gamecube Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Intensive Gaming Diary

The Enemy of My Dear Hobby

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Viljami

Where should I begin. Firstly I must admit that I am frustrated with this issue. GameCube seems to be very popular retro gaming system right now. It has been maybe six moths that I bought this console. GameCube was released in 2002 in Europe. So this console might be 20 years old. Who knows, exactly?

Of course the hardware has its limitations. It would be much nicer if I could just rip the games that I have to a rom file and install for example Batocera or some other Linux OS to any computer that meets the system requirements to play these GameCube games. Currently there is no solution like this. There is nobody selling any kind of hardware to ripping your roms to be used by you only…and you already own these games!

Small gaming stores have a responsibility. But that responsibility for me is very limited. I understand that they can only give you a guarantee of one or maybe three months. But where are the experts that are able to repair these old gaming consoles?

What is my issue here? The answer is that my GameCube refuses to handle game discs properly. I have already cleaned the disc reader very carefully. I did that once. After that the console worked just fine…for maybe an hour! I have also unplugged the power and AV cables and plugged them in again. This also makes GameCube do something but it clearly isn’t the right solution.

This is the same problem I had also with my original Xbox and my older PS2. Both of these machines are out of use and I am keeping them in a storage right now. These consoles are definitely of a low quality. If you compare these devices to for example my Xbox 360 or my PSOne you definitely get the picture.

These problems make me think once again if its really comfortable to spend so much effort to getting an old physical device to run your retro games on. It makes me, and maybe even you, consider buying some newer hardware. But why, oh why, aren’t there a solution here for us retro heads? Why can’t you make a new GameCube mini console? Or maybe a device that we could rip our games to another device or computer?

GameCube is right now a popular device. For a while ago I also bought a HDMI adapterto my GameCube. There are plenty of games available right now. Prices of these games are also high. There seems to be a certain appeal to this system. And I defionitely would like to play these types of games.

We are desperately waiting for Nintendo or maybe some other party to release a better console for playing the games of this system. I can guarantee that it would make you some money. And please…make it available also in where I live and that is of course, Finland.

How Internet Changed Gaming?

Posted on February 23, 2023 by Viljami

I got this idea when I was walking just some moments ago. I started thinking about internet and how it has influenced in so many ways our lives worlwide. Of course it has also had an impact to gaming also. So this blog post deals with gaming and internet. I am trying to get together a text about how things were and how they are now.

Take a look at this posts featured image. You can propably see that there is a Nintendo GameCube. It has four inputs for a controller. It has also a memory card attached and room for another memory card (so you can copy information from one card to another). This gaming console was released in 2001. So this was before smart phones, huge hard disks and internet connections. In 2001 gaming consoles didn’t have things like that.

If we think for a moment how were all these improvements brought to the consumers. They appeared little by little. Sony and Microsoft were among first to use large hard disks and internet connectivity. For a moment there was a point to have a PC for gaming. Do you remember going to LAN parties? You propably don’t. Today these events are rare. If you must know – they were parties where we connected our computers, that had Ethernet card, to a local network and played games like Counter Strike against each other in teams and even solo.

Playing multiplayer games has evolved. There is something so special when you just gather around the television in someones home and play your favorite video games with your friends. That feeling is unique. But things are changing. Nowadays you don’t have to leave home or take any hardware with you. You can connect with your friends online. You can even have friends that you interact only through internet.

This topic is getting me a rush of inspiration. I am writing this and I am starting to think where we are going. Most of the devices that use electricity could be quite easily be connected to internet. However I see this as a problem. It would cause a serious cyber security threat. And I don’t want to do that.

You can play also against artificial intelligence. I used to play also some first person shooters locally, you know, against bots. I am, after all, not so much into these new multiplayer games. I definitely like more playing single player campaigns be it FPS or some other type of a game.

Internet has also changed in a way that you can very powerfully share tips and even walkthroughs of games. You can chat while you play. The saved games can be stored in the cloud…if you have a subscription to the service that is required. You can also today collect your achievements and track how long you have spent playing a game. You can take screenshots and share also them.

This is a hug topic. I could go on writing this post but it seems it is a time to move on to something else, again. Internet has had a huge impact in gaming. It has pushed the progression of software and social media and all of the technologies that are constantly developing and changin all the time. One interesting side is how artificial intelligence affect gaming. Let’s keep looking forward!

THPS 4 on GameCube

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Viljami

I can definitely say that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is close to my hearth. I have been involved with playing it since the first game came out in the late 90s for PlayStation. THPS series has many games and they have been released for several different gaming consoles and also on PC. So there are lots of systems that you can play THPS games on. That also means there are different ways to control the character inside the game.

It goes almost without saying that I am used to playing some THPS with a PlayStation game pad. About two years ago I wrote a blog post here in this blog about how the THPS 1 + 2 HD remake felt like on PS4. Of course the way how you could use a modern DualShock 4 controller was amazing. I was very pleased with this pair of remakes. The graphics were also very nice. I felt like these games really respected the original games.

This time however I played THPS 4 that was released for GameCube. If you take a PS1 controller and compare it to a GameCube controller you start to see all these differences. But when you get to playing the controller feels almost the same. There are some differences. There are also many similarities. Basically there is a group of four buttons on the right. There is also only one trigger button on the right side and also on the left side.

I really like playing THPS 4 on GameCube. I also like very much of this era of gaming. THPS was released for GameCube in 2002. There is a certain appeal to the games of this time. There were more games released and while the graphics weren’t anything you could really compare to today’s games they still make an impact to me as a retro game hobbyist. I like the feel that GameCube’s controller gives.

I am very happy that I decided to buy this game some time ago. It gave me some value and I mean something else than financial value. Tony Hawk once said that THPS games cannot get you to learn actual skateboarding but they can give you an idea of how skateboarding feels like. I am also content about having some free time to get into this game.

I have currently completed, I think, 22 percentage of the game. I get to spend some hours playing this game during last weekend. I have also played some WRC Generations on my Xbox Series X. It seems to be a decent rally game. So, maybe I write something about it the next time!