game Archives - Page 12 of 13 - Intensive Gaming Diary

Golden Axe series

Posted on April 18, 2020January 11, 2022 by Viljami

My experience with Golden Axe series begins as I find this series second game for Sega Mega Drive. Mega Drive was already very popular as it had more power under its hood than NES. These memories bring me back to the beginning of 90s. As a kid I didn’t understand so much about ongoing console wars between mainly SEGA and Nintendo. Their gaming consoles got released one after another. First NES was released in 1983. Then there appeared Master System. Then Mega Drive got released. After that SNES was released. This war got started some years after the crisis of video games occurred. In 1978 everything looked fine. Atari 2600 made its way to many homes. There were so many bad games released and it eventually left game developers with empty hands. But this crisis that lasted some years was over as Nintendo released its Entertainment System.

So Mega Drive was the console to have back in my childhood. Golden Axe 2 was the sequel to the game that had been released already on Master System with also Mega Drive version being produced. The game caught my attention and I think it strongly influenced me to buy this console a moment later. Even today I think Golden Axe II is one of the best games ever released on Mega Drive. When I now play it I think it’s still worth playing for some hours. If I could modify it, I’m not sure if it is even possible, maybe it is, I would add some roleplaying features and theability to develop the character that you choose to play as. It already has many moves and characters have different qualities. It was good so see a female character also.

Soundtrack of this game was very inspiring. It brought tension to the game and along with amazing graphical effects affected and appealled to me as a kid growing up. My little brother also loved this game. I don’t know what’s up with him playing all these violent games. It sure was only fantasy for us and all players that ever got involved in virtual axe swinging. Back in the day there weren’t so many limitations as there is now. You didn’t have this large sticker on every damn piece of video game that tells for every human being that “this game is so and so violent, so brutal…” and so on. It left the decision to parents solely. We played these games as the graphics were poor. Only limitations were that we had to study and go to school and to practise some sports. And back then gaming went after those. I don’t know how this relationship with gaming is doing right now in my life. I think it’s not a thing to worry.

So the first Golden Axe game was released on Master System, Mega Drive and also on Commodore 64. Many gamers had also an opportunity to play it in an arcade. It was also released on PC. So there were many gaming systems that it made its impact on. There was second and third game released on Mega Drive. There was a game released on Sega Saturn, but I really didn’t get into that so much. There was also newer game released on PS3 called Golden Axe: Beast Rider in 2008. After that we haven’t seen any new game in the series. This game is all about action in fantasy world. It brings the player to this world that is a mixture of fantasy and medieval. You swing your axe, ride with a dragon, fight against evil enemies and release spells as you collect your mana and health. I recommend this game when you are getting to know Sega Mega Drive keeping in mind that this game and system are both retro stuff. If you hate retro this game is not for you.

Object Oriented thinking in game development

Posted on March 29, 2020January 11, 2022 by Viljami

Object oriented thinking is a way of modelling real world. Objects have attributes and methods. Attributes are variables. There are different kinds of variables and they always have a type. Different types can be, for example, integer, float, double, string and character. I am talking about Java now which is very good programming language for explaining object oriented thinking. Methods are functions of the object.

So different object can have values, such as Person would have height, weight, age and name. Height, weight and age can be numbers and name is a string or combination of characters. For a role playing game you could a Monster that has values like strength and chance to hit for determining if player is hit and how much damage does the player get.

When there’s types of enemies in our little game they have these basic abilities. So we must create instances of classes to generate more enemies that are of the same type. There are many enemies of a type, for example “ghost” or “zombie”. Player can also have abilities like health, armor class and so on. We can build worlds in thinking like this.

To build a game you need many other things than just object oriented programming. You need textures, 3d-models, sounds, music. and logic for the game to exist. So you can begin programming with Java but you must understand that it is a tool that can be used to create something. Plain Java doesn’t do so much. I have programmed a text adventure game. I still think it’s not a full game. It’s more like piece of code that gives you some output for your input. If you are interested in creating games, rather than playing them, I think you should sharpen your skills inside Blender, Unity and graphics design. And these aren’t only tools there can be.

Final Fantasy VII Remake – A small preview

Posted on March 15, 2020January 11, 2022 by Viljami

I played Final Fantasy VII way back when I still had my PS1 gaming console. I played it through and I remember it really took some time to complete it. Graphics were bad if compared to games released today. It had box with four CDs. Remember? PS1 didn’t have a hard drive. Hard drive was first introduced when original Xbox got released.

So for lots of us this new remake brings up so many good memories. The nostalgia is strong. It is a real joy to understand that they haven’t forgotten us older gamers that think FFVII was one of the best in this whole FF series, if not the best of them all.

Free demo of the game was released on PS Store. Demo took over 9 GB of space so it was a small introduction to this game. I played the demo and I think it’s a good response for nowadays gamers demands. Graphics and controls are great. You can choose to play with classic turn-based mode or with modern mode which reminds a lot about Final Fantasy XV.

All in all this is going to be one heck of a game. I would buy it. The release day here where I live is 10.4.2020. I’m waiting for this game. Hope to get to playing it soon!