Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: need for speed

Need For Speed Shift Series

Posted on by Viljami

Need For Speed Shift was first released for PS3 in 2009. There is also a sequel to this game (Need For Speed Shift 2). I remember these racing games very clearly. I have only good memories when it comes to Shift 1 & 2. I was in a situation with my gaming hobby in which I only had one game console attached to my television. It was already a modern tv and not anymore a CRT television. PS4 was still in the process of development and wasn’t available yet. I also played some games with my PC but PS3 was my main game console at that time.

I had a wheel and pedals which I had received as a gift. Although I played some PS3 games with wheel and pedals I did play Need For Speed Shift only with a game pad. I have went back and forth with using my racing wheel but I have always returned to playing racing games with a game pad. I also had at one moment an adapter (I think it was 2019) that enabled me to play with this wheel on PS4. Actually the wheel and pedals were Logitech G27. I did find them to be of great quality. Also, I think if you want to play these more realistic driving games you should also have a decent driving chair.

I did spend tens of hours playing Need For Speed Shift 1 and 2. I especially remember one summer. It was 2011 and I was having a long holiday free from my studies. Time flies when you are young and enjoy your time. I didn’t think that PS3 games would have had a low video display quality. Today they don’t stand a comparison to some more modern and newer gaming consoles. It is a bit sad that the series didn’t continue later on. We have seen many NFS games but we haven’t seen a new Shift game for a long time. Maybe some day we will see a remake?

What Need For Speed Shift games had to offer was somewhat realistic driving and a solid single player campaign. They offered together tens of hours of play time. “How Long To Beat” website tells me that it takes 13 hours to finish the frist game and 20 hours to finish the sequel. You get to choose a sports car for yourself. The driving feels nice and I often times found myself in a nice flow. It was a pleasure to spend those hours playing something like this.

Need For Speed Shift can be a pleasure for you to play if you enjoy single player driving and do enjoy playing still PS3 games. Today, I have, again, my PS3 connected to my 4K television. The graphics for me already seem a bit muddy. But if that doesn’t actually bother you you can enjoy these driving games. I have recently played some PS3 games. One of them was Resistance 3. I also actually read a book related to this title. I discussed this booka and Resistance 3 in an earlier blog post. If you think you would enjoy reading my old post just try and find it. It was written some weeks earlier.

What more do I have to say this time? I try not to write too long blog posts. I have had this as a bit of a habit of mine that I end up writing very long texts. This happens also in other forms that I do write. It happens even with some music lyrics that I also do write. I write them in Finnish but this blog is completely written in English. So, without further conversation we must stop here for this time and for this blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

Having Some Fun With A Retro Game

Posted on by Viljami

I had the pleasure to find a really fun game that I got yesterday as a loose copy. This means that I bought a game that was in a good condition but it didn’t have the original cover or leaflet at all. I wanted to play that game. I was also informed that the disc was in a good and acceptable condition which was proved to be actually true when I finally checked the disc.

The game was Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 for Nintendo GameCube. I have lately been banging my head with two titles. Those are first, Gran Turismo 6, and second, Sea of Stars, which is a nice role-playing-game. I have put tens of hours in these games but I seem to be unable to finish them. I have spent a bit over 40 hours to Gran Turismo 6 and a bit over 12 hours to Sea of Stars.

What NFS Hot Pursuit 2 offers is a nice and fluently constructed game-play. Everything seems not to be so much about your driving skills. You can drive like a perfection and still end up getting busted by the police. The whole game centers on trying to achieve at least third position just to be able to progress to the next race that gets unlocked as you achieve this placement.

When considering graphics GameCube has, of course, its limitations. You have to consider this game to be a retro title. Sea of Stars, which I play on PS4, seems way better. Even Gran Turismo 6, that I play on PS3, looks better. But after all everything isn’t always about the technical performace. Hot Pursuit 2 just seems like something I could spend about two or three hours today as I was palying some video games on a regular Saturday.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 for Nintendo GameCube as a loose copy cost me 15 euros. This seems to be just the right price. I did manage to advance in the actual career mode that I chose to play. I didn’t finish the game but I might get back to it in a while. I am a bit concerned about finishing Sea of Stars. It does take about 28 hours to finish this RPG. I am also a bit thoughtful about finishing only a bit over 50 percent of Gran Turismo 6.

Today I also finally ordered Call of Duty – Black Ops 6 for Xbox Series X. I got it for a cheap price of 50 euros. I could have supported some small time game shops but this just is how it came about this time. Of course I am already waiting to get my hands on this brand new FPS. While thinking about some games I have yet not finished I managed to get something out of one of these Need for Speed games that I luckily had a chance to purchase and add to my collection of GameCube games.

Recent Game Purchases

Posted on by Viljami

I saw some amazing games on one nice game shop. Some of them could be considered retro games but also a PS3 game and an Xbox 360 game caught my eye. I made the order and it only took two days for the package to arrive. Just yesterday I got to pick the package.

So I ordered five games. The first two caught my attention as they were GameCube games. I have a strong effort in collecting as many and preferably good and actually playable games in this small but steadily growing collection of GameCube games. The two games were Mortal Kombat – Deadly Alliance and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. That Mortal Kombat game has a grade 81 / 100 on Metacritic while THPS 4 has 91 / 100.

I also got another NES game that I can now add to my collection. This was a role playing game called Gauntlet II. I really didn’t know a whole lot about this game before I bought it. But it didn’t make me miserable at all and this had everything to do with it being so cheap. It cost me only 25 euros. And it was in a decent condition. It was loose but that’s how I like my NES games. I don’t actually like so much of the packaging of NES games…for some reason that I cannot explain clearly.

I also got, for very cheap of course, a game for PS3 and a game for Xbox 360. The PS3 one was Castlevania – Lords of Shadow. I have played Castlevania games from 1980s and this game in my thinking is based on these older games. I think it is an attempt to offer some high quality graphics and game play for the fans and maybe even for someone that doesn’t even have any idea about these original games.

The last game that I got yesterday is a Need For Speed game. The title is as presented completely “Need For Speed – The Run”. For this game I don’t have so high expectations. There are probably tens (probably not hundreds :D) of these NFS titles out there. I think some of them are really good and others are not so good. I finally decided to give this a try.

I got these games just yesterday so I haven’t yet had time to play them. As I have written here in this blog earlier – I have a huge backlog. The thing that I’m glad about is that I actually almost completed Burnout Takedown. I got now 88 percentage of it completed. I also got my hands dirty, oh boy, what a way to say it, and started playing, finally, Crash Bandicoot 4. And what it comes to completion I now have about 35 percentage of this game finished.

Right now, as you can probably imagine, I am just a little bit tired. I am, again, trying to stay active and bring you, my dear readers, some new content at a good pace. It has been a week or so since my last blog post. I wanted to give you something to read and think once again. I hope we see again soon!