finally found some time to do this. Also I am not going to  buy a new game for Series X for a while. I am going to wait for Switch 2 to get released. If I am a fortunate one I will buy Nintendo Switch 2. But that means that it is very much available soon after the launch. Happy Sunday to you my dear blog reader!

All Original Xbox Games I Own That Are Playable On Series X

Posted on by Viljami

I have exactly only nine original Xbox games that are backwards compatible with my Xbox Series X. There are only 63 games in total out of every almost 1000 Xbox games that are backwards compatible. These games that I own are Black, Manhunt, Dead or Alive 3, Dead to Rights, Max Payne 1 and 2, Oddworld Munch’s Oddysee, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Full Spectrum Warrior.

The fact that you can play these games with a modern hardware seems amazing to me. Owning a working original Xbox would be another way to get to play these games. The controller of modern Xbox just feels much better than the original Xbox’s controller. You don’t have to concern yourself with poor video output quality or a need to use an adapter to get an HDMI out of your gaming console. The poor quality of original Xbox’s can lead you to buy many Xbox consoles if you aren’t able to repair them by yourself. But what kind of a gaming console would last over twenty years and still work? After all the device would need some maintenance.

Now I have tens, maybe even over a hundred, original Xbox games. I have had to move some of them to storage as I have had issues with consoles getting to malfunction. I have a broken original Xbox and also a Xbox 360. The issue with my Xbox might have had something to do with a broken condenser. These things can start to leak and cause some internal damage. The symptoms were that the console wouldn’t turn off. I had to unplug the power cord just to shut down the console. Otherwise it worked fine. The problem I had with my Xbox 360 was that it didn’t read any game discs no more. This was caused by some dust that had gotten into the console. I tried to solve the issue with compressed air but didn’t eventually succeed.

Over twenty years old gaming console can have many different issues. These devices aren’t actually today made to last tens of years. I don’t think that software developers and manufacturers of electronics were really thinking in the future for such a long period. This is somewhat understandable. Today there is this scene of old games that can inspire you in many ways if you just find yourself spending some time with them. After all there are so many games and so many systems to explore. This richness should be truly acknowledged.

Xbox Series X supports many Xbox 360 games also. There are 632 games out of a total of 2155 games that are playable. What happens when we move always to more modern consoles? Are we forgetting our past? Although the original Xbox can be emulated it seems today to be a difficult task while we are already seeing emulators that you can play Xbox 360 games with on our PCs. My current PC system just isn’t powerful enough to operate an emulator of this kind. The emulators name is Xenia.

What Are Some Reasons to Play Older Games?

Posted on by Viljami

First it has to be said that there are many reasons to play also older, or to use the right term, retro games. In this blog post I am going to explain and give some reasons that I and many others still play so to say old games. While there are many reasons to still play these games there are also reasons to play the newest games instead.

There are many things that have advanced in gaming technology. Happenings are processed more quickly since there is more memory to be used. Also, we have seen larger games. They contain more details. They have more complex scenery. These worlds offer even larger areas to be explored. The artificial intelligence of other characters than the main character has been improving.

This of course has a huge effect on what is actually happening while a player plays a video game. The game processes more data. The input of the player is analyzed more thoroughly. Some old games offer some nice game design solutions and today many game developers can make use of what was already designed in a game maybe even thirty or forty years ago. While technology has advanced also we have to remember some of these good solutions that old games had and still have.

One reason to go back to older games is of course the nostalgic feel that you get while playing a game that you have some memories with. You clearly remember the first time you started playing a game. You get the first reaction that you had and it reminds you of the feel that you had back then. The game hasn’t changed but your situation does have. The last time I had this kind of feeling was while I was playing Sonic Origins Plus. I got caught into nostalgic feel when I started playing the first Sonic The Hedgehog game. It was a huge game and also a huge character for Sega, The year that I first played this game was, I think, 1993. It brings back so many memories.

What about the way that we get to play retro games? It is a huge advantage to older game if it is easy to play it. I am talking of course about the importance of backwards compatibility. I have this way that I organize all my games. I keep these games in these two shelves that I am actually able to play with any console I have. I keep my other games in a storage. I do this because I think it is not so reasonable to keep games visible that I am not even able to play. Sometimes I like to demonstrate a game for someone visiting our home and sometimes a visitor picks up some game that he or she would like to play. And of course I myself can pick any game that I would like to play.

If you want to play retro games you have two different ways to do it. These ways are using original hardware or using an emulator. There has been a lot of conversation about emulation. I am not going to talk about so much of is emulating even legal or anything else like that. Lets just say that it is an option. Some think it is totally illegal and in a way it is. On the other hand preserving older games can be very valuable. After all we have to some way keep in touch with our video game history.

I have many gaming consoles in my setup. One part of my gaming setup has been already for some years these cool mini consoles. There have been mini consoles available for devices like PlayStation 1, NES, SNES and Mega Drive along with systems like C-64. You could of course just download an emulator for your PC and play these games but… Is it legit or legal? After all you are paying for something very interesting and valuable right here. The problem is that there just isn’t a mini console available made from all gaming systems. For example we are currently missing original Xbox and Sega Dreamcast mini console.

We talk on and on about what is the right way to play our retro games. I think the most important issue is that there has to be a connection between the old world of video games and the new world of video games. We have to somehow document our past. There are just so many games that game designers can take influences from. I think that it is a value for a game designer to know a lot about games. Of course if you know good games you can also design good games, right? You know the logic and what appeals to gamers.

Think about John Romero, one of makers of the classic FPS game, Doom. I mean, he started with playing old games in arcades. He played hundreds of hours of Pacman. He also had influences from Dungeons and Dragons, NES, SNES and Mega Drive games. And look what id Software did with Doom. It definitely revolutionized the way that we consume video games even today. Some games of this same era are Diablo and NHL 94.

So, it might not be possible to play every retro game. Do we have what it takes to document our video game history? Who has the power and responsibility to pass on these important lessons to our younger generation that doesn’t recognize all these older games? There can definitely be something to learn form them. While modern systems have the most power they also need the design. That’s where older games come into play.