new Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Most Anticipated Games of 2023

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Viljami

We can begin this blog post with some information. This is the 200th blog post that I have published in this blog. I have been writing this blog for three years now. And, yeah, I am not going to stop since I have still lot to say and lot to achieve with Intensive Gaming Diary. Let’s dive into todays topic.

The gaming industry has been struggling a bit with the global situation. There have been delays in hardware shipments and a lack of electronic components. Game developers have been forced to adapt to the situation. Gaming isn’t going away. In fact this year we have the priviledge to witness some great games that are going to be relesed.

There are many new games to be released. Games I am personally waiting the most are Diablo IV and the new Forza Motorsport. Diablo IV will be released 6.6. and Forza Motorsport will be released 26.5. One game that I have already pre-ordered is Metroid Prime Remastered. It has already received some very good feedback. I am waiting to get to play it. It will be released soon (3.3.).

Some other interesting titles include Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XVI, Starfield, Alan Wake II and Resident Evil 4. There are many more which I am not going to mention. It seems like we have a great selection of games this year and I think there is going to be lots of games to play.

I am still playing Gran Turismo 4 on my PS2. The status of the game states that I have completed a bit over eight percentage of the game so there’s lot to play also in this way. It seems to be a great racing game and I am very glad that I decided to pick it up. I seem to be constantly comparing it to the first game in which I fell in love with back in the 90s.

How did you like Alan Wake? It was first published in 2010. It was developed by Remedy. As a game it is a mixture of lightweight survival horror and action in 3rd person view. I personally found it entertaining. I completed it with my Xbox 360 already some years ago. It was released for PC also. And we are getting a sequel, Alan Wake II, this year.

One product I am waiting for is Nintendos new gaming console. As I am writing this we have not heard anything of this new gaming console. If you think that Switch was released in 2017 there is a chance that there is a new console coming to gaming stores sometime soon. After all PS4 was released in 2013 and after seven years we got PS5. So maybe the console will be available next year? Let’s hope for the best and keep waiting.

What to Play Next?

Posted on July 16, 2022 by Viljami

I have to face it – I have a huge amount of games in my backlog. I have both physical and digital copies of many games that I haven’t had an opportunity to get into and to play. This is something to discuss about because there are some clearances in some of those game shops right now. I have to bring up Steam. There was recently a query in Pelaaja (a Finnish gaming magazine) about are people actually excited about ongoing clearances. The results were a bit mixed. A lot of people though their backlog is already huge and that they wouldn’t have a chance to play any of these new games that were on sale.

This is somewhat a problem. There are currently so many games that you have to really give a thought about what game you are going to buy next and what game would you play next. At the same time game buyers are looking more and more how games are rated. There is a lot of money involved. This brings it harder and harder to actually spontaneously pick a game that would suit your taste as good as possible.

It’s not that we wouldn’t have any good new games. This year there has already been many hit games released. We have seen titles like Gran Turismo 7 and Elden Ring already this year. I have to also include one thought to this monologue. There are too many games trying to be everything a game can be. I mean that these games are trying to be more than good in just one genre. This turns games into mega games that have everything. I don’t know if this is healthy for gaming scene. At the same time we are seeing more attempts to bring these mega hit games to the audience. Every big player in the game is trying to make the next big hit. Maybe they should try to accomplish something more simpler and not to try to take such a huge bite.

I greatly enjoyed Gran Turismo 7 some months ago. I played it over 30 hours. Other games that I have recently played a lot are NBA 2K22 and Diablo II Resurrected. How many games like this does a regular gamer need yearly? I am good with two to three titles that take a lot of time to complete. So I’m satisfied with 2-3 games yearly that take up something like 30 or 40 hours to complete. I am not able to play every game, and not even every good game, that gets released. As games try to provide everything for everybody this is very problematic. Actually I am satisfied in a good driving game or two, a good sports game, like FIFA or NBA, and maybe an adventure game or some other game that has also some action game features and maybe a goof first person shooter and all this in about a year. That would make my gaming needs for new games satisfied.

What about retro games? I am talking about older games. For these I prefer to pick some interesting titles as new games that I haven’t yet played. Sometimes these games are legendary and sometimes they are just rare and good. Price of retro games has gone up in recent years. But it is good to read reviews and recommendations from YouTube and also from some good news feeds and blogs. I think there is no reason to buy a lot of old games. It’s better to pick the good ones that you really want in your collection. Some games I pick because they give me nostalgia and I have something in my memory about them.

It’s nice to have kind of an network of influential persons, like bloggers, that can share something, be it a picture or a review or just a comment, about games that they like. I personally like reading reviews the most. I don’t like to always look just for the score that game receives. I like to really get an idea of what kind of a game it would be and what kind of an experience it brings. I enjoy also watching videos from YouTube about hunting games from flea markets. There are people that make their living like this. They buy some games cheap and sell them for a bit higher price.

All in all collecting games is a great hobby. I am a bit worried about gathering too many games to my backlog and that I am not able to play all of them. So I have to make compromises all the time. But I can’t help it. There just are too many games out there. I hope I have time to get into at least some of them.

Next Nintendo Gaming Console in 2023?

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Viljami

Last year (2021) we witnessed the release of a slightly improved Nintendo Switch model. It’s price tag was about 400 euros and you can now get the version that was originally released in 2017 for about 300 euros. Switch Lite, the handheld console, was released in 2019.

There seems to be a repeating pattern here. It looks like we are seeing a new Nintendo gaming console every two years. As there is a lot of conversation conserning about the posiibility of a release of a Nintendo gaming console that can give the player a 4K resolution. There were rumours back in 2021 just before they released details of this new Switch console that it might have capability to give out 4K. It didn’t happen.

There are still lots of Switch gaming consoles for gamers to buy out there. It seems Xbox and PlayStation are loosing some of their users to Nintendo because of their worldwide delivery issues. This gives Nintendo some power that they might need. This is very interesting situation. And I am hoping that they really can bring a gaming console that is of high quality and that has as great performance as can be expected.

There are so many question. What will be the consoles screen resolution? Will it be 4k? Will it be even sharper? How much will it cost? Is it going to work as a portable device? What games will we see on it?

As is common manufacturers of gaming consoles tend to compete with the final products price. They will sell it with a loss but after a while they get their profits from selling games for the system. This probably once again brings down the upcoming consoles price. It is weird to think that Nintendo Switch Lite was only 220 euros when there is a handheld gaming device like OneXPlayer S1 that has a price of 1420 dollars. This seems to be a trend now. So let’s hope the people working in Nintendo can get us the best device for the best possible price.

Are you already waiting for the console that might be released next year? I have been thinking, maybe even dreaming, about getting it. As I have earlier said I would have bought Series X but they weren’t as easily available as I was hoping. So this makes me think about Nintendo once again.