Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: ps1 games

Fighting Force (PS1)

Posted on by Viljami

Fighting Force is a fighting game in three-dimensional world for PlayStation 1. It was released back in 1997. I remember this game very well. I did only play the demo version of this game back in the day but decided now just some days earlier to give it a try. First I checked if it would be a game that would require a long playing time. As I usually do I went to How Long To Beat and checked this matter. Playing this game through would take approximately three and a half hours.

So, it is a bit of a short game but I decided to start playing it and I already felt it would have something to give to me as a retro gamer and a huge fan of PS1 games. I would compare this game to some fighting games that were released earlier for Sega Mega Drive. Of course the graphics are three-dimensional and better than what Mega Drive was able to offer. Although the playing style, you basically just beat your enemies up, is very similar. You get score bonuses and health updates. You also get to use melee weapons and even some guns and grenades. The amount of ammunition is very limited. Grenades make a very powerful explosions and you often end up hurting yourself also in Fighting Force.

It takes a while for you to get really into Fighting Force. I played the game through with one of the four main characters – Hawk. You also get to choose the difficulty level from easy to medium to hard. This does give this game some replay value. In this game you can hit or kick. Jumping is also possible. You can also try to kick your enemies while you are running to make a kick in the air or try to slide on the ground and hit your enemies. It is necessary to try to pick up health bonuses or weapons that these enemies do drop. You can also wreck your environments. At the end of a level you might get continues if you have gathered enough of a score. There are possibilities at some points also to save your progress which feels comfortable.

There is a bit of a variation between the enemies in Fighting Force. Some of them keep healing and you have to beat them quickly or they will heal themselves fully. Some enemies can hit you with a strong punch and you have to run away from them at times. Some enemies can give you electric shocks that make you hit the ground. It is also important to try to kick your enemy if it gets knocked to the ground for a while. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time to understand these basic tactics when you are trying to beat this game.

Back in 1997 Fighting Force was a new PlayStation 1 game. Now it is a solid peace of gaming history. It was very interesting to go back to this game. You can compare it to some of the greatest games of this era. I am comparing it to maybe the first two Resident Evil games which offered something very similar graphically but that had already a deep plot and some more advanced ways to make the player more involved to playing the game. While Fighting Force is a bit simple as a retro video game it still manages to offer something for a retro gamer and a PS1 fan like myself.

If you have a chance to play this game and you do like PlayStation 1 games I can definitely recommend Fighting Force. Just don’t expect too much of it as a game experience. It sure can bring some memories and also nostalgia to a retro gamer. It was nice to go back in time and play this game for some hours.

Tenchu

Posted on by Viljami

I think many of us old school gamers and maybe some retro game enthusiasts do recognize Tenchu. It was released for PS1 back in 1998. I can clearly remember these moments back in the day when I saw some footage from actual television about Tenchu. What made it interesting as a PS1 video game was that you were mainly using a sword as a weapon. The fact that this game was a stealth game more than just a simple action melee game that we saw many times in the mainstream of video gaming during the 90s. So, Tenchu was something different.

I do have played this. Not recently but it hasn’t been many years since I last time played the first Tenchu game. There have been several sequels. In actually had to search for some information. There have been at least thirteen games with some relevance to Tenchu. Tenchu 2 was released for PS1 in 2000. There were games released for PS2 and also to PSP. The latest in this series that I have played is Tenchu – Wrath of Heaven that was for PS2. I think it isn’t a bad way to start getting into this ninja combat series by playing the first Tenchu game on  a PS1.

The game did impress back in 1998 and it is still a very nice game to play even today. Maybe you have to have a certain retro type of attitude to actually enjoy this game. If we make a comparison to modern era there could be some improvements on the controls and graphics. So there is some adjusting in this sense. If you do like PS1 games I recommend this game especially.

So, what is the game all about? You try to move around in this three-dimensional environment and avoid enemies. If you get caught the enemies will call help and you usually end up  fighting too many enemies and you eventually end up dead. So, avoiding contact seems to be a working strategy. Also, when you encounter an enemy that hasn’t yet noticed you you can take that person out with only one stealth attack. If the enemy detects you the enemy will call help and you end up in a difficult fight.

You can use a grappling hook to move to for example up to some roof of a house. You use a sword to defeat your enemies. You also use throwing weapons try to take out enemies. Ther weapon, the sword I mean, is a melee weapon. This gives you a different feel of combat than if there were some ranged fire weapons used. The concept hasn’t been used in my opinion so much. Instead there are tons of shooting games available as retro and also as modern games. I think the idea of Tenchu is very good and original. Being that it is a game from 1998 makes it even more inventive as a video game. It was somewhat a pioneer as a three dimensional sword and melee fighting game.

Financially Tenchu was very successful in Japan and also all around the world in Europe and USA. It sold over 1,4 million copies worldwide. It was also successful as well appreciated game and received good grades in different reviews of gaming media of the time. Actually this many times meant magazines that were printed on paper. That was the method that was used back in the day. The gaming media wasn’t yet so strong on the internet. This particular fact has changed since Tenchu was first released.

Tenchu isn’t a pricey game to pick up. If you do find it from game shop I think it can be bought with a price tag of maybe 20 euros. I haven’t seen a copy available in a long time but that price of twenty euros was the price that I bought it for. It was one of my favorite games back in the 90s. It was also among the first games I wanted to own as I started collecting and buying PS1 games to my collection again about seven or eight years ago.

How to Rip Your PS1 Games

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post we are going to go through about how to rip your PS1, PlayStation 1, games to rom files so that you can play with an emulator or a piece of hardware like Raspberry Pi 4/5. This way of copying your games for your personal use is completely legal. What is currently illegal is copying rom files of games that you don’t own and/or if you share some games that you have ripped to someone who doesn’t own that particular game. We are dealing with a sensitive legal issue right here and things can change, for better or worse, in the future. I don’t want to encourage you to break law in any way.

So you have your PlayStation 1 game. What else do you need? Here’s a list:

  • External DVD drive
  • A PC running, preferably, Windows 10 (this guide has been written using this OS)
  • Magic ISO Maker (the software that actually rips the disc and converts it to the rom file)

External DVD drives today cost something from 40 euros to maybe 60 euros. You don’t need a special DVD drive. You just need something that works. The DVD drive should be connected to your PC through USB. Many PCs today don’t have a DVD drive so you might need an external one. If you have internal DVD drive or something like that you can also use that.

The discs that PS1 uses are colored in black on the side that gets read in the DVD drive. That doesn’t stop the disc from being read. Note, also, that you can rip your PS2 games in this similar way if you are into emulating PS2 also.

You do need a special software. I am using currently Magic ISO Maker (trial version). However there are also some other alternatives. You might want to check them out also. Ripping the disc is pretty straightforward. You select “Tools” from the upper main menu. Then you select “Make ISO from CDRom”. There is a new window that pops up. Select your DVD drive that has the disc in it and make sure that you have connected the USB cable of the DVD drive to your PC.

Then you select your DVD drive from the drop-down menu. Now click the folder icon on the right side of the part that says “Output File” and choose the destination where you want to save the rom files and also give these files names. This doesn’t have to necessarily be the name of the game that is being ripped but that could make things somewhat easier. Then change the file format (“File Format”) to “BIN image file”. That way your game will be in a form of two files that are .bin and .cue. You need to copy both of them to your game library or the location that you are running your emulated games from.

Now make sure that there is Make CD Image selected from the radio buttons that is titled “Option”. Then just click “OK” button. Now the disc of your PS1 game gets ripped to a BIN-file and a CUE-file. You can rip multiple games and place them in some folder where you can have one game in one folder. That way you will find your games easily.