gamecube Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Intensive Gaming Diary

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!

Games That Are Too Repetitive?

Posted on October 2, 2022 by Viljami

There are some good things about Nintendo GameCube and then there are some bad things about it too. I lately got this gaming console. I decided to remove Nintendo Wii from my setup for now. Wii might have been great but I just didn’t have time or inspiration to get into the games that I bought for it deeply. I did play GameCube games on it and went and bought GameCube. Now I have many games, two controllers and a memory card for it.

I absolutely love how the original game pad of GameCube works. The layout is way different from regular PlayStation and Xbox game pads layouts. It’s once again a case of Nintendo being original. I like the format in which games are delivered. GameCube is from the generation of consoles that includes original Xbox, PS2 and Dreamcast.

There are however some things about GameCube that I don’t like. I am not using, at the moment, the digital output of my GameCube since I don’t have the necessary adapters or cables. I have a 4K capable television and I have to say this – the graphics look crappy. I just have to adjust to this. An attitude of not taking it too seriously and thinking that this definitely is a retro console helps a bit. After all it has been twenty years since it was released.

I have very good games for GameCube. If you think about Resident Evil Zero you get how nice games there are for this gaming console. I have a sport title NBA Courtside 2002 that features Kobe Bryant on its cover. Then I have a driving game. That game is Need For Speed Underground. What do I think about this game? There rarely are bad games in this game series. I just like some of them more than others.

Need For Speed Underground is a bit repetitive. What that means is that it forces you to drive same tracks over and over again with a same car. Although there is some sort of experience score that keeps updating even if you don’t finish first in a race. In some races you have to finish first to get to the next race. The progression is slow and of course this makes the time to complete the whole game a lot longer.

It is said that Sega Mega Drive games were in overall too repetitive. You cannot say that about all games released on Mega Drive. Let’s take an example. Think about Gynoug. It is a very nice shooter that sadly is awfully repetitive. It is very easy to get stuck in Gynoug. Then you will find yourself playing the same part of the game and starting from the same point over and over. You cannot say this about Sonic the Hedgehog or Streets of Rage.

What are some things in gameplay that make game to have variability? The ability to save at any time is one key to this. Or the ability to not save at all. Then you will have to start playing the game all over again. But it keeps you from going the same short part all over again. Some games have passwords instead of an ability to save a game. Constant progression is one thing. You might have experience points that you get from for example every race even if you don’t win the race. This gives you a feel of progression. And when your experience score unlocks a new track or a new car it makes you also progress.

Having a difficulty option is in my opinion a way better for increasing the amount of times that you can keep yourself playing the game all over again even if you have finished already on a low difficult level. You can decide for yourself if you want to keep playing the same game with a higher difficulty. Sometimes you get stuck in a game. Then it might help to look up for help from a walkthrough online. Today there is lots of help available. You can for example use YouTube if you like. It is nice to know that there are these specialists of gaming available here in the internet.

To make the conclusion for this blog post we can say that GameCube is a very nice gaming console that has some games on it that are a bit repetitive. Being repetitive is only a cheap way to make people play a game for longer time. It should be a lesson for game developers working today and in future also. Mega Drive also has games that are repetitive. But it is clear that not all games on it are as dynamic as can be when it comes to gameplay. Enjoy your games, be them retro or new, and have a nice day!