Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: playstation 1

Getting Into PS1 (What Games Should You Play?)

Posted on by Viljami

There are thousands of games for Sony PlayStation 1 that have been published since the console was released in the middle of 1990s. The amount of games can be overwhelming especially if you are new to PlayStation 1. In this blog post I am going through some of the best games for PS1 in different genres from roleplaying to 2D and 3D platformer games.

Lets start with RPGs. Roleplaying games usually take longer to finish. It is improtant to know something about the game that you are about to start to play. First RPG for PS1 that comes to mind is, of course, Final Fantasy VII. While there are more RPGs, also, this must the most improtant out of all of them. It practically brought the Final Fantasy series to Europe and made it a popular game world wide. You can also check titles like Breath of Fire, Grandia, Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story and Suikoden.

Maybe the favorite genre in PS1 games for me is racing. The first racing game that comes to my mind is, once again and of course, Gran Turismo. There were two Gran Turismo games released for PS1. If you are new to Gran Turismo I suggest that you start from the first game. Other good racing titles include Colin McRae Rally 1 and 2.0, Ridge Racer (at least Ridge Racer Type 4), Need for Speed series and Driver 1 and 2.

PS1 has also some great FPS games in its game library. While the graphics aren’t as impressive as with some later releases in this genre with some newer hardware. My first suggestion if you are interested in FPSes is Medal of Honor and the sequel Medal of Honor Underground. There was also a port of Doom and also Final Doom and I think these are also worth of getting into. I mention here also Alien Resurrection.

What would a list of the most significant PS1 games be without some survival horror games? If you’re into this genre you have the opportunity to check and play the games that almost started it all. I am saying almost because maybe the first survival horror game that was ever released was Sweet Home and it was originally designed for NES. Games that I have in mind right here are Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3, the first Silent Hill and Clock Tower.

Lets take a look at some fighting games that were released for PS1. Fighting Force 1 and 2 delivered some classic street fighting in a 3D environment. Games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy and many versions of Street Fighter brought you some 2D fighting while Tekken series and Battle Arena Toshinden presented some fighting content in 3D. I can also mention Bushido Blade here. If you are into stealth style of fighting you should check Tenchu and also the sequel for it.

There are also some very good 2D and 3D platformers for PS1 and I have to mention some good games in this genre also. We cannot forget Crash Bandicoot. There were a total of three games released for PS1 in this series. Spyro The Dragon is also one good game in this genre. If you like 2D platformers check the first Rayman and also Oddworld Abe’s Oddysee and the sequel to it.

Other good games that I haven’t mentioned yet in this list are: Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2, Metal Gear Solid, Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, all sport games, Spider-Man series, Wipeout, Tomb Raider series, Castlevania Symphony Of The Night and all other titles that you might find just if you look deeply into the PS1 game library.

There must and there has to be a game that I forgot. And of course this is the list of most important PS1 games in my opinion. You might have a different idea of it. If there are thousands of games there also have to be some hidden gems and you have to spend some time with PS1 to get to know these games. But anyways I hope you did find something from this blog post. I hope this gives you some sort of an idea of what games you shoudl play when you are starting to get into PS1 and its huge game library.

Itchy, Tasty – The Book About Resident Evil

Posted on by Viljami

Itchy, Tasty is a book written by Alex Aniel. It tells the story of Resident Evil video game series that was developed by this huge game developer Capcom that became famous by releasing Street Fighter II for arcades and Super Nintendo. Street Fighter wasn’t their first game but it might have been the game that took Capcom to the top. The book has been published in 2021. It holds well over 250 pages and is focusing on the games that were released in the series before Resident Evil 5.

Resident Evil begun with a game titled Sweet Home that was a NES game. There were debates about releasing a horror game for such an childish and powerless gaming console. While there do exist many great games on Nintendo Entertainment System the developers at Capcom thought that it would be difficult to release a good horror game for this system because of its limitations. The music and graphics would have been too unimpressive to satisfy the vision they initially had about the new horror game that was about to be developed.

Itchy, Tasty describes how Resident Evil managed to create something completely original and new in video games. It can be held responsible for creating a new genre of survival horror. It took some elements, the weird and stationary camera angles, just to name one, from first games of Alone In The Dark series that was released some years before the first Resident Evil. You can probably figure how Resident Evil impacted on games like Silent Hill and any other survival horror game that has ever been released.

For me Resident Evil 2 was the first game in the series that I actually played. It wasn’t the first PlayStation 1 game I played. That honor goes to Gran Turismo. But that piece of survival horror really impressed me. Well, it made me also feel agony but in a somewhat desirable in a way. It is hard to describe this game to a person that hasn’t played it. I think about RE2 as a retro game. It was something impressive back in 1998.

Soon after, maybe some moths or something like that, I had beaten RE2 and wanted something more to play. So, I picked up the first Resident Evil. I soon found that it was also a very good game. I also completed the third game. As there were several spin offs that I haven’t got into I cannot say that I would have played every game in the series. I do have completed Resident Evil 5 but that is just out of the scope of Itchy, Tasty.

The author of Itchy, Tasty, Alex Aniel, is very much involved in the gaming scene. He writes firmly about the history and development of this series. Every game that was released before Resident Evil 5 is covered. Even a game for Game Boy Color has been mentioned. What I found as a very interesting piece of knowledge was the part of describing how the first game was ported to Nintendo 64. You know, it was originally developed for PS1. What is the main difference between these systems? Well, N64 used 64 MB game cartridges while PS1 had an optical disk drive that used CD-ROMS that had 650 MB of space.

This wasn’t the only difference between these systems. N64 was faster when it came to loading the data that game used. It is miraculous how it was actually possible to fit RE2 to a N64 cartridge. Later the series moved on to GameCube. For a while there was a decision in place that RE games would be developed only for Nintendo GameCube. As you might know already this wasn’t a long lasting decision as you can today find RE4 for PS2 also from your favorite gaming shop.

I can recommend this book especially for someone that is a fan of survival horror games. There are many interviews and a lot of background information that makes clear how the writer of the book has come to the writing of this material. Mainly persons that worked closely on the series have been included in these descriptions.

 

The Certain Appeal of PlayStation 1

Posted on by Viljami

What does PlayStation 1 offer that makes you just pick up the controller and play? It was released almost 30 years ago. I still find that it has a lot to offer even compared to modern game consoles.

I can only try to describe what it felt like playing PS1 back in the day. We, gamers, were excited. Technology was new and it was advancing at a high speed. You could literally see how games became more and more realistic. It was the dawn of three dimensional game environments.

Sound quality reached also the level that was offered by the CD format. There were many electronic music artists that produced some cathchy musical vibes to these new kinds of video games. CD-ROM as a platform for video games offered game developers way more space than everyone was used to. Games became more complex and gamers started to spend more time playing. Little by little it came acceptable for grown ups to play games, also.

PC games were also developing. It became clear that computer gaming offered several strategy games and also some very good first person shooters. You really didn’t play FPS games on a console. The first FPS console game is often considered to be GoldenEye 007 that was released in 1997 for Nintendo 64. The point where FPS really conquered consoles and made them break out from only being playable with a keyboard and mouse to getting controlled with a gamepad became when Halo was released for Xbox.

The games that you preferred to play on PS1 were games like Gran Turismo, some early games of Need for Speed series, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. These games had a combination of action, cool looking graphics and an excellent playability. This is how games of PS1 were presented and this is why they are still causing me to feel this endless joy and also nostalgia still after all these years.

Today I have a PSOne console along with my PS2. As you probably read form that earlier post I have been struggling a bit with my PS2. I currently have my PSOne in storage but I am thinking of moving it to my setup once again. It has luckily functioned very nicely since I bought it back in 2017.

I have a strong history in playing video games with PS1. It was important gaming console and it shaped my knowledge in video games and made me go deeper and deeper. It wasn’t my first gaming console. That spot is taken by Sega Mega Drive. I did play some PC games on DOS before I got to play with consoles.

It hasn’t always been clear in my life that games deserve a spot in my life. That is why I sold my PlayStation 1 back in 2000. I didn’t know if playing video games would make me progress in my life. I also sold all my games that I had. I think I had maybe 30 games back then. I do regret this. If I have to think something positive about this I can at least think that I made the buyer happy.

Today I have bought nearly all games I used to have back in to my collection. This featured image related to this blog post displays my current PS1 games collection. I have recently added games to it and it keeps getting new games to it all the time. I might have to update this image soon.

PlayStation 1 sold over 100 million copies. Its production was discontinued in 2006. You can still get your hands on a PS1 gaming console. You can get a used console for a bit below 100 euros. You can also get your hands on an emulator like ePSXe or DuckStation. For being a legit gamer you must rip these rom files that you use to play from game discs that you own. You also have to copy your BIOS from PS1 console that you own. And otherwise you are basically breaking the law. One other way to play PS1 games that I have to mention is to buy a PlayStation Classic console.