Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: digital

Split Second – A Good Driving Game from 2010

Posted on by Viljami

I recently bought Split Second for my Xbox Series X as a digital copy. It was a cheap game (I bought it for about ten euros). I actually have played this game earlier but the platform was PC. I remembered having a great time with this game so I decided to grab it.

Split Second reminds me of Burnout 3 – Takedown. The gameplay has been adjusted. You don’t actually try to crash other vehicles. Instead you trigger some trap type of obstacles in your opponents way so that they will crash. You get power to trigger these traps by following close at your opponents tail or by drifting while you are driving in a corner.

I have to say that Split Second isn’t a perfect game. It has its flaws. Then again what game today wouldn’t have some disappointing features? The driving can’t be considered a simulation. It is actually very much like playing an arcade game. It is also already a bit outdated with its graphical presentation. This game was originally released for Xbox 360 and PC and surely also for PS3. So, I have played this video game for PC and Xbox 360.

This game reminds me of a somewhat better era for video gamers. Back in 2010 these games were easy to get into and also easier to complete finally. Every game released weren’t as ambitious commercially and in terms of how addicted gamers would become to the game that was in question. I kind of miss those days. We had way more games released. I think that every game can’t be a masterpiece. Every game cannot be a legendary one.

As there are fewer games being released and more money involved in the development process we are getting this clear picture of the state of this industry. Game developers might be aiming too high. At least thats how I feel. Well, maybe we will get some support in this matter from some indie developers.

One thing we can also have a debate about is how Nintendo has managed to get its console, Nintendo Switch, to be such a success. Switch is currently the most sold gaming console ever. It is soon passing PS2. I think its pricing and these good quality games that this platform seems to have have given this gaming device the success that it does currenlty have. Are you waiting for Switch 2? It is rumored that it will have a backwards compatibility with current Switch and also that it might not be such a powerful system when comes to pure technical performance.

As you can imagine I did play Split Second a bit over ten years ago with my PC. I have the game also as a physical copy. I have the frigging DVD disc! It is almost frightening to see these DVD boxes in my video game shelf. They are something that collectors do not wish to have. Do you have a DVD drive still in your PC? I do have, but actually I have disconnected the power supply from it. I did this partly accidentally as I had to change some parts to my desktop PC a while ago. I just haven’t had the time to try to connect the power again to the DVD drive. Actually I have also an external DVD drive that I can connect to my PC through USB. The main point of this paragraph must be that PC has been a digital platform for several years alreaady. What I mean is that if you buy a PC game you propably buy a digital copy of it.

There are plenty of good Xbox 360 and even some original Xbox games available in the digital store of Xbox. I actually bought three games just the other day for 21 euros. If you are into Xbox 360 gaming I highly recommend getting your hands on these games. It is a very good option for buying the physical game from a game store. And of course you might just have an only digital gaming console. Digital gaming seems to be more and more popular as the provess does progress.

The Future of Physical Content

Posted on by Viljami

Best Buy has announced that it is not going to sell physical copies of DVDs, Blu-Rays and 4K discs anymore in the near future. This is the way things are going right now. Consumers are moving on to digital media when it comes to games and movies. It doesn’t help that there are consoles that enable you to play older retro games and also new games on discs.

Is the physical media going to disappear? We don’t know the exact answer. I think there is always going to exist some gamers that need to have their game as a physical copy. These copies might be some kind of collectors editions that have a little more higher price than the regular standard version of the game. We have already witnessed an increase in in prices of games be that they are digital or physical. So, the amount of games sold as physical copies has been decreasing but I think we are not ready to move on to a world without these discs that we have our games on even today.

This is very interesting and I have recently been reading a lot about this matter. If you think about upcoming game releases and purchasing a copy of your favorite upcoming game beforehand I think digital is way easier and more trustworthy to be handled when it comes to delivering the game. Just last summer when Diablo IV was released I wanted to order it beforehand. You can probably guess how it went, right? Game developers don’t want their games to be released before their actual release day so they won’t let game shops deliver these games too early. This problem doesn’t exist in a digital world.

I have to admit that I like to own a physical copy of my game. Well, maybe not every game, right? Big box games still look good on a gamer’s bookshelf. There are many ways to view this matter. Having loads of games can be a challenge if you are considering to collect these games. I have loads of games on my bookshelf and I had to move some of them away from this bookshelf because they take so much space.

We have already seen how things are today with PC games. Steam and many other online game stores have taken over the markets. You hardly ever see a DVD drive on a PC. If you like you can of course get a drive that you can use by connecting it to your PC with a USB cable. It is although easier to just buy the game from Steam or some other web shop. I myself have a special retro laptop for playing older PC games. It runs Windows XP. It works very nicely.

If we are talking about PC games you have this constant feel that you have to buy newer operating system and/or newer computer that has a good GPU, CPU and SSD hard drive. This is a reason to keep consumers to pay for their ability to use a computer be it for playing games or for some other use. Everybody needs a PC today, right?

What about older games? I think there is something a bit wrong in this way of thinking. We should make sure that old games are available for us in the future also. These retro consoles aren’t going to last for 20 years. We have to come up with solutions to these questions so we won’t loose our precious history in video gaming. This is at least how I am thinking right now here and today.

Nothing Special to See Here

Posted on by Viljami

This image here is a screenshot from Forza Horizon 5. I am playing it currently on my Xbox Series X. I bought it recently as a digital copy. It cost me about 40 euros. I was happy that I didn’t have to pay more for it. It isn’t the newest racing game after all.

I bought also some other games. I noticed that there are some Xbox 360 and original Xbox games available as digital copy and they were on a discount also. So, I picked up some more games. There were 9 games all in all. I picked up Red Faction II, The Darkness, Contra, Vampyr, Flashback, Call of Cthulhu, Crimson Skies – High Road to Revenge, FH5 and Gears of War 4. This cost me only about 75 euros. I saved over 100 euros. If you can call spending money saving money. Well, I think we can.

Some people are talking and even worrying about spending too much money buying gaming stuff. I don’t think gaming would be different from any other hobby that you have to spend money in. You need equipment in sports. You need money if you drive a car. How is gaming different? This talk about money makes me think about some of these big game releases. We can take the latest Zelda game for example. It is Tears of the Kingdom. I think they have a huge marketing budget. This is reality. It is so because I did saw a commercial on a bus stop just some weeks ago. I don’t remember seeing a game advertised on a bus stop here in a long period of time. If this has happened earlier, I don’t remember what the game might have been.

Forza Horizon 5 is already an old game. It isn’t actually old. Its just not the newest game providing racing and entertainment. I decided to start playing it because I hadn’t done it earlier. It has received some good ratings. It would take me at least 20 hours of time to finish it. Or so tells the well-known website named “How Long to Beat”. This is my preferred website if I want to seek information about how long does a game last. Some times, like in the case of Diablo II – Resurrected, I have noticed that it takes me some more time to complete a game than what is told on this website. If you want to see the website, just use your favorite search engine. As you might have noticed I don’t promote any special search engine.

I am hoping to enjoy some more Forza Horizon 5. I hope that I can finish it some day soon. I have spent already maybe 5 hours playing it. There is, as is usual today, many different areas of interest in this game. There’s a lot going on. We have definitely more than a racing game  here. I hope to continue playing it and to explore its content as thoroughly as is possible.