Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: xbox one

Playing Some Spyro The Dragon (Spyro Reignited Trilogy)

Posted on by Viljami

During this weekend I had an opportunity to play Spyro The Dragon with my PS4. In this blog post I am going to introduce to you this awesome 3D platform game that made a serious impact on how we play video games today. It was first released for PS1 in 1998.

There is a great difference between a 2D platform game, like Super Mario Bros 3 or Sonic The Hedgehog, and a 3D platform game like Spyro The Dragon. The first thing that comes to my mind is how do you position the camera inside the game. In Spyro The Dragon you move your character and rotate the camera at the same time. In 2D games you don’t have to worry about moving your camera all the time. In Spyro the jumping feels also a bit like floating which emphasizes the sensitive and complex three dimensional positioning used in the game.

There are many things that Spyro can do. You can jump, float or fall after jumping, blow some flame out of your throat and run and rush against enemies. There are various enemies that our main character encounters. Some can be defeated by rushing on them while some are defeated by blowing out a flame. Some enemies need also something extra if you want to defeat them.

The main goal in Spyro The Dragon is to progress. You achieve this by freeing dragons and collecting gems, or as they are called in this game, treasures. Some gems are more valuable than others. They can have a value of one, two, five or even greater than that. Defeating enemies also gives you gems. If you have defeated an enemy earlier in the game you get a point. If you get enough points you get an extra life. There are also particular extra lives that can be collected.

The game play feels very nice in overall. There are lots of puzzles to be solved including how do you get to some area that has a dragon to be saved or some gems to be collected. I don’t even understand how this game was originally released for PlayStation 1 in such an early moment in video gaming.

Is Spyro a bit childish game? Maybe so, but I think that it offers problem solving and deep thought and challenge while also being a game that the whole family can enjoy and play. The trilogy, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, consists of three first games of this series. I am currently playing it with my PS4. It is also available for PC and the latest Xbox and also for Nintendo Switch. It was released already in 2018.

So, the original Spyro The Dragon was released in 1998 by Insomniac Games for Sony PlayStation. It is considered a very strong and well-known piece of gaming. It definitely stands out being a platform game designed to be played in a 3D environment. If you haven’t played Spyro The Dragon games earlier this trilogy release might be a good point to start your experimenting. It also isn’t a pricey choice as a game. I bought it some weeks ago for 20 euros as a used copy for PS4. There are also many Spyro games released for many consoles in the history of gaming. This trilogy introduces three first games of the series.

About Modern PC Controllers

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post deals with controllers for PC. I have used these three different gamepads for gaming on Windows 10. I don’t know, exactly, how these controllers work in Linux gaming. So, that part is out of the context of this post. Let’s get to it!

There are three, mainly, three controllers I have used. They are Sony Dualshock 4, the controller of PS4, Microsoft Elite Pad, that is designed for Xbox One and, my latest addition, PDP Neon Carbon that is used, mainly, with Xbox Series S/X. All these gamepads can be used with Windows 10.

Dualshock 4 (the red controller in the image) needs an app so it can be used. That app is DS4Windows. This gamepad works very well with PC. Only thing that is really annoying is the mapping of buttons. As I have learned by my experience, Windows apps tend to map controllers as Xbox One or Xbox Series S/X controllers. This is a bit irritating. I think this issue can be solved. There are for example USB dongles that can be used as a solution. As I noticed this problem I had a quick fix for it already – I changed to my oldest gamepad that is Elite Pad (the one in the middle in the image).

Buttons have been configured correctly when you are using Xbox One’s gamepad. It is often taken care that a controller that can be used in a Xbox Series console will be compatible with Windows also. I think you can even take a Xbox 360 controller and plug it in so you can use it to play with a PC.

By the way, all these controllers I have been using have had a wired connection. I haven’t even tried to get bluetooth to work with these. Why would I do that? My desktop doesn’t even have a bluetooth itself. I use a bluetooth dongle for a wireless connection whenever there is a need for such. It also seems that all these three controllers have a USB-to-micro-USB connection. Even the third gamepad, that is meant for new Series X, also sports a micro-USB, instead of the most popular, USB-C. This however makes only a little difference. And basically all you need is a cable that has about a metre or one and a half metres of lenght.

So, I was very involved in this and I was using the Elite Pad. It is of a very good quality. It was expensive and it has served well over ten years of use. After all, it started to break down a bit. There was a part, that I think was originally glued to its place, that I had to remove. It was sticking out and the controller didn’t fit so nicely anymore. I decided to get a newer controller. Of course my thoughts were to buy a controller of Xbox Series X. I had some thoughts about DualSense, but since Xbox and Windows go well together, I decided to go for the Xbox on this one.

It first seemed that the replaicment would definitely be a combo of wired and wireless. It would be an Xbox Series X controller. I first thought that I would buy the official controller. I made my way to a store. I found out that they were actually out of these controllers. I noticed an optional model. It actually was this PDP Xbox Series X controller.

The controller was only 45 euros or so. So it was 20 euros cheaper than the official controller. When it comes to gaming this kind of a swing can be a gamechanger. And that’s how it was for me in this situation. I got the gamepad and went home as a happy duude.

First thing I noticed with this controller was that it doesn’t have a battery included. It is a wired controller. It has a functionality and you can remove the cord. This might seem useless but it actually makes sense in a way. You can replace the cord if you are on the move or if it gets damaged in some way. It is very light. The feel is awesome. I like this controller and I haven’t noticed anything to complain about. It is compatible with Windows 10 and you don’t necessarily need any app to use it in this way. There is some sort of an app avvailable as a donwload.

We can have a tiny summary here out of this blog post. I am very content on my new controller. It is a nice update to my old Elite Pad. I have to say that Elite Pad really served very well for its price of 130 euros. It has an option to load a battery in it. It also has some adjustments and a bit of weight for the controller to feel good. It was although time to move on with it. You can also try to use PlayStation controllers with a PC. Some games might feel better this way. I didn’t go through Linux or Mac gaming in this blog post but as you can probably figure there is a wholea other world in that way also.

A Recent Purchase

Posted on by Viljami

Yesterday I went to a large local mall. Well, actually it’s in Vantaa and it’s called Jumbo. It’s near the airport and there is lots of stores of different kinds. There is also a hotel, spa and everything. It has also many restaurants. So, you probably get that it’s a huge and complex building that we have here in my home city. I went there by bus. Yeah, I don’t have a car. I don’t need a car.

As I told you in some earlier post, there is also a shopping center in Myyrmäki called Myyrmanni. I told you earlier that there was only one game title for Xbox Series X. As I went to Jumbo I realized that there was, in a shop, a huge shelf of games. And there were tens of titles available. So this made me realize and think again about my opinions about general stores that sell games even today. There was a nice collection. Prices were also low in general.

So I bought one 4K movie, a game pad for my Nintendo Switch, a USB hub and this cool title, Turtles – The Cowabunga Collection, for Xbox Series X. This time I didn’t buy any gift cards. I also didn’t buy more PS4 games. This shopping experience was somewhat refreshing. I was a bit tired. I also got one book from a book store.

If you don’t know anything, yet, about Cowabunga Collection I can tell you that it features thirteen retro titles that were released back in the day for NES, SNES and Sega Mega Drive. I think there is also a title from Game Boy. This might be actually very interesting. There are also some titles that were released only in arcades.

The original price of this compilation was 40 euros, but it was on sale, so I got it for 20 euros. They did have some difficulties at cash register about removing the alarm device from around the packing. Heh, I don’t know if this was important or not, but it’s my gaming diary, so it doesn’t matter. I like to tell these thought quite openly. And if the cashier or anybody from the store might be reading this, well, let’s say hello to you. I think they don’t actually read my blog. But you read, so thank you about that.

There actually weren’t so many 4K movie titles available and the ones I was at least a bit interested in were pricey. They were sold for like 30 euros a piece. I picked up a Star Wars title that was released originally in 2002. It was 20 euros. Later that evening I watched that new movie about Queen and Freddie Mercury form telly. It was a good day and refreshed me as I had also a work day yesterday.

I’d like to spend this last paragraph of this blog post to tell you about my plannings of releasing a book from around the topics that I have written about in this blog. I am currently trying to find time to write this book. I have already written almost 30 pages. The book is still heavily in the making. But if you’re interested about this I can tell you that I am planning to release it as a digital book. If I get to releasing it, it is my aim that the book as it is in English would be available for anyone anywhere in the world. So, stay tuned for that, also.