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The Role of Technology Has Changed

Posted on March 27, 2024March 27, 2024 by Viljami

I really think that the role of technology has changed. I am talking about the last, maybe, thirty years. We can go back to the 1990s to see how things were back then. I am old enough to remember these matters today. All this time has passed. What has changed and how things were.

I had some experience already with a personal computer. During 90s I was first introduced to Sega Mega Drive and later to Sony PlayStation. I had a moment in my personal history in which, can you imagine, I didn’t really play video games. This was when I started high school in the beginning of 2000s. I got back to gaming again during the 2000s. So I do have a relevant personal history to write about this.

I can also clearly remember how things were with smart phones and how they started to conquer our free time. One important technology is internet. It has brought us connectivity and ability to play multiplayer games on-line. Also memory cards aren’t used anymore. The games evolved from lasting maybe three to five hours. Suddenly you couldn’t complete the game in a day. Games became longer and a possibility to save was becoming more and more important. This has everything to do with hard drives and the advancement that made more and more space available to use.

Video game consoles technology advanced very quickly. We can go from the beginning of the 1990s to 2000s and have a comparison. Mega Drive might have been the most popular gaming console along with NES and later SNES. Basically you couldn’t save a game. There were batteries included in the game cartridges that enabled this. Game had to be fit in a space of only some megabytes. This changed when CD drives came available. Also at some point disk drives became a norm in gaming consoles.

So, the technology advanced fast. We went from getting a benefit from technology to today when we are being somewhat even controlled by technology. Do you get what I am saying? The role of technology is what I wanted to talk about in the first place. How is it with this matter, today?

While I was growing up we didn’t have internet. We didn’t have smart phones. There was no GPS. If you wanted to search for information you probably went to a library or tried to find a book about the subject. Things have changed a lot.

When I was young there was this kind of positive thinking that was common that technology would improve our lives if we just kept studying it and building and developing it. So, many young people were introduced to mathematics, physics and computers. I was among those that were very interested in technolgy and wanted to study it and also have it as a hobby.

Technology has made huge leaps. We are today in a society that uses internet and smart phones to several functions. We handle paying and buying with these tools. We use them daily. How has this made our lives easier? It seems to me that today everyone can use a smart phone to perform any functionality that is needed. These huge technology companies have formed a business about us and our normal lives. This is basically how the role of technology has changed.

I could go on and on about these changes. This is still just a one blog post. I didn’t even go to how big data affects and has already affected on the situation. We are here right now. We understand where we are. Technology has become part of our lives. And everything can be changed tomorrow. Our choices are what matters. Companies like Facebook and Google have made the technology avaialble to us. How can we make it so that it gives even some benefit to our functioning?

The Logo of PlayStation Is So Cool

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Viljami

Let’s start with the logo of PlayStation. It is time to start blogging again after a short break. Why we’re at it I might just say: “Happy New Year”! It’s the first post of the year 2024. We are going to talk about Sony PlayStation and especially the logo of it.

I started to admire how the logo looks. It forms the letters “P” and “S” that, of course, stand for “PlayStation”: This particular picture is of the smaller console named PSOne. It is my only PS1 that I currently have. I also have PS2 but it isn’t working currently. Of course, you can use emulatorsa and I have also Duck Station on my PC for these PS1 needs.

Where do we continue? We can admire the long list of games, I think there are several thousands of them, the cool looks of the controller and its superb controllability or the amazing graphics. It was back then the coolest gaming console that delivered us games like Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo.

Later some more powerful consoles have taken the place of PS1 as the number one console but it still gives me a nice and warm feeling when I boot up a game or another inside this system. The design is in every way amazing. I mean, do you recall the intro that the console gives when you start it? There is the logo, once again, and this unseparable sound or a piece of music and then you are told which area the console is from (is it Europe or America or some other region).

Playing with PS1 was like listening to rock music. It was for many the introduction to 3D capable graphics and also to sound. It could deliver CD quality audio. The controller was the most advenced thing in the field at the time. Some have done this better later but PS1 was the first. You might say that DreamCast is the best console ever but that’s just like comparing rock music to jazz – everyone has their own preference.

PlayStation had at first a standard controller. It was later updated to DualShock that had tumble effect and also two thums that made controlling the happenings and interacting with the game more comfortable. As I said many have built on after PS1 was dominant. Few have come close to what PS1 gave to us gamers.

I alreaday mentioned some games. Here’s a list of some of my favorites: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Spider-Man, Colin McRae Rally, Legacy of Kain – Soul Reaver, Abe’s Oddysee, Fear Effect, Final Fantasy VII and many more. You can find a better listing from Google or Bing or Yahoo. You can even ask about it from some sort of a AI tool. We are living the year 2024 you know!

What I also like about PS1 is that the games weren’t, with some exceptions like FFVII, that long. I remember playing almost every game I had to completion. I have to mention also Tony Hawks Pro Skater here since I almost forgot it already. Am I too excited while I am writing this. It might be so.

I encourage you to do your research on this topic and take your facts even further. I think we had a very interesting and also inspiring topic here to discuss about. It was the first of the year but there are still many more posts coming to this blog this year and even after that. So, stay tuned and keep enjoying your games!

The Certain Appeal of PlayStation 1

Posted on November 1, 2023 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.