Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: games

Are We Already Past Golden Era?

Posted on by Viljami

Games are definitely different than they used to be. Things aren’t the same. There is something almost magical about these games we today call retro games. They were games that were brand new when I was a kid or a teen.

Game developers today seem to be cautious. They don’t take risks and I think that they even like to keep it simple and make games that are going to bring them profits surely. Games are a big business. There is this certain economical responsibility. Every year games get bigger and better. Technology keeps developing. People are more into games than ever before.

So when was the so called golden era of video games? As I was growing up I picked up a lot of titles. I started playing some hours with Sega Mega Drive. Then I moved on to PlayStation and then to PC and to original Xbox all the way to the recent games that I have been also playing. That’s a long trip. Nothing will ever be like what it was when I first got to play Half-life or Diablo II back in the end of 1990s.

In my opinion we today lack inspiration and innovation. Games have advanced in graphics. There has been a lot of progress also in the design of games. Every game today seems to have elements of games we used to call role playing games. But where are the game changing innovations?

It might help for me to deal with these ideas and thoughts if I would think of it from a young persons sight. What would it be like to grow up around all this technology? Smart phones definitely have made an impact to our lives. You can play games also with mobile devices. There is even a possibility to buy a game pad for your mobile phone and play something with an emulator. So it is possible to use your phone as a retro gaming device.

The whole world keeps moving on and changing. Today you can write your thoughts on a blog and release your pictures on social media. There are lots of complications. We have divided our presence into physical and virtual. We are able to enjoy electronic devices and also to work with them.

How much does playing video games still feel like it used to feel? I don’t know. I might not even be a person that actually plays all the latest games. I do like retro games. But still I have ot ask again and one more time – are we already past the golden era of gaming??

Having a Break From a Game?

Posted on by Viljami

This week I have spent almost five hours playing only Darksiders Warmastered Edition. It’s not actually a new game anymore. It was released in 2019. It is a good game and there is no argument. And to back this up I can say that it has a score of 77/100 on metacritic at the moment. You must also take in consideration that it is a remaster of a game that was originally released in 2010.

Playing Darksiders is fun. But sometimes a gamer needs a break. Some of this games puzzles had me almost sweating. When I first started playing it was Thursday. I took a break and continued to play it again today for almost three hours. There are things like meeting other people and working so I cannot play every day. So I have to take breaks. But how long of a break can you have from a game and still come back to it to finish it eventually?

I don’t have any data to back up my opinions and thoughts. As with almost any of my experiments the greatest source that I have is my experience. So I have had long breaks while playing a game. I think the longest break was maybe two years. It happened when I played Silent Hill Homecoming. Well, I didn’t finish this game. Finishing a game has become for me a rare occasion today. I have a big backlog and the time I can spend on a game is decreasing all the time. I didn’t have that problem when I was younger.

Sometimes it really helps if you are honest with yourself and just give up and start playing a game all over again. There must be some sort of recommendation for how long you can play one game, right? If we think about concentration I guess you can keep yourself concentrated for from 45 minutes to about three hours. That comes from my experience. It actually comes from playing games but you can also think about how long can you concentrate for a lesson while you are studying.

So, there’s a limited time that you can spend playing a video game. Why are games so long then after all? This has everything to do with the medium in which games are released. The amount of disk space that games take is increasing all the time and this has happened for a long time already. First there were CDs, then DVDs. Today we are seeing games that take over 30 hours to beat common.

There are things you can consider when thinking about how long of a break you can have and do you actually have time for playing. One important thing is how long does it take for a game to be beaten. You can find this out as there are websites that can tell you how long a certain game takes to beat. You can choose the kinds of games that you like and that you do have time to play and also finish. Driving games don’t take so much time while some RPGs can take hundreds of hours. I hope you have enjoyed these thoughts. Just remember that there is lots of information that you can find online.

Things Are Going Digital

Posted on by Viljami

Some days ago I got a new gaming console, Xbox Series X, that has an optical disk drive. I was excited about it’s new features. I was thinking already, dreaming actually, about going to our local super market. I thought there would be at least a game or two for my new Xbox. And of course some 4K movies.

I was disappointed as I actually got to the market. I found one game available. I wouldn’t have bought this game but I was thinking that at least I am not going back home empty handed. So I went and bought Grand Theft Auto Trilogy. There were no movies available. Every movie that I saw was DVD or Blu-ray.

What I understood about my trip to the market was that there actually were lots of gift cards available to both PS and Xbox stores. And when I think about it, I actually saw some PS5 games being sold as physichal copies. Of course you might have a credit card and so you don’t have to necesssarily buy gift cards. There are also web stores that sell  gift card codes and it is easy to order them.

It seems that there are plenty of downloadable games available today. There are also subscription services that let you play a huge library of games and you have to pay montlhy fee to keep playing them. This way you actually don’t own these games. There are these kinds of subscriptions for movies as well as you might already know.

There are different possibilities. Some like to buy their movies and games and actually own them. It is possible to own a digital movie. In Xbox store for example you can pay to be able to watch a movie for two weeks or you can pay a bit more to actually keep the movie in your service and watch it as many times as you want.

Going towards digital subscription services when it comes to modern entertainment seems to be the trend today. I have tried to get my hands on to some 4K movies from some online stores, but it seems that there are only few movies available and those that are available aren’t as interesting as they could be. But it helps me a bit that I now have a gaming console that can play also Xbox One games which are widely available as used copies.