Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

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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??

SteamOS – An Alternative to Windows

Posted on by Viljami

For a long period of time Windows has dominated the scene of playing games with a PC. There is always an alternative and that is Linux. If you have played video games on your personal computer you have most likely stumbled on Steam. It is Valve’s, yes, the company that brought Half-Life to us, brilliant piece of software turned as a game shop application for buying and installing and also maintaining your library of PC games.

There are of course other ways to get your favorite games delivered to you. I have to mention Good Old Games or GOG.com. Some of you might still be buying physical copies of games. You know, those optical discs. They might be CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays or even 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. That is if you even have some sort of an optical drive in your personal computer.

Windows was my choice when I bought my desktop computer almost two years ago. I thought that for the way I use my PC it would be perfect. I have to mention that if you don’t get Windows on the system you are buying you are going to have to pay a lot to get it. I just checked the price of just the operating system Windows 11 and it was 145 euros. That all is just for the operating system.

Linux on the other side is free. It is also open source. What this means is that anyone can participate in making Linux better. I find this kind of comparison between Linux and Windows to be very interesting. In my current job I have had the pleasure to work a bit with PowerShell. This is a deep topic and I am going to just scratch its surface a bit. But let’s say that Linux is open and Windows is closed for what it comes to modifying the code that lies beneath the surface of the operating system.

But what about SteamOS? I can tell you that it is a Linux based operating system. It is free. And it has Steam installed on it. But what is that? I can already hear you talking about how Windows games aren’t compatible with Linux? Well, actually, now they are. Do you know what is “wine”? Let me, again, explain this a bit  further.

Wine is a tool that basically let’s you run software applications that were meant to be launched and run on Windows on Linux. This involves a lot of fiddling with settings and probably some deeper understanding about how software is commonly run on any platform or operating system. But the main point is that it indeed is possible to work with a game or application this way.

Now, when I made my decision of what is going to be my personal computers operating system, I thought a bit how am I going to use the computer. I wanted a machine that could be able to produce some documents so having office tools was important. I also wanted to be able to program on it. This actually works fine in both Linux and Windows. I am also a hobbyist musician as you may recall so it was important that my DAW would work and also that all my VST instruments and effects would be available. And last but not least, as I had a powerful device already, I wanted to be able to play latest PC games on this computer.

What was my choice? It was Windows. If I would have had to install and buy my operating system separately this would have meant that I would have had to buy a Windows license for 145 euros. The alternative would have been to install some Linux distro. Since SteamOS is currently free why not download it? It supports all of the games right?

Valve has had some success as it has brought a working market place and also a place for your gaming library for you the gamer. If you think about also Steam Deck you can clearly understand what is going on right here. Steam Deck is a very good and practical handheld gaming device. And it supports also Steam. I have been using Steam since I got my PC and that was about two years ago.

But would I go and trade my current and working system to SteamOS? I have to say that I am not right now yet ready for it. I am too concerned that I won’t have an opportunity to use my computer to other matters that aren’t about playing games. But I can say it is tempting. I have thought about testing SteamOS and maybe I will install it on some older PC someday.

The Importance of a Plot

Posted on by Viljami

If you think about games and gaming and what it comes to games having a strong inner story, a plot, you can have many opinions. There are two extremes. Some might think that there should be sort of interactivity and action in games and that a plot is just something that doesn’t have such an importance.

This of course depends a lot about what kind of a game you are experiencing. If you have a shooter, maybe a first person shooter, you don’t necessarily want to follow something that is comparable to a story or line that walks you throuhg the game. You are happy to just shoot everything that moves, right?

What about adventure games? Here the plot has more meaning. Also in advneture games the dialogue and conversations bring a lot to the content. You also have some puzzles to solve. You have objects to pick up and use in some situations. That’s how adventure games work.

Can you think about a role playing game wihtout a plot? I hardly can. But of course in a role playing game you are also very interested how your main character or characters develop. Usually there are also choices made inside the game that vary how the story keeps moving on. Some games have a solid story line while others might have various events launched by a decision that the player has made.

If you want an example of a storydriven role playing game I would have to bring up Fallout and Fallout 2. These games had a deep and interesting story that also formed based on the desicions that the player makes.

So is strory or a plot important to you as a player? If we compare games to other mediums like books and movies we can think that games differ from them in that that they have this interactivity in them. Player can move a character or characters and make decisions that make an impact. You could hardly think of a movie that has no plot at all. But if you think about a classic game like Doom you could do fine wihtout understanding it’s story line.

Some games give a plot a lot of importance. Some games give us a slight idea of what is going on and deliver some action instead. Some games, maybe some simple games, might not have a plot at all. There are as many games as there are types of players. And we can say that that is many indeed.

Characteristics of Sega Mega Drive Games

Posted on by Viljami

I was playing Shinobi III – Return of the Ninja Master as I started to focus on how the game is actually developed. I am sometimes, maybe subconsciously, starting to think how the game that I am playing is programmed or how the graphics are put together. I am not a professional game developer but I still find thinking about this very interesting. I started to realize that there are some characteristics of games that are developed for Sega Mega Drive.

Mega Drive, or Genesis, was released in the late 80s. It aimed to be a serious competitor for Nintendo Entertainment System. It also made it’s best to bring the experience of arcade to consumers living rooms. At this point the hardware performance of game consoles was beginning to be a lot closer to the level of arcade game machines. It was clear that Sega wanted Mega Drive to be more powerful than NES. Sega made this message clear by printing the text “16-Bit” to the surface of Mega Drive game console.

What kinds of games there were back in the day? Are they still worth playing ? We can start from the visual perspective. As Mega Drive had power, it produced very nice graphics if they were compared to the graphics that NES provided. I think SNES has a bit better graphics if you compare them to Mega Drive’s. But SNES was released way later than Mega Drive. The graphics are of course two dimensional as 3D modeled games weren’t yet available.

Mega Drive games are said to be repetitive. I think this is somewhat true. Many times you have to play the same part of the game over and over again until you finally succeed and get to progress. Mega Drive games can be a bit more violent than Nintendo games. You can understand this by thinking about hockey games that have or do not have fights. If you also compare Mortal Kombat games released for these systems there are some clear differences. Sega’s version has more blood on it.

Let’s talk about the gamepad a bit. As you think about how the controller looks you realize that it definitely was designed to be an improvement of NES controller. I mean, just look at it! It’s completely round. NES controller is so edgy and simple compared to Sega’s. There are three buttons, a start button and an axis button – nothing else. This makes this controller simple and easy to use. Although in some games it would be nice to have some more buttons. There are of course some more advanced gamepads available and this is only the one that originally came with the console.

Mega Drive games are addictive. You can play it’s games for hours. That’s just about how long you can spend playing Mega Drive. I think PlayStation later made it possible and even preferable to play the same game for tens of hours and it’s sequel, PS2, took it even further to this direction. Playing Mega Drive can cause you some serious raging. I think this has to do with the repetitiveness. Mega Drive was in late 80s and early 90s very affordable if you compare it to for example PC. In those days you had to spend a fortune if you wanted to buy a personal computer.

Game & Watch – How Nintendo Got In to Video Game Business

Posted on by Viljami

I watched a video on YouTube about how Nintendo got the idea of producing original Game & Watch devices. I will link the video to the bottom of this blog post. That video inspired me to write this post.

You might not know what Nintendo Game & Watch device is. It reminds a calculator a bit. The idea was born when Gunpei Yokoi, the designer of Game & Watch, and later Game Boy, saw a man traveling in train. The man had a pocket calculator. He was looking very bored and seemed to tap randomly some numbers in his calculator.

Yokoi visioned that Game & Watch would be somewhat a tool to avoid boredom during for example long train trips. Nintendo needed some help to come up with a product like this. So, the design would rely strongly to the technology of pocket calculators. The device had a LCD screen. It was powered with batteries and it featured a D-Pad and some other buttons to control the game.

This was all accomplished in a world that wasn’t yet conquered by Nintendo Entertainment System. We had maybe some Atari 2600’s or something like that in our living rooms but the world and also Nintendo were very different from what it became in the 1980s later.

Game & Watch became very popular. There were several products released by Nintendo between years 1980 to 1991. Of course there was recently two Game & Watch consoles released. I got myself a Zelda one. The other Game & Watch had Super Mario games on it.

I can tell you a bit about my Zelda Game & Watch console. I think it cost about 70 euros. It came with Zelda games that were originally released for NES and Game Boy. It can be charged with a USB-C-cable and it has a good battery. You can see how the game can be controlled from the picture above this blog post.

Xbox Documentary Series on YouTube

Posted on by Viljami

It’s been 20 years from the release of the first Xbox or should we call it original Xbox. This was Microsofts successful attempt to get into game business. The path was rough. There were several obstacles on the way.

So the history of this gaming console has been collected to a form of a documentary series. It has six episodes in it that are about 40 minutes per episode. It is possible to view this series from YouTube for free. I can definitely recommend this for someone that has been interested in gaming for a while or to someone that just finds this content somehow interesting.

I have watched five episodes out of six. They have covered topics like the dominance of PlayStation as a gaming device in consumers living rooms and how Microsoft felt that their business was in danger. They just had to react and go from producing software to creating some hardware in the form of a new game console. It wasn’t always clear that there would be a product like Xbox now is in the markets.

So the first chapters describe how Microsoft started in the gaming business. I think everyone that has been involved in consuming games can say that they remember these problems that Xbox 360 had. There were so many consoles returned. It was said that the console was rushed. It wasn’t properly tested. So lots of products ended up returned. Microsoft handled this problem as well as they could and it cost it a lot of money.

I am going to watch the last episode of this series soon. The story is now in the beginning of the battle between Xbox One and PS4 and how Xbox declared that its console would fit perfectly in almost everyones living room. It is also clear that Nintendo had to play its cards in this game also. Did you know that Microsoft made an offer to buy Nintendo way back? If you are interested in this documentary series you can find “Power On: The Story of Xbox” from YouTube.

About Crysis 2

Posted on by Viljami

I have hyped some games that I really enjoyed in this blog. So I guess it’s time to say something about a game I didn’t get so much in to. I’m not saying it is a bad game. Also I’m not saying I haven’t played FPS games at all because I somewhat have played them. Actually I’m currently playing Call of Duty Vanguard. There are lots of differences between these two considering that they are both in a same genre. In this text I would like to write about these differences and explain why I didn’t play Crysis 2 so much.

Crysis 2 is a good game. But my point here is that it is really difficult. What makes this game hard? At first it looks like your regular FPS experience. When you get to action you suddenly notice that the enemies are all over the place. When you fire a shot lots of enemies notice you and start shooting at you from different angles. You can dodge and take cover but because there are enemies behind you and in front of you…the game forces you to shoot accurately. If you miss a shot you get punished. There’s not lots of ammo also.

If we compare Crysis 2 to some Call of Duty, lets mention Vanguard here, we can see a clear difference. Call of Duty is easier. You can play it even if you are a casual shooter game fan. The enemies appear mainly in front of you. You can take cover easily. You just have to remember to reload your weapon and if there are lots of enemies you have to take cover if they fire at you heavily and if you get also wounded badly.

Weapons are a bit different also between these two games. Crysis 2 brings you some futuristic weapons while in Vanguard you get to use old weapons used in World War 2. But basically in Crysis 2 you get a shot gun or a sub machine gun with a bit limited aiming. In Vanguard you get to shoot with a sniper rifle a lot and also with some basic rifles and you can effectively use sub machine gun at close combat. Vanguard also features some stealth action and it may have more of it than Crysis 2.

So all I wanted to say about Crysis 2 is that it is basically a very good game. It’s just that it’s in my opinion just too hard. I know there are lots of fans of Crysis series all over internet. So please don’t be offended. Crysis 2 was originally released in 2011 for Xbox 360 and I think there is currently available a trilogy of HD remakes that includes all three Crysis games remade with todays graphics.

Some Thoughts About Diablo II: Resurrected

Posted on by Viljami

The newest Diablo game was released last Thursday. It is a debate about if these latest issues they’ve had in Blizzard concerning sexual harassment and bad working culture are affecting the actual sales of this game. What must be true is that this hasn’t affected on the quality and design of Diablo II: Resurrected. It is your own opinion if you decide to not to buy the game because of this. I also don’t have anything to say about if this is going to help the matter some way.

I actually bought this game in advance. I did it accidentally. The game was released at 6 PM and I made the payment maybe fifteen minutes before that. The price was the same so it didn’t matter so much. There would have been different versions of the release. I decided to go with the cheapest one.

This game is definitely a remake. It isn’t a new game. That doesn’t mean it is a bad game. I love to get into Diablo II again and even more so as there are some huge improvements. I am playing this game with Xbox Series S. Diablo II was originally designed for PC so you would naturally play with mouse and keyboard. Moving the player is a bit clumsy but you get used to it fast.

There are definitely a lot of differences to Diablo III when these two games are compared. I think this makes it interesting to see in the future what kind of a game is Diablo IV going to be. It definitely will be a completely new game. It is still not announced when it will be released. There is a sense also that there is something more to come since Resurrected is only a remake. Although Diablo IV might be released as late as 2024. We don’t know that yet. But you definitely get a picture that there is something more to come and Resurrected is only the beginning.

As my character I chose to create a Paladin. I played with this character class when I played original Diablo II back in the beginning of 2000s. That was 20 years ago. I can’t believe it has been so long of a time. This new remake is an addition to series of remakes of my favorite games that I played back in the days. We’ve had a remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Final Fantasy VII, Spyro The Dragon and also many others. So it is a nice addition.

I like this game. It reminds me of this great title. I have currently this Paladin character with a level of 15. You can connect and move your character online with Battle dot net but you have to have an Xbox Live subscription which I currently don’t have. Luckily you have also an option to only save your character locally in offline mode. You will like this game if you like Diablo II. Although it isn’t a new game. If you are expecting to see some new shiny things this isn’t for you. If Diablo II isn’t yet familiar to you I can recommend this game for you also but maybe with a small reservation.

Learning Some Java

Posted on by Viljami

Learning to program takes lots of time. When I first got interested in it I started with basics. I started making small websites with HTML. Then I learned more about CSS and got myself into some basic image manipulation that I had to do to make my websites look nice. Back then I got curious about actual programming. I tried my hand at JavaScript and PHP. As I was trying to learn by myself and not in any school or even in a single course I didn’t get far.

I really got into some, so to say, “real” programming when I started studying in a local school of applied sciences. I completed a course that was named something like “Basics of Programming in Java”. I learned many new and interesting subjects. First thing you have to do when you are just starting is to learn how to set up the environment for the actual programming. You might be using Linux or maybe Windows as your PCs operating system. You might want to install an IDE which stands for Integrated Development Environment. You also have to install, if you are going with Java, Java. I recommend using NetBeans as your IDE. It enables you to do so many other things also.

Learning to make games is based on learning how to program. You have to master the basics first. Then you can slowly progress to some advanced matters. While studying programming you also get to see a lot about how the computer that runs all these games is actually working. This is one of the most interesting thing for me and it also motivates me. I have alwaýs been a bit of a holic learner. That means that I want to analyze what I am learning deeply and know the subject and figure out how it actually works. The opposite of this learning attitude is atomistic attitude. It means that the learner is learning some plain facts that are true about the subject being learned and trying to memorize these.

The picture related to this blog post represents the first Java book that I bought as I started my studies. It got me really far. It took me years to learn almost everything in this book. I haven’t fully stomached all of the contents. It has been about ten years since I bought this book. So that tells you a bit about the quality of the text. This book is now already a bit old. I think today Python has become more popular than Java for the first programming language.

Where you usually start in programming is that you learn what are variables, how you construct the code with control structures,  like if-else-statements, how to use the most common functions that the language provides, how to read in text from user and how to print it and also how basic arrays are used. This small list doesn’t include everything. How I started was that I basically started a short course. Then I started a bit more advanced course. And then another course about object oriented programming. Since we are talking about Java OOP is important. I think with Python this subject isn’t as important.

Programming is only one part of what a graduated software developer has to know to be able to work professionally. While studying I learned a lot about databases, user centered development, testing, communications, foreign languages, physics, electronics, mathematics and so on. I took a course about processors also. I deepened my knowledge in software development as I had to choose my main subject from telecommunications, embedded systems and software. This choice was made after one and a half years of studying.

One thing I would like point out about studying. When it is summer the school is closed. You have to figure how are you going to spend the time. You might be working. You might want to take some remote courses like I did. Just don’t be too lazy andjust  try make use of this time somehow. Otherwise it might be hard to start working on your studies again when the summer is over. So keep that in mind. Resting is required but a pause too long can be harmful.

A huge part of getting employed is how well you understand what it takes to be a professional. You have to find the best frameworks and the most useful programming languages. Teachers know a lot but always someone knows a lot about one thing and someone else knows a lot about other thing. Keep your eye on the companies that are doing the things that you would be interested doing. Make some hobby projects to display your skills. It might be a good idea to share your projects in for example GitHub. And remember to build your resume. You can even add some supplement pages that give the employer an idea about your skills.

If you are going to study programming keep in mind that it takes time. Keep your focus. It’s a long road. Go for it if you really are interested in it.

My Personal Relationship with PS4

Posted on by Viljami

I hadn’t thought about PlayStation 4 yet when a friend asked me a question – Do you know when is the new console actually getting released? That was probably back in 2013. Before that comment entered my mind I had been steadily working through titles available for PS3. I had played almost endless series of driving games like Need For Speed series and Dirt 1 and 3.

I had time and energy to play video games. Back then I wasn’t so interested, as you can figure, about retro games. They were only a slight curiosity I casually worked with using emulators on a PC. So I thought it would be nice to finally buy the latest PlayStation.

I actually made the purchase after I had just turned 30 years old in 2014. My budget was, back then, low, but I managed to save money to buy the device. I bought also my first PS4 game at the same time. It was Tomb Raider that was released back in 2013.

At first I had an ambitious idea of completing every game I got for PS4. It worked out only until I got like my fifth game or so. I managed to get through Tomb Raider and Call of Duty Ghosts. Games for PS4 were pricey at that time and there was only small selection. Many games were releases of old games released as HD remakes. So I had a new gaming console but there were only a handful of games.

Was it really worth it? I started to think about this. When I am writing this I think that this device had some really nice games. Some of my favorite games are NBA 2K14 and Dirt Rally. These two really stand out in the list of my favorite games for PS4. I just think there were many titles that I didn’t really get into so much. I guess it has also something to do about that I was back then already a bit over 30 years old.

It is said that when you are young you get more inspired by the music of that time. I think this goes also for video games. One year can be very significant for a nineteen-year-old but one year for a forty-year-old is not so big deal. So I was a bit older and had already got through experiences of the first PlayStation. I just think that PS4 never conquered my hearth like PS1 once did. This personal relationship made me think that it would be not a good idea to buy a new gaming console. So tot this day I haven’t found a reason to get a new console. I have a fresh PC that I can play also some new games.

After all there is an infinite amount of games that you can play. I think the games I am going to play don’t necessarily have to be the newest anymore and PS4 kind of ended my habit of playing the newest games released. PS4 is now not the newest gaming console anymore. It isn’t retro either. It is somewhere in between of retro and new. I think it’s time now for me to take some distance to this console and try to find some other games that I can enjoy. If you did enjoy PS4 or are still enjoying it that’s fine. I just think it lacked a personality and that’s why I have not played it or enjoyed playing it as much as I did PS3 and some older devices.

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