Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: nintendo

Just Finished Sonic CD

Posted on by Viljami

Where do you recognize Sega? Well, from its blue mascot, Sonic The Hedgehog, of course! Sonic was made to be the competitor for Nintendo’s Super Mario. Of course there are many other titles and many other characters but Sega seems to be very well known when it comes to Sonic. We can talk about Wonder Boy or the main characters of Golden Axe. We can even mention a character like Kid Chameleon. There really isn’t a competition after all.

The first Sonic game was released in 1991. It was titled simply Sonic The Hedgehog. This was the game that actually shipped with my Sega Mega Drive back in the day. The graphics were very nice for its time. I can clearly remember playing it for hours. The action and speed made a permanent impacted and pushed me further towards this hobby of gaming. Later I got to play many more Mega Drive titles. There are too many to mention but lets say that Streets of Rage series, NHL 94 and NBA Jam were some of my favorites back in the day.

You could pick some other way to get back to these Sonic titles. I chose to get a copy of Sonic Origins Plus for my Xbox Series X. I bought it for about 20 euros. It was cheap. It also offered a possibility to see how much of this compilation you have completed. Also saving your progress wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish. If you play any of these games on the original hardware you don’t have an opportunity to save your game.

So, the compilation has games like Sonic 1, 2 and 3 and also Sonic CD. Today I spent some hours and managed to finish Sonic CD. This is the Sonic game that was released for Sega CD. If you are wondering what is Sega CD I can explain it briefly. Sega CD is an accessory that you can apply on Mega Drive. It uses CD-ROM technology to store the games. Of course these meant that there were hundreds of times more space for these games. There were more than 200 games developed for it. It wasn’t as popular as Mega Drive and games and any related hardware is thought to be rare. Mega Drive Mini 2 featured several Sega CD games along with tens of Mega Drive games.

Sonic CD is a nice and speedy 2d platform game. The fact that the game was made to be released on a CD-ROM meant that the sound has a maximum quality compared to some of the limitations that Mega Drive had. Graphics of the game are detailed. I did spend many hours playing Sonic CD. How Long To Beat website tells me that it takes only two hours to finish the game and six and a half hours to complete it.

You can find enemy characters like Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic in the game. Sonic has a bit more moves to make if you compare these abilities to something that was present originally in the first Sonic The Hedgehog game. If you manage to pick up 50 coins in a stage you get to a bonus stage. There are seven levels that all have three stages to play in this game. The speedy running and a minimum amount of thinking seems to work as a good game plan. However there are some spots in this game that require a bit of problem solving or you could even call it a strategy. But the less you worry and the better you complete your presses of buttons the more you will advance in this game.

Sonic Origins Plus is a nice compilation of Sonic games. I did finish two of the first games, Sonic 1 and 2, earlier. I think I played them last summer if I recall correctly. So, I do have some more playing to do if I want to finish also Sonic 3. There’s lots of content all in all. If you are a definitive fan of Sonic games or if you want to reminisce on some retro content this might be something worth getting your hands to.

Some Reasons for the Success of Nintendo Switch

Posted on by Viljami

Today Nintendo Switch is the third most sold video game console. Only some legendary and popular devices are above it in the statistics. Those consoles are PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS. I am talking about the global top list of consoles sold. The statistics of a specific region, like North America, Europe or Asia, might differ from the ones that I here am writing you about.

The most sold consoles, huh? PlayStation 2 has held this position for a long time now. It dominated the statistics being the first DVD player for many gamers. It has also a very wide selection in a form of a game library. People were expecting something like this already when only PlayStation 1 was available. During this period we saw a great increase in the number of gamers worldwide as new players and groups were starting to get interested in video games.

What about Nintendo DS and its success. Why did it take place? I guess this has everything to do with it being a portable gaming device. You could take it everywhere and it provided solid library of games and a decent three-dimensional environment for these new types of video games. I guess that before the era of smart phones (I think Apple begun this era by releasing the first iPhone in 2007) this was something very attracting for a gamer.

We are taking now Nintendo Switch in to account while we are having a conversation about the most sold gaming consoles. And actually why is it so? Well, there are some quite clear matters that we can think for a while. One of them is that Nintendo Switch has a gaming library that has a very good quality. There are several Nintendo exclusive games being still released that are very good ones and that you cannot play on another console.

We have to take in count also these delivery problems that Sony and Microsoft faced during the pandemic. This is a reason you cannot underestimate in these talks. There was a long period of time that Xbox Series X and both PS5 models, the one with the disc drive and the one without, were totally unavailable. You could find a Xbox Series S if you were lucky but there was no serious lack of Nintendo Switch consoles. The availability might be the biggest reason that Nintendo Switch climbed to such high levels of units sold during these times.

Why is the Nintendo Switch so cheap? The price is today about 300 euros here in Europe while PS5’s and Xbox’s pricier models wear a price tags way higher. You have to consider that Switch doesn’t come with a proper controller so you might have to spend like 70 euros for Pro Controller. This is of course optional. One factor of the low price seems to be that Nintendo Switch is very underpowered especially when compared to its main competitors of this generation of consoles. It is compared to Xbox 360 when we are discussing about pure performance. The upcoming Switch 2 that we are going to get more information from Nintendo by 2nd of April is said to be as powerful as PS4. So, the pure power is not the case when dealing with success here.

We also cannot forget the appeal of Nintendo’s brand. They are known to be a “mega” huge gaming company since the early days of Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short, back in the beginning of 1980s. It was the video game console that made home video gaming popular again while many consumers were very disappointed in Atari’s 2600 and especially their games and overall quality that finally caused a big depression of video games consuming and playing in the first years of 1980s. NES was definitely the console that made gaming popular again. You could trust Nintendo and it was something considered to have a good quality.

Today PS2 has sold wolrdwide over 160 million units. Nintendo DS has sold 154 million units. Nintendo Switch is behind these two with 150,8 million sold units. It is very exciting to see how is the Switch ending up to sell as the sales might dive down after or even before Switch 2 is getting released. How many people are going to buy Nintendo Switch if the Switch 2 is already available? The price of this new Nintendo console is predicted to be somewhere between 400 or 500 euros. However the price or other details, like release date, are not yet officially announced.

Why I Bought PSP In 2024?

Posted on by Viljami

Here’s a blog post about PSP (PlayStation Portable). I bought one this year. Why would you want to get a PSP in 2024? Here are some reasons…

PSP is very cheap today. I paid 80 euros for it. It has been some months already. I really like the device. I got also an adapter and a memory card (microSDHC) that holds 32 GB of storage. The deal included also a charging cable. I actually had to buy the memory card and adapter separately so they weren’t included in the price of 80 euros.

What are some good games for PSP? I bought three games: Colin Mcrae Rally 2005, Marvel – Ultimate Alliance 2 and NBA 2K13. These are just some examples. You are actually able to play PlayStation 1 games on PSP. The games seem to be more advanced than PS1 games as PSP was released later than PS1.

You can also play games like Metal Gear Solid – Peacemaker, Silent Hill – Shattered Memories, God of War – Ghost Of Sparta and Gran Turismo just to name a few. There are a total of almost 2000 games in the library of PSP games. Many of the games are ports of well-known titles.

I just today read some news that Sony might be working on a new portable gaming console. We have seen a handheld console already after PSP. That device was PS Vita.

We have seen how Nintendo Switch can be played in a handheld mode and it can also be connected to a television screen. Right now Switch is in the top five of the gaming consoles that are sold most. The top position is held now by Sony PlayStation 2 and Switch is actually on the third spot right after Nintendo DS. I do own also a Nintendo DS.

I am not very comfortable playing a handheld device. I enjoy more  about a gaming console when I can connect it to a big screen and play it with a good quality gaming controller. I like to sit and lean my back towards a comfortable chair or a sofa when I play.

Handheld devices can be nice if you are on the move. It is very nice to play a device like PSP in a hotel room for example. A handheld device is good when you don’t want to carry around many cables and other heavy equipment.

You can also check some games on a PSP emulator also. There is a very nice emulator called PPSSPP. The games do have some limitations and cannot be compared to some device that gets connected to a 4K or Full HD screen. Also the controls are a bit compromised.