Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: retro

Streets Of Rage series

Posted on by Viljami

Who remembers this classic beat-em-up called Streets Of Rage? It had a strong impact and was very popular so I think most of us, at least ones that played games back then, remember it well. It was originally released on Sega Mega Drive at beginning of nineties. In Japan the game was called Bare Knuckle. Action takes place in city that is covered with aggressive criminals that are being led by evil mastermind named Mr. X. Your mission is to fight your way to this boss and end the misery. First game of the series was released in 1991 and third one in 1994. I played most the second game that I still have in my collection of Mega Drive games.

The idea of this post was basically to reminisce about these retro pieces but also to consider if it would be worth it to get your hands on the upcoming release of Streets Of Rage 4. Judged by the trailer it has completely new graphics. They aren’t so pixelated and they seem like they were drawn by hand. Music of this game has been re-made also but you have an option to change background music to original. Game is released on PS4, PC, Xbox One and Switch.

I have memories, mostly happy ones, about playing part two of this beat-em-up game series. It was actually my brothers game. He had an eye for beating guys up virtually and I got to play this game also with him. We ended arguing and fighting since we hit each other in this game as we played in co-operative mode. It happened also a few times as I played with a friend. The game was aggressive and I think I took the game too seriously as a kid. Today I wouldn’t start such an argument or at least I think so.

Graphics were nice, gameplay was very good and soundtrack had plenty of electronic rhythm and melody in it. You have to consider that these games were released as Sega Mega Drive games. If I could change something it would be the controller. But I think that issue is solved today since I bought 8BitDo’s wireless Mega Drive controller a while back. I have to remember to write a post about that also when I have time.

I liked these games and they gave me a lot as I was a young gamer starting slowly to grow up. We will see if the remake comes close as a fighting game and if it does honor to the name of this game series. And if it doesn’t we’ll always have our retro Mega Drives, Classic Mini and not-so-legit emulator versions of this classic and classic is a perfect word to describe Streets Of Rage.

What exactly is chiptune music?

Posted on by Viljami

What means chiptune? Chip reminds of electronic component while tune brings in mind a simple musical melody. This even now popular genre became known when game developers, back in 80s, needed music and sound effects for their games. First very popular system that had decent music was Commodore 64 which came to markets in 1982. It had a chip called SID (“Sound Interface Device”) that was responsible for producing the sound for this system.

You can find chiptune also on NES (“Nintendo Entertainment System”), that was released in 1983. 16-bit systems that were later released also could produce music that would be categorized as chiptune althought they were of higher quality as systems moved from 8-bit to 16-bit. First very popular console that had sound quality very close to CDs was the first Sony PlayStation. You can argue for hours about which has better sound – vinyl or CD, but we are not going to go there. So chiptune was originally popular in video games from 1980s to, I think, 1995.

Today chiptune is still very popular. You can find artists that have been strongly influenced by this type of music. Usually chiptune is strongly associated with retro games or the games that originally had chiptune as their background music. As retro gaming is popular chiptune is alive even today. Some artists are producing chiptune with modern tools such as software synthesizers that are just basically virtual instruments with some presets and the ability to create various sounds, your own presets, and can run inside any kind of DAW (“Digital Audio Workstation”) you can imagine.

Since I started with this topic I have to write also more about so called tracker music that first made its way to home musicians sometime in 1980s. So tracker is simple application that runs on computer that allows you to make music. Amigas computers were first devices that made this functionality available for music production. Inside tracker you can define your songs tempo, basically just how fast the track is flowing, and add drum sounds and melodies that are created using small digital samples of audio. Trackers are used also today but they are not as powerful as music applications such as FL Studio for example. Some now popular trackers are Renoise, a very good one, Mad Tracker and OpenMPT. Some older ones are Scream Tracker, Fast Tracker and Impulse Tracker. You can find many great trackers and please comment and let us know if you have a suggestion for readers of this blog.

My history in gaming – How it all started

Posted on by Viljami

My father ifluenced me as his profession was engineer. I somehow remember as he brought an old personal computer to our home. My mom was a bit concerned but finally agreed that it would be good for me to learn some skills with this piece of technology. So I started with PC.

First games I remember playing were Bubble Bobble, Sierras adventure games and Prince of Persia. When I first started at school being seven years old NES wasn’t the most powerful gaming console anymore. So everybody had Segas Mega Drive and I wanted one also. I think it was 1993 when I finally had saved money to buy this thing. I played Mega Drive for several years. My favourite games were Sonic, Streets Of Rage and NHL 94. It was 1997 when I got myself Sony’s PlayStation.

During PlayStations era gaming was becoming more popular and young adults were getting in to gaming more than ever. Before this gaming was thought to be a bit childish and stereotype of a player was a young child. This changed and when PS2 came out gaming started to be a very common hobby for consumers at every age.

At about 2000 I played Diablo 2 with PC. I enjoyed 3D gaming. I was studying in high school then and a profession inside gaming became a dream job for me. After high school I was living with almost no touch to gaming for some reason or another. 2006 I got original Xbox as a gift from my mom. I started playing it. My girl friend, who is now my wife, also had PS3 back then so I got back to gaming. I missed PS2 and I’m little bit sad that it went like this with my dear hobby.

I played many years with PS3. I then got PS4 maybe in 2014. I bought many classic retro consoles and took my Mega Drive back from my parents house and after moving to another appartment in 2018 I got myself television lever from IKEA and placed 7 differnet consoles to our living room. That was awesome. This is the tip of my gaming hobby. I also worked for half a year in store that was dedicated to gaming.

I have understood that there are lots of games around there. It’s important that you experiment and find the ones you like because there isn’t enough time, in humans living span, to play all of them thoroughly. I find best games to be sometimes retro and sometimes newest ones. But now all games don’t get me excited anymore. I have bought games from game stores and from flee market. I have also a friend who sells used stuff like games so I sometimes buy them from him. I have a nice collection. Some PC games as Big Box. I currently have these consoles, I play all of them, PlayStation Classic, PS3, Super Retro Trio+ HD, PSOne, PS4 and Xbox 360 and of course my PC.