retro games Archives - Intensive Gaming Diary

Prices of Some Retro Games Are Very High

Posted on May 22, 2026 by Viljami

Prices are high. I bought this copy of Silent Hill 3 for PS2 that is now on this blog posts featured image for 30 euros back in 2017. Now the price is on a popular Finnish gaming webshop is 130 euros. The condition is promised to be OK and the game includes also the box and manual. So, the price has gone up 100 euros in just nine years. That’s pretty high price for this PS2 retro game.

Silent Hill games are expensive today. I saw a copy of Silent Hill – Shattered Memories for PS2 sold for 500 euros. Prices of Silent Hill games aren’t the only ones that are currently very high. I have taken notice that especially PS2 games prices have been ricing recently. It is very common to see a PS2 game to be sold for a price of hundreds of euros. This makes me think how good of a value actually these games have. They are PS2 games after all. They aren’t some beautiful big box releases or even “collectors editions”. They are just your regular PS2 games packaged in a some plastic box.

I have also noticed that many people are trying to get some profit out of buying a retro game for cheap from flea market and then selling it for a high price. So, you just cannot expect to see a lot of cheap games on sale in flea markets anymore. The flea markets are also very popular right now. You almost cannot find games there. That makes you to go to look for games in these gaming shops.

I do appreciate that there are so many of these game shops also here in Finland. I very rarely order anything from outside of my home country since it is a bit difficult to make an order. It is way easier for me to buy a video game from Finland. Althought there are many game shops that offer service outside of my home country also. I am just not so familiar with them.

There are also the options that are available when you use something like emulation. This has been a very hot area of discussion recently. The game shops make some money selling used games. However the publisher or developer of the actual game doesn’t receive any income from a purchase of a used game. So, many times no body even cares about profits. There isn’t a way to buy the game so it ends up being something that is called abandon ware.

When a game is abandon ware it is even legally all right for everyone involved that you actually can download a copy if one is available for free. There are some very good websites that offer these games and they can be downloaded. I have to mention “My Abandonware” that holds some old PC games. Also be sure to check out “Vimms Lair”. They have a huge collection of retro console games. Just write these titles of websites as a search to your favorite search engine. I don’t like to provide direct links to almost any content here.

Vimms Lair actually has every popular video game console games as something referred to as roms. There are present every console from Atari 2600 and NES to as new as PS3 and/or Xbox 360. You do need an emulator for your chosen gaming platform. Setting up an emulator on your PC setup might seem a bit tricky but if you are a knowledgeable person you can get it to work. You can even go as far as installing an operating system dedicated to retro gaming.

These are my thoughts about prices of some retro games. I have to mention that I am thinking, maybe not so seriously, about turning this blog to a paid one. How would that fit in your life as a gamer? We will have to see how this matter progresses.

My Latest Game Purchase

Posted on March 6, 2026 by Viljami

My latest game purchase, that I collected from the mail locker just yesterday, includes two PS2 games and four PS3 games. I bought Midnight Club 3 – DUB Edition (PS2), Sonic Heroes (PS2), Bayonetta (PS3), Spiderman 3 (PS3), Aliens vs. Predator (PS3) and Need for Speed – Most Wanted (PS3). They did cost me 109 euros with shipping included. I am waiting to have a chance to get into these new purchases. I am going to have to knock on wood while I’m saying that I am glad that my PS3 still works. It has served already over 16 years in my video game setup. I have faced some issues with hardware earlier. I have two broken PS2 consoles, a broken original Xbox and also an Xbox 360 console that doesn’t work.

Somehow these consoles don’t seem to last forever. I am also not so good at maintaining or repairing stuff like these consoles. I think they actually aren’t even meant to last for tens of years. That is the main reason why I am trusting more and more on emulation. So, I am going to rip these two PS2 games that I just bought and play them with an emulator. I have two different devices that I am running emulation on. One is a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB of RAM. It is running Recalbox. I use it to emulate mainly Sega Mega Drive, SNES, NES, PS1 and also some more exciting consoles while I use another device (a desktop PC) that runs Batocera to play PS2 and some other consoles that require a bit more power.

So, there are two racing games included with my latest game purchase. Midnight Club 3 is a classic racing game. There is really no words necessary for the introduction of a game that belongs to Need for Speed series of video games. This title is labled with “Most Wanted”. It think it will be eventually a good game that might take some hours to get into. Usually I have somewhat liked almost every Need for Speed game that I’ve played.

Why did I pick up Bayonetta? I heard a word or two about it as I was reading a book that desrcibes different video game characters. Bayonetta is a strong female character and it seemed an interesting game and I wanted to purhcase it. I am going to try to find some time to get into this game. I also bought Sonic Heroes because Sonic games just rock. I also bought Spiderman 3. I think there are very few bad games that feature Spiderman. So, why not give it a try. The last game in my latest game purhcase that I haven’t yet mention in this paragraph of this blog post is Aliens vs. Predator. It must be a decent first person shooter.

I made this purchase because I found these games interesting. The price was also cheap. I mean I got these six games for a price lower than what it would have been for two new games. Actually I think you couldn’t buy two new games with 110 euros. It might be possible if the games wouldn’t be brand new releases. I am content with yhis game purchase. I am waiting to get to enjoy also these new games.

I have been lately still playing Gran Turismo 3. It takes some time to finish it. I have spent already over 15 hours on playing GT3. The game might take a bit over 40 hours to finish. Also I have a confession to make. I haven’t, yet dived into plaiyng the new Resident Evil game Resident Evil Requiem. I have read that it is a very good game. I am waiting to get into playing it also soon.

Nostalgia With Mega Drive

Posted on September 20, 2025 by Viljami

I found a good way to feel some nostalgia with Mega Drive. I bought this game collection that has over 50 Mega Drive games. It cost me something around 20 to 30 euros. It is actually a “code-in-a-box” game this time. You can probably very easily tell if this collection is available as a digital copy. I don’t have a clue about that. I actually accidentally bought this version of this collection. Anyways this product is available also for other modern gaming devices. I have seen recently this available for Xbox Series X for 20 euros for a used and physical copy.

This seems to me like a bargain. I mean in the same package you get three Phantasy Star games, several Sonic titles and some games like Golden Axe and Streets of Rage not forgetting to mention a game like Kid Chameleon. There are so many good games in this collection. Even if you are just barely familiar with Mega Drive I can still recommend this collection for you.

If you think that you would buy each of these over 50 games separately I think many of us video game hobbyists would end up in bankruptcy. Phantasy Star II alone costs over 100 euros. The price tag for this collection would probably have four numerals. So, the point here is, they haven’t scant with this one a bit. These are definitely all good games. It would be hard to try to figure what game would be missing. Well, I did just come up with one game that’s missing and that game is Splatterhouse II. Splatterhouse III is also a good game and its not included in this collection.

The way I feel nostalgia while playing this game collections games is very clear. I did own a Mega Drive back in the first half of 1990s. Sonic The Hedgehog was the first game I played on this system. There is something so magical when I hear the music of this game. Take also for example the music of Streets of Rage II. What 16-bit game does have a better soundtrack? I think you are going to have hard time figuring that out.

What is so interesting about the audio side of the technology of Mega Drive gaming console seems to me the fact that it was actually a sound that was not CD quality. Sony achieved CD quality later but Mega Drive did this with its hardware and set the bar for Nintendo that also released a 16-bit console Super Nintendo. I think for a while Mega Drive was the leader when it comes to audio side of video games. We are talking about real history here. CD quality audio might seem as constant but you have to think hoe the technology was back then. Even PC didn’t have such a good audio quality back then. Of course Mega Drive gave some hard time for Nintendo that had to compete for several years with its 8-bit system NES.

I do recommend this Mega Drive collection for you. The price is very cheap. Also you get to see this cool virtual environment inside the menu of this collection. This is very cool feature. Some games, like for example, Phantasy Star II, that has already been mentioned in this blog post, might be games that you wouldn’t want to spend several tens of hours playing. These are retro games after all. I think if you totally hate retro games you have to consider if you really want to buy this. Modern games do have usually an overall better game design. This is because the industry has been developing several tens of years since we witnessed Mega Drive or anything like it.