Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

Tag: pc

The Push for New Hardware

Posted on by Viljami

What is the push for new hardware and where does this kind of thinking fit? What are some options for getting your hands on the latest hardware? Are you playing video games with older hardware? Where does emulating retro video game consoles fit right in this discussion? These are only some of the questions I am trying to answer in this latest blog post. I am happy to have you on board!

I was recently playing some PS2 games on my current PC setup. I started thinking about some modern games and how were they compared to these old PS2 games. There is just some deeper appeal in these so called retro games for me. I have also played lots of Xbox 360 games recently. One of these Xbox 360 games is Dirt 3 and there are many other good games that you can actually play on the latest Xbox, Xbox Series X, through its backwards compatibility.

For me the golden era of video games was, or is, the 2000s. Back in the day we had consoles like PS2, PS3, original Xbox and also Xbox 360 along with GameCube. Sega Dreamcast has to be also mentioned when it comes to the hardware of this golden era of gaming. There are also ways to run these games on emulators. So even after the hardware might be broken, that being the console or the actual game disc, you can still get back to playing games from this era. Today we are getting lots of power out of PCs. It is today possible to emulate Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware with a decently powerful, new, PC.

Why are we getting pushed for new hardware? This is a very good question. The hardware manufacturers have to sell some products. After all there would be no manufacturers if there weren’t new hardware products for them to sell. Also the software is getting sold mainly for same reasons. Without mentioning any specific company we can say that there are some facets that get profit from pushing the new hardware to us consumers that also are the gamers in this world.

What is enough when it comes to performance? We could have a device that would be roughly as powerful as a PS4 and that would actually provide all the power needed to run modern video games. One particular gaming console that has made a difference when it comes to performance was the first Nintendo Switch. in the recent years it couldn’t stand up against its greatest competitors.

Do we need new hardware so badly? For me the answer is actually no. You can have a ten year old PC that you would connect to a screen of any type and play the best games from 2000s with a brand new Xbox One controller and enjoy the golden era, according to my viewpoint, with this kind of a setup. We have some hobbyist that actually like to play with and fix old computers. Also many old PC games cannot be run with a modern PC at all. You might need an older operating system and also some old drivers for older hardware like graphics processing unit or an audio device.

I have had some tough luck with my older video game hardware. I have broken two PS2s, one original Xbox and also one Xbox 360 console. The main issue I’ve had was that the console isn’t somehow able to read the game disc anymore. This has everything to do with dust. Also original Xbox has some electrical components, condensers, actually, that are very sensitive to wearing down when time progresses. So, for me it is way more easier to just abandon a broken down console and turn to some emulation on a suitable PC.

These were some thoughts that I had in mind. They were appearing to me as I was playing some PS2 games as I told you in the beginning of this blog post. I ahve to say that I was actually playing Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit 2, but I just couldn’t find the original game to take a photo of. So you are going to have to be content with another great PS2 racing game Burnout 3 – Takedown. I actually do play my PS2 emulator games with this fresh Xbox Series S/X compatible game pad. It is very handy as a controller on a Windows PC.

Is Sega Saturn Worth Your Time?

Posted on by Viljami

The story of Sega Saturn is, might I say, interesting. It was released in 1994 in Japan and in 1995 in Europe and North America. So, it was a competitor of the first PlayStation gaming console. To begin with Sony made its consoles price a bit lower. It had an edge because Saturn had already been released when the talks began about PlayStation and its pricing. If we look at sales numbers we can see that Sony sold a bit over 100 million PlayStations worldwide while Saturn sold somewhere around 15 million units also worldwide.

Why would you bother to take some time to get to know to a loser like this? Things aren’t always as clear as they might seem. There are some reasons why Saturn sold so badly. After all the sales figures can only tell so little about the variety of games, even some exclusives, that you just couldn’t experience elsewhere. Today Saturn is being recognized as an important part of history of video games. It sadly lost to its competitor or competitors as it couldn’t adapt as quickly to video games moving on to three-dimensional graphics. This was somewhat a start of an ending for Sega’s game console efforts. This wasn’t however its last misfortune but that’s another topic for another blog post.

How can you play Sega Saturn today? The legit way is to buy the hardware needed. You are then going to buy a Sega Saturn. It might cost around 200 euros. Maybe a bit less if you don’t buy it from a game shop. Maybe a bit more if the condition of the device is very good. You are going to also need some actual and physical games to play. Saturn games are somewhat rare to find. We haven’t seen and I doubt that we will ever see some sort of a mini console made out of Saturn. This might be a bit sad.

While always taking account on what is legal and what is not. Let me remind you that if you are going to play Saturn games on an emulator you would have to dumb your consoles BIOS to a file. Also you would have to rip every game from a Saturn type of a game disc that you actually own. Otherwise in terms we are going to an illegal zone.

If you consider game preservation it is definitely nice to have these places online like “Vimm’s Lair” (check from your DuckDuckGo search engine if you wish) that provide you with every single Saturn game ever released. If there aren’t any places that you can buy your Saturn games how are you going to manage to acquire a collection of Saturn games and maintain also a working Saturn console? Now that’s a question. What might the current copyright holders think about that? I think that if you don’t release remakes, or even even collections, of these classic titles the option seem to be very clear.

If you go for the emulation option it is nice to have a Rapberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM and install a Recalbox operating system to it. After that you are going to have to move your game roms and BIOS file to a proper location. You can then enjoy the game play using Xbox Series controller or some other USB connectable controller. I myself prefer the Xbox Series controller. If you choose you can also install, like Mednafen, on your Windows PC. The games run very well also there but it might be clumsy if you want your screen to be presented through a true television instead of your PCs screen.

After discussing about some philosophy about old retro-type games we can now finally present you which games to choose to play. The first one that I can recommend is Radiant Silvergun. It is a smooth space shooter where you control a space ship and move from bottom to up shooting these enemies that appear on the screen. A true space shooter is this game. This game was also recently remade for Nintendo Switch. So, you might want to check it out also.

Next game I am going to introduce to you has been also remade recently. The game is House of the Dead. This is something that you would probably play preferably with a optical gun but you can also play it with a controller. The game is very nice. You just shoot things that appear to the screen. You also need to reload your weapon almost constantly and try to not to shoot friendlies.

Two other games I like mention here are Panzer Dragoon and Nights Into Dreams. These are very good games. Panzer Dragoon is currently available for Switch. I don’t know why so many of these remakes appear for Switch. While making a list of best games on Saturn you cannot forget Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing which come directly from Sega. You probably can dig on and on and find more games that you like. If you need more games try Sonic games and Sega Rally.

Some Notes About PC Gaming

Posted on by Viljami

With all my video game consoles I am also very deeply into PC gaming. In this blog post I am going to write to you about my experience in PC gaming in 2025. What games do I play, what kinds of hardware and software I use and how can a PC be utilized to also play some retro games be it that they are on any platform including consoles and older PC gaming systems like MS-DOS or older Windows. I am not so deeply involved in Linux or Mac games. I have only played several Windows and DOS games. I think that Linux gaming is a very young field at this moment but things are moving forward all the time. Linux is today able to play many games that were available only for Windows systems earlier. We are not going to go so deeply into Linux gaming as I have at this moment a Windows 10 installed on my PC.

Some old school gamers might be a bit confused since many PC gaming hobbyists are utilizing a game pad today. Originally PC gaming was very focused on playing with a mouse and a keyboard. I once handed a game pad to my friend, he’s a total PC gamer and has been playing for a long time already with a PC, and he just couldn’t figure out how to even put the controller in his hands. He was trying to handle it like it would be a keyboard. This is just to remind you that some PC gaming enthusiasts are very keen on playing with this somewhat old school controlling method. Back in the 90s it was almost impossible to picture someone playing a FPS game with a game pad. This changed when games like Halo and Call of Duty became popular within console gamers.

Console and PC gaming has become closer and closer to each other. There used to be these two separate groups that favored PC or console games. Of course PC even today cost a lot more than consoles. It is somewhat ridiculous that some players demand same performance from devices like Xbox Series X and PS5 that is present in PC gaming. It has been some kind of a law of nature that consoles are cheap to buy and the profits that console manufacturers make are made out of selling software and mainly games for these systems. There are many ambitious and huge games while some games are developed by indie developers that don’t have so much expectations or technical ability in the games they are releasing. I think this is mainly a good thing. Not every game has to be a huge success after all.

I have lots of PC games in the form a DVD or CD-ROM disc. Today it is coming more and more common to see a PC that doesn’t have a optical disc drive at all. Many setups available don’t include the drive at all. My personal solution to this was to first buy an external DVD drive and just recently I got also a Bluray disc drive. It was a bit expensive. It cost me about 150 euros. I haven’t seen any Bluray Ultra HD 4K disc drives that would have been available in any web shop that I encountered online. This is the actual format of the latest video game consoles.

Gamers are buying their PC games mainly from places like Steam and GOG (“Good Old Games”). There is also the consideration about abandonware. This means that some games aren’t available to be purchased at all and the copyright holder doesn’t really mind if someone is sharing the game for free to be downloaded. You can run a search on your favorite search engine, like DuckDuckGo, or some else, to see some of these games. My favorite place to find abandoned PC games is “My Abandonware” that is a website that holds thousands of games. Soe games are tagged as “commercial” and this means that you aren’t able to download them at least from this site. Some popular abandonware games are the original Silent Hill 2 – Restless Dreams, Black and White 2 and Need for Speed Most Wanted.

It is also possible to play many retro games on a PC. This subject is a bit controversial. Some game companies, like Nintendo, are telling us that emulating older systems is piracy and illegal. Some consumers think it is totally all right to play these games that are downloaded from some gaming website. The law says that for example to use a PS1 emulator on a PC you have to extract the BIOS from the PS1 that you own and then rip every game from an original CD that you own. Then you are perfectly legit with this matter. We are not going to go so deeply in this topic ether. Let’s just state that emulation is possible and there are emulators available that emulate devices like GameCube, PS2, N64 and PS1.

When it comes to operating systems Linux has gained some popularity. At October Windows 10 users are forced to update to a Windows 11 system or then pay some more to keep using their Windows 10 systems. Some lucky people just need to update their operating system while others, that don’t have a compatible PC for this upgrade, are going to have to buy a Windows 11 PC.

How about the issues of performance? How powerful PC can run the latest games and how much does it cost? I have currently a systems that has 16 GB of RAM, a video card memory of 8 GB, a lousy CPU that actually isn’t compatible with Windows 11 or 12 and a 2 TB SSD drive (along with a 250 GB SSD that holds my Windows 10 system files). I also recently bought, finally, a screen that is 28 inch and can display 4K resolution graphics. I am going to upgrade to a PC that has at least 64 GB of RAM, 2 TB SSD, and a video card that has 8 GB of video memory. Also I need good and compatible CPU. This system should be able to run games like the new Silent Hill 2 and Final Fantasy 16. This kind of a computer is going to cost me about 1300 euros. I bought my old PC with a price of 750 euros back in December of 2020. So, it is already a kin do f time also to update my computer to enjoy some modern PC gaming. I think this is all this time and we’ll see in a new blog post later.

Playing Some Gran Turismo 4 (Again)

Posted on by Viljami

I am playing Gran Turismo 4 once again. This game is in my opinion the best one in the series. Not to say that there would be any really bad games in this racing game series. I was thinking about writing a ranking about how I think Gran Turismo series’s games are compared to each other. While I think Gran Turismo 4 is the best I think the first game and also GT 7 were also very good games. It has to be mentioned that the first game deserves some credit about its innovative approach to racing. That game was the one that sparked the series into its way to success.

I have played, since I recently started playing it from the beginning, for about 14 hours. I am always complaining about retro hardware breaking down so now I am going with PCSX2, the PS2 emulator for PC Linux/Mac/Windows. I do have also the original game that can be ripped from DVD with a computer and an optical DVD disc drive. Actually, I recently bought myself also an external Bluray drive and I am hoping to get to rip some PS3 games also. I might write about that also later in a new blog post. Lets just see how my plans are going to be developing.

I am playing this game with a game pad. I am using an Xbox controller because it is so cleverly compatible with my current PC setup. I am running a Windows 10 with 16 GB of RAM and a neat GPU that has 8 GB of video memory. I do have also a SSD that can hold 2 TB of data. I think for modern gaming 1 TB would be enough. The weakest link in my setup might be my personal computers processor/CPU. So, its quite clear that I am also going to have to upgrade my computer later this year. I also have some news about my screen/monitor. I finally upgraded to a screen that has a 4K resolution and is also a bit bigger. The size is 28 inches. Compared to my old Full HD 22 inch display this one is clearly better.

I am hoping to get to play some more new games with a new Windows 11 PC. I have already bought Final Fantasy XVI and Starfield from Steam but my hardware is too poor in performance for me to play them currently. So, I have bought these two games but never even installed them. I am also very interested in getting into the new Silent Hill 2 remake that has received a lot of good reviews. I hope I will get to update my PC in about 2 months. The move to Windows 11 from Windows 10 is going to be scheduled to October. So, for me, this is the final deadline for the upgrade.

This week we also finally got some news from Nintendo concerning the release of Switch 2. The price is going to be 470 euros and 510 euros when you buy one game bundled. This game is going to be Mario Kart World. It is already possible to make an order at least here in Finland. The actual release will be 5th of June this year. I am waiting to get my hands on the new console. I am probably going to get at least Hades 2 and maybe the new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 when it gets released in July.

What more do I have to say about Gran Turismo 4? It was originally released for PS2 in 2005. The graphics are just amazing and I think that they even hold up against today’s racing games. It is very nice to play Gran Turismo 4 with a 4K display and some graphics settings tweak and the screen just screams as the beautiful graphics are getting displayed. There hundreds of real cars that need some updating and tweaking of settings. You can start with buying a transmission that can be set up to get a better acceleration for your vehicle while your top speed does drop. You can have yourself a strategy about different tracks that different types of corners and parts where you are just driving full speed ahead. You have to play some tracks several times to gain some credits so you can advance and buy a new car. You also have some missions to complete to get a proper driving license. Winning series’s of races is being rewarded with a car also.

Clone Your Memory Card in PCSX2 Emulator

Posted on by Viljami

We are dealing with a PS2 emulator that is very capable and that provides you a good quality of emulation for your PC. PCSX2 is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS. Its system requirements include 2 GB of video memory and 8 GB of RAM. There are some requirements also for the CPU or processor. A 64-bit operating system is also a requirement. The recommended system settings are a bit higher. PCSX2 has a good and comprehensive website where you can also look for more details.

PCSX2 utilizes virtual memory cards that are files that have a filename that is ending in *.ps2.  Now, the standard memory cards have 8 MB of space. So, you have to use these memory cards just to save your progress in a game. I am currently playing, once again, Gran Turismo 4 and it takes about 1,5 MB just for the save. There were already some other saves and the emulator printed a message for me saying that the memory card is already full.

So, what do you do? You can of course start your PS2 with no disc inside so that it goes to BIOS. Then you can delete some saved games. You can access BIOS within PCSX2 by first clicking, on your upper left corner: System->Start BIOS. You should do this while there isn’t a game running. Now you can get an access to your memory card by selecting Browser->Memory card on your emulated virtual PS2.

However there is another and more practical way to handle this situation. With no game running on your PCSX2 head over to Settings->Memory cards. Now, click Open… button that is located on the right side of the part that reads Memory cars – Folder: and the location of your virtual memory cards or the files ending with .ps2. Click that button (Open…). Now these files are showing in your operating systems resource manager or the application that you actually handle your files. Now make a copy of the file. This memory card file should preferably be empty. You can empty the file within your PS2 system and then make a copy of the file. You can also leave an empty memory card file that you can copy or clone when you need more space for your saves. I know that I am not going to closely to how the memory card gets copied in your operating system, be it Linux, Windows or Mac, but I think you can manage to do this and will get the idea that I am telling you.

Now, move to your PCSX2 graphical interface. You should be in a windowed view and you should see every memory card file that you have in this specific folder. Make sure there is a tap on your memory card slot 1. Click the “eject” button.  Now the virtual memory card gets ejected. Next you must drag-and-drop your new and preferably suitably named memory card file to the slot that was emptied earlier. Congratulations! You have now a fresh virtual memory card to be used with your PCSX2 emulator. You can now click Close on the window and continue using your PCSX2 emulator.

PCSX2 is a very capable PS2 emulator. It makes playing all almost 4000 PS2 games a smooth experience. I found out that tweaking some graphics settings and also settings found from within the game you could actually make the visuals more detailed. You can manage the settings by going in PCSX2 to Settings->Graphics. From Display I changed Aspect Ratio to 16:9. It can be set to standard 4:3 that is the original aspect ratio. You can also change, from Rendering tap, your Internal Resolution. I changed it to 6x Native (4K UHD). You have to consider how powerful your host PC is. I have a compatible CPU, a video card with 8 GB of memory and 16 GB of RAM. I haven’t had any major issues while running PCSX2 with these settings.

I ended up using PCSX2 because my PS2 always kept breaking. I don’t know if it is because all this dust that you must have seen in my pictures here on this blog. Is it because of the poor overall quality of these game consoles or what. In any way I just find it easier to rip my PS2 games to my PC and then utilize PCSX2 to play them. I don’t get to play with a real PS2 controller but I think that is not so important. Okay then – I hope you found something interesting from this blog post. See you again soon!

All Original Xbox Games I Own That Are Playable On Series X

Posted on by Viljami

I have exactly only nine original Xbox games that are backwards compatible with my Xbox Series X. There are only 63 games in total out of every almost 1000 Xbox games that are backwards compatible. These games that I own are Black, Manhunt, Dead or Alive 3, Dead to Rights, Max Payne 1 and 2, Oddworld Munch’s Oddysee, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Full Spectrum Warrior.

The fact that you can play these games with a modern hardware seems amazing to me. Owning a working original Xbox would be another way to get to play these games. The controller of modern Xbox just feels much better than the original Xbox’s controller. You don’t have to concern yourself with poor video output quality or a need to use an adapter to get an HDMI out of your gaming console. The poor quality of original Xbox’s can lead you to buy many Xbox consoles if you aren’t able to repair them by yourself. But what kind of a gaming console would last over twenty years and still work? After all the device would need some maintenance.

Now I have tens, maybe even over a hundred, original Xbox games. I have had to move some of them to storage as I have had issues with consoles getting to malfunction. I have a broken original Xbox and also a Xbox 360. The issue with my Xbox might have had something to do with a broken condenser. These things can start to leak and cause some internal damage. The symptoms were that the console wouldn’t turn off. I had to unplug the power cord just to shut down the console. Otherwise it worked fine. The problem I had with my Xbox 360 was that it didn’t read any game discs no more. This was caused by some dust that had gotten into the console. I tried to solve the issue with compressed air but didn’t eventually succeed.

Over twenty years old gaming console can have many different issues. These devices aren’t actually today made to last tens of years. I don’t think that software developers and manufacturers of electronics were really thinking in the future for such a long period. This is somewhat understandable. Today there is this scene of old games that can inspire you in many ways if you just find yourself spending some time with them. After all there are so many games and so many systems to explore. This richness should be truly acknowledged.

Xbox Series X supports many Xbox 360 games also. There are 632 games out of a total of 2155 games that are playable. What happens when we move always to more modern consoles? Are we forgetting our past? Although the original Xbox can be emulated it seems today to be a difficult task while we are already seeing emulators that you can play Xbox 360 games with on our PCs. My current PC system just isn’t powerful enough to operate an emulator of this kind. The emulators name is Xenia.

Building Your Own Steam Based PC Setup

Posted on by Viljami

This article is here to introduce to you an idea and also an alternative to something I have achieved here with my Raspberry Pi 5. I am talking about an alternative to Recalbox. This means a PC system, maybe a mini PC one, that is running also Steam. With this kind of setup it would be possible to run any game that you own through Steam. Lets begin!

What I did earlier was that I setup a Raspberry Pi 5 as a retro gaming device. I connected it to my 4K television. This system is good. Its biggest flaw in my mind is that it is not a legit device to play your retro games on. What would be a nice solution is a sort of personal computer that you have a Linux OS running in it and you could also play Steam games on it this way.

Raspberry Pi 5 is a powerful computer. However if you really want something powerful you could get yourself a mini PC that might have something like 32 GB of RAM, a proper CPU and maybe a GPU and also some disk space like for example 2 TB of SSD. As system like this can cost above 1000 or even 1500 euros. This would however be noticed as a totally legit device. It would enable you to play any PC game that you have bought through Steam.

One solution to which operating system you could use for a project like this would be Bazzite. It is a Fedora based Linux distro that can run Steam. Just search for Bazzite through your favorite search engine. I also watched a video on YouTube about this. The video was TechDweebs “This is a fun project!”. You can watch it for some more inspiration. Of course you can find it from YouTube.

If you have a Raspberry Pi 5 or some earlier one you can also try to install some other Linux distro and also play games through Steam. There are many distros available. Just remember that even Raspberry Pi 5 has limited power and doesn’t run the latest games. However it is possible to play many games that don’t have such demanding system requirements. You can also consider getting a real Steam Deck handheld console that is priced somewhere between 600 € to 840 euros. There are ways to hook up Steam Deck to your televsiion.

I wrote this blog post just to remind you of some ways that you can achieve a nice experience while playing your favorite video games. There are many alternatives to Recalbox. I think you will find the right way just for you. You might even want to buy some older game collections for your latest console or maybe you want the original retro hardware. The choice is always yours and there are lots of choices available!

Split Second – A Good Driving Game from 2010

Posted on by Viljami

I recently bought Split Second for my Xbox Series X as a digital copy. It was a cheap game (I bought it for about ten euros). I actually have played this game earlier but the platform was PC. I remembered having a great time with this game so I decided to grab it.

Split Second reminds me of Burnout 3 – Takedown. The gameplay has been adjusted. You don’t actually try to crash other vehicles. Instead you trigger some trap type of obstacles in your opponents way so that they will crash. You get power to trigger these traps by following close at your opponents tail or by drifting while you are driving in a corner.

I have to say that Split Second isn’t a perfect game. It has its flaws. Then again what game today wouldn’t have some disappointing features? The driving can’t be considered a simulation. It is actually very much like playing an arcade game. It is also already a bit outdated with its graphical presentation. This game was originally released for Xbox 360 and PC and surely also for PS3. So, I have played this video game for PC and Xbox 360.

This game reminds me of a somewhat better era for video gamers. Back in 2010 these games were easy to get into and also easier to complete finally. Every game released weren’t as ambitious commercially and in terms of how addicted gamers would become to the game that was in question. I kind of miss those days. We had way more games released. I think that every game can’t be a masterpiece. Every game cannot be a legendary one.

As there are fewer games being released and more money involved in the development process we are getting this clear picture of the state of this industry. Game developers might be aiming too high. At least thats how I feel. Well, maybe we will get some support in this matter from some indie developers.

One thing we can also have a debate about is how Nintendo has managed to get its console, Nintendo Switch, to be such a success. Switch is currently the most sold gaming console ever. It is soon passing PS2. I think its pricing and these good quality games that this platform seems to have have given this gaming device the success that it does currenlty have. Are you waiting for Switch 2? It is rumored that it will have a backwards compatibility with current Switch and also that it might not be such a powerful system when comes to pure technical performance.

As you can imagine I did play Split Second a bit over ten years ago with my PC. I have the game also as a physical copy. I have the frigging DVD disc! It is almost frightening to see these DVD boxes in my video game shelf. They are something that collectors do not wish to have. Do you have a DVD drive still in your PC? I do have, but actually I have disconnected the power supply from it. I did this partly accidentally as I had to change some parts to my desktop PC a while ago. I just haven’t had the time to try to connect the power again to the DVD drive. Actually I have also an external DVD drive that I can connect to my PC through USB. The main point of this paragraph must be that PC has been a digital platform for several years alreaady. What I mean is that if you buy a PC game you propably buy a digital copy of it.

There are plenty of good Xbox 360 and even some original Xbox games available in the digital store of Xbox. I actually bought three games just the other day for 21 euros. If you are into Xbox 360 gaming I highly recommend getting your hands on these games. It is a very good option for buying the physical game from a game store. And of course you might just have an only digital gaming console. Digital gaming seems to be more and more popular as the provess does progress.

Every Gaming System Is Unique

Posted on by Viljami

I have a gaming setup in my living room (or maybe “gaming room”) currently that has total of 8 gaming consoles. Some of these devices are old and some of them are more recent. I have a Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X that represent a more recent of a gaming system. I do have retro consoles also.

These are Sega Mega Drive Mini, PSOne and Retro Trio Plus. The last-mentioned is capable to support Mega Drive, NES and SNES games. I have also some adpaters that enable a gaming system like Master System or Game Boy to be played. I have also PS3 and a PS4 in my current setup. I almost forgot my Nintendo GameCube.

Here we are getting some kind of an idea of my gaming setup. The idea was to ponder on how every gaming system is unique. This comes in mind when you are thinking about game controllers. Every system has its own kind of a controlling device. NES has a very edgy controller while PSOne functions with a DualShock 2 controller that is originally a PS2 game pad. It is nice to have this kind of a compatibility between PS1 and PS2.

Some devices have backwards compatibility with games or some accessories. Nintendo Wii is a very special gaming console. It has this sort of a “magic wand” that you operate and control your games with. Wii is also backwards compatible with a legendary gaming system – GameCube. I liked the last-mentioned better and even went as far as replacing my Wii with GameCube in my setup of gaming consoles.

Some games can be expensive. While it seems to be a good idea to run some sort of an emulation gaming system there is one particular question that comes to mind: What controller should you use? There are two approaches to this matter. You can change your controller to support any gaming system or you can go with the latest and best controller for any gaming system that you are emulating.

You can think about a gaming system and consider how powerful it is. Every device cannot be as powerful as some newer device. If you want the most powerful system you should get yourself a PC. There are however many other matters that take count when you consider about which gaming system you prefer to play your favorite games with.

How is Switch able to compete with Series X and/or PS5? The gaming library can be one matter. Nintendo has games that feature characters like Super Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Kirby. Of course these games aren’t going to be released for these competing consoles. What Switch lacks in power it makes up in originality, design and content of its games.

Some factors that make game consoles unique have to do with their part in the history of video games. Technology is always improving. We are moving on all the time. We hear every day gaming people talk about what would be the newest console to appear in the markets. We have already heard about Switch 2 and PS6. What does the future hold for us gamers? We can only wait and see.

We have dealt with different gaming consoles. Some of these facts that make a system unique can be summarized are the design of the controller, library of games that are available, performance and raw power and backwards, or any other, compatibility between other gaming consoles.

I collect and play old and new games. It is a very tempting thought and I have already considered to just install an operating system like Lakka OS (or some other OS) to a device like Raspberry Pi 5 or maybe on an old desktop PC that I do have laying around in my home. In this way it would be possible to play many games from many devices. Physical copies can be pricy at times.

Game consoles are usually sold for cheap price. Companies like Sony manufactor these devices and sell them with a loss just to increase the console base world wide. Then they release games for the system. Games are where these companies get most of their profit from. This makes it a definitive fact that games do in a way make the gaming system to be also kind of unique. What do you think?

Alone in the Dark Series

Posted on by Viljami

I have played lots of games during my whole lifetime. I just thought that it might be interesting for readers of this blog if I would write about Alone In The Dark game series. They might not be the best of the best in survival horror at the moment but their influence to this genre is huge. There is also a new Alone in the Dark game getting released in 2024.

The first game in this series was published in 1992. If you were playing it back when it was released I think there is a chance that you played it on a PC. Some of the first three games of Alone in the Dark were also released for PlayStation during 1990s. There are a total of seven games in the series.

What makes the influence huge was how the camera angels were adjusted. It made the game a scary one. Also the game utilises 3D graphics in a way that was never ever seen back in 1992. The most popular game that took influences of Alone in the Dark was Resident Evil and it was released in 1996 at least for PC and PS1. I obtained a book about RE some time ago and I am hoping to get to read it soon. I just have to finish the book that I am currently reading so I can begin with the book. It is called “Itchy, Tasty” and it is written by Alex Aniel.

Games in the series that were released during the 90s were of good quality in the standards of the games of that era. I think it might be a waste of your time to get back to them seriously. Well, maybe if you want to experience something old. There might be a retro feel in them.

So, is there a game in this series that would be a nice game to play even today? If we take a look on two games that were released in 2001 and 2008 we can figure an opinion for this question. Let’s face it. These two games are poor games. They don’t live up to standards and they defnitely don’t match my expectations. Out of these two the one released for PS2, Alone in the Dark – The New Nightmare, is better but it isn’t in any way a great game. It has also received a score of 66 out of 100 in Metacritic.

While these two games weren’t so good there are of course excpectations gathered towards this new Alone in the Dark game that is set to be published this year (2024). The genre of survival horror might bem rising its head again since there are rumours about new Silent Hill and also Resident Evil games getting released soon. There was already a short Silent Hill game released recently. It was only for PS5 and its name was Silent Hill – The Short Message. The game was released for free and it takes maybe three hours to complete. So, it is a short game for the fans.

One of my favorite game shops is saying that the new Alone in the Dark will be released in 19th of April. It will be released for PS5, PC and Xbox Series S/X. You can buy the PC release for example from Steam. The game has received open and cheerful welcomes and many fans are expecting this game to be good. For now we must wait for some more information. There are some trailers and early previews of the game avaialble online. You can also order it in advance if you wish to play it as soon as is possible.

 

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