Intensive Gaming Diary

Latest Isn’t Always the Greatest in Gaming

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Viljami

I’ve been verry active in gaming lately. I’ve played a lot of Xbox 360 games. They are a bit old but actually I have found many good games that are still very much enjoyable. The hardware is old. Xbox 360 was released in the middle of the 2000s. I think it was released in 2005. Its already about twenty years old console. Still there is a steep appeal for me at least.

All this talk about Nintendo releasing a new console soon is getting me a bit confused. We are talking about Switch 2 that is going to be released later this year. We are going to get some more information about this matter from Nintendo soon. At least that’s what I’ve heard or read. There is a new console coming and it is said to be only as powerful when it comes to pure performance as a PlayStation 4. Sony released this console almost 12 years ago.

We are we headed? Sony and Microsoft are releasing powerful new consoles and we are seeing as we are used to a new console maybe every seven years or so. While the performance is increasing we are seeing less and less exciting new games that we had earlier with some earlier consoles. Prices of consoles have been on a rise. PS5 Pro has still a price of 850 euros. I bought my Xbox Series X for about 510 euros couple of years ago.

Where is Nintendo going? You can get a Switch for 300 euros today. The price might go even lower as many gamers are already waiting for the new Nintendo console. Originally Switch was a console for gaming that was released in 2017. How about some games then? Switch has several good quality games that are exclusive to Nintendo Switch. I am talking about games like Super Mario Bros Wonder, The Legend of Zelda – Tears of the Kingdom and Luigi’s Mansion series. There are also many remakes like Paper Mario – The Thousand Year Door and Donkey Kong Returns HD and these two are also exclusives just like the first three games that were mentioned.

Backwards compatibility can make things a bit easier. You can play many Xbox 360 games on Xbox Series X. You don’t have to own a functioning Xbox 360 console just to enjoy some of these a bit older but also very good video games. However every game of an old console isn’t compatible. This is where we should also consider about emulation. While gaming consoles can break down you can take any personal computer, install an operating system like Recalbox or RetroPie and start enjoying your just a bit older video games. You just have to have a powerful enough PC.

Many video games today are getting also released as remakes for newer consoles. There are game developers like Capcom that are bringing games like Resident Evil series to new and younger audiences in a from of a remake. These games seem not to be just some old or retro games getting an update and instead they are kind of spin-offs that have also some new content. We have seen this also in the form of games like Dead Space. Some games are actually just games getting released again only with new and improved graphics and game play. This is when you should consider turning back to the old release. Slightly improved graphics can give you only so little. You can think for a moment about a game like the first Red DEad Redemption.

PS5 is fully backwards compatible with PS4. Xbox Series X is fully backwards compatible with Xbox One. All the time we are seeing less and less new games. All the time we are seeing games that are hugely ambitious in getting players to play these games. We are seeing more and more ambition in selling these new games. Every new game wants to be a popular and in every way successful. How long do we keep improving when it comes to pure performance? Should we appreciate game design more?

Two Different Approaches to a Rally Game

Posted on March 23, 2025 by Viljami

This blog post is about how you can approach a game or specifically a rally game. So, a game has graphics, sound and overall game-play and also some rules of how to create the physics in the game. From this point of view you can try to create a popular game and a game that is nice or/and a game that is as realistic as possible. I am taking a look at two rally games right here in this blog post and right now.

Dirt 3 is part of a legendary rally game series that originates from legendary PlayStation 1 game Colin McRae Rally. There was also a sequel released for PS1 and it was called Colin McRae Rally 2.0. Dirt 3 is also a sequel to games called Colin McRae Dirt and Colin McRae Dirt 2. So, this game has a bit shorter title. These games were released for PS3 and Xbox 360 and also for PC. Dirt 3 can be played on Xbox Series X as it is backwards compatible. Every Xbox 360 game isn’t compatible in this way. Dirt 3 has now two sequels called Dirt 4 and Dirt 5. Codemasters made also two games called Dirt Rally and Dirt Rally 2.0. later.

Dirt 3 was released 2010. I remember back in the day when I just had to buy this game as soon as it was released. I remember paying 60 euros for this game. At that moment I only had one video game console and that console was PS3 back then. Dirt 3 takes an approach of trying to be as realistic as a rally game as can be. The camera can be adjusted and it is tightly following the car. There are some options here. Usually I adjust the camera angle so that I see the road as closely as possible. If you make a mistake you can pause the game and go back to where you made the mistake and try to correct the way you did drive.

There has been some time since Dirt 3 was released. It is a very good game. I like the background music a lot. You don’t hear any music while you are driving. There is something important in this game as it seems that you can also hear your cars performance. We can also say that the team that was involved in developing this rally game was a large one as it had, I think, hundreds or at least tens of people working with the rally game.

What about Art of Rally? It was released roughly about ten years after Dirt 3. The approach is slightly different as is obvious already. Graphics are somewhat basic. They aren’t even trying to aim to be as realistic as can be. This also makes the game lighter to run and so this rally game doesn’t require so powerful hardware. I have this game for Nintendo Switch and lately bought it also for PC through Steam. It cost something from 25 to 30 euros. The “deluxe edition” is somewhat more expensive but only about 5 euros or something like that.

Art of Rally has a very good physical modeling. What it lacks in pure graphical performance it compensates on game-play and overall realistic feel it is able to generate. It feels nice t and realistic to drive the vehicles that are in this rally game. Cars in Art of Rally aren’t real cars. Their names are just something that has been generated by the developer. Dirt 3 does have real drivers and also cars. It would be awkward in my sense to play Art of Rally with a steering wheel and pedals while Dirt 3 gives you everything concerning a simulation type of a rally game. I do play currently both games with a game-pad.

There are only a few people that worked in the development of Art of Rally. The music is in the background while you are driving. I like also the music of this rally game. So, I adjusted the volume settings so that I can clearly hear the music while I drive. I set the engine volume of the car a bit lower, actually way lower, than it was as a default. Art of Rally has a career mode. I recommend that you play the career mode through. It is a nice experience all in all. There are many ways in both of these games that you can drive with your friends in a multiplayer mode but I am not so into playing with other people through network or internet connection.

So, these two games bring you a bit different and unique take. Should we appreciate clever software design or even a form of art more than some video game that is realistic and seems to demand a more powerful hardware? Nintendo Switch was released in 2017 and it has tens or even hundreds of good games that have been released on it. It isn’t the most powerful console but it definitely can deliver some good quality games. Also the next Switch console has been rumored to be as powerful as a PS4 which is, by the way, also a cheap console that still seems to have some players place in their hearths. Should we always go for the most expensive choice or is there a room for some games that just don’t compete in this way at all. Could there be a cheaper or somewhat different option? And this is the question I am leaving you to ponder this time. See you soon again!

Latest Purchase From Flea Market – Rage for PS3

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Viljami

Yesterday was a sunny day. It was Sunday. There was a new flea market opened recently and I decided to test it out. I took a bus and ended up at the door of this building. There were loads of tables to investigate around and try to find something interesting to buy.

I really like going to flea markets. You never know beforehand what you will find. Of course the prices are very low. You mainly do find used stuff. I usually look for books, movies and games. I rarely find any clothes from places like this. Sometimes I have bough a glass for whiskey for me or for a friend.

The weather was great outside. The flea market was huge. Since it was a common day without work you can think that there were lots of customers around. Everything went nice. I got some pretty good finds. I bought a Bluray of Die Hard 2. I also bought a Finnish book that was written by Stephen King. It was the “Dark Tower” or in Finnish “Musta Torni”. The books price was only 1,5 euros. I also found a Tiesto concert DVD. I also found one game and that was Rage for PS3.

Rage was the first game I found that Sunday from that flea market. It was also the only game I ended up buying. What I love about flea markets is that you find some very unique goods at a very low price. I ended up paying a bit over 12 euros for everything I mentioned in the last paragraph.

I didn’t have Rage for PS3 yet. So, it was a good find. It cost 5 euros. The disc was in perfect condition. I think that today people know how to handle these optical discs properly so they rarely have any scratches. I haven’t had time to play this game yet. It seems promising since it is produced by Id and Bethesda which are also makers of Doom and Quake.

If there has to be some sort of a lesson formed about this visit I would say that you definitely should go around all of the tables while visiting a flea market. I am considering to visit this particular place again maybe on a week day so that I can make some better and more finds.

My PS3 is doing so far fine. I haven’t had any issues yet. The dust seems to be my biggest enemy when it comes to old retro gaming hardware. I have had issues with some of my older consoles and especially the ones that utilize some sort of an optical disc drive. I have broken already two PS2s, an original Xbox and also Xbox 360. I am waiting to get a more powerful PC so that I could also play also PS3 and Xbox 360 games using emulation.

Rage has received good reviews. I checked Metacritic and found out that Rage has a score of 81 out of 100. The genre of this game is a shooter. When it comes to first-person-shooters I think Id and Bethesda are very big names. Bethesda also has a history of some Elder Scrolls games like Oblivion and Skyrim.

Its fun to visit flea markets. Yesterday there were so many customers out there trying to find something they would value that I think I have to make another visit some day soon and maybe on a week day. Who knows what kinds of treasures may I find there. The flea market was called Bella. They have also another store in Helsinki and this one was here at Vantaa. That’s everything from me this time. See you again soon!

What to Expect From Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4?

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Viljami

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 will be released July 11th this year for many gaming consoles including Xbox Series S/X, PS5, Nintendo Switch and PC/Windows. Original releases of these skateboarding games were very nice and they had a good and solid gameplay. They didn’t go too far from some of the features of two original games. Some later games that were based on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games were titled Tony Hawk’s Underground 1 and it also had a sequel.

My own experiences concentrate on the beginning of the series. I remember very clearly playing the first Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on PS1 and also the sequel on Windows PC. I later bought also the third game that was titled Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. The fourth game in the series was solid and good while the fifth game sadly flopped in quality and also eventually in sales.

We have seen Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 collection that was released in 2020. I just recently bought this collection for my Xbox Series X. It is a very good compilation that includes the first two games with some more modern controls and graphics and also many achievements that you can try to beat. It is common knowledge that this is a good product as a whole. The collection received positive feedback from video game skateboarders world wide.

So, what do you expect from the new collection? Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 will definitely find its way to my video game shopping list. I believe this is going to be very satisfying collection of two games that molded the whole series. We are going to see nowadays graphical quality and I believe also that the whole soundtrack is going to be something amazing. I can clearly remember hearing Xzibit’s Paparazzi on the background.

I do have also Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 for GameCube. It is quite frankly difficult to try to have every version of a game. This just seems how my video game collection seems to be working. It was a very nice to play this game with the controller of the Nintendo GameCube. It was something a bit different. I have played THPS games with many different controllers.

The new compilation will be available soon. It is said to have a price of 50 euros at least here in Finland. There is going to be a physical copy and a digital copy available. I am going to to probably get the physical copy. I do not have information about if there is going to be a physical collectors edition available. So, we have to wait and see. There is going to be some different and more expensive options if you choose the digital way to buy this collection.

This seems to be for me something to wait for. It has to be kept in mind that there is going to be a new Doom game also available soon. Actually it seems that it will get released in May 15th this year. This fits my gaming plan perfectly because I just recently started playing Doom Eternal once again. Earlier I played it on my now already old PlayStation 4 and now as I bought it for only 10 euros as a digital copy I get to experience it on my Xbox Series X. What a joy!

This last paragraph is written for all you readers of this blog. I am going to continue writing this blog. I don’t yet know what we are talking and thinking about the next time but I will bet that it will be something very interesting. It is already some light and warmth shown when I take a look outside. You know, the spring is coming right now and that means that summer is near. You would understand if you lived up here in the north. So, until next time…

Just Finished Sonic CD

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Viljami

Where do you recognize Sega? Well, from its blue mascot, Sonic The Hedgehog, of course! Sonic was made to be the competitor for Nintendo’s Super Mario. Of course there are many other titles and many other characters but Sega seems to be very well known when it comes to Sonic. We can talk about Wonder Boy or the main characters of Golden Axe. We can even mention a character like Kid Chameleon. There really isn’t a competition after all.

The first Sonic game was released in 1991. It was titled simply Sonic The Hedgehog. This was the game that actually shipped with my Sega Mega Drive back in the day. The graphics were very nice for its time. I can clearly remember playing it for hours. The action and speed made a permanent impacted and pushed me further towards this hobby of gaming. Later I got to play many more Mega Drive titles. There are too many to mention but lets say that Streets of Rage series, NHL 94 and NBA Jam were some of my favorites back in the day.

You could pick some other way to get back to these Sonic titles. I chose to get a copy of Sonic Origins Plus for my Xbox Series X. I bought it for about 20 euros. It was cheap. It also offered a possibility to see how much of this compilation you have completed. Also saving your progress wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish. If you play any of these games on the original hardware you don’t have an opportunity to save your game.

So, the compilation has games like Sonic 1, 2 and 3 and also Sonic CD. Today I spent some hours and managed to finish Sonic CD. This is the Sonic game that was released for Sega CD. If you are wondering what is Sega CD I can explain it briefly. Sega CD is an accessory that you can apply on Mega Drive. It uses CD-ROM technology to store the games. Of course these meant that there were hundreds of times more space for these games. There were more than 200 games developed for it. It wasn’t as popular as Mega Drive and games and any related hardware is thought to be rare. Mega Drive Mini 2 featured several Sega CD games along with tens of Mega Drive games.

Sonic CD is a nice and speedy 2d platform game. The fact that the game was made to be released on a CD-ROM meant that the sound has a maximum quality compared to some of the limitations that Mega Drive had. Graphics of the game are detailed. I did spend many hours playing Sonic CD. How Long To Beat website tells me that it takes only two hours to finish the game and six and a half hours to complete it.

You can find enemy characters like Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic in the game. Sonic has a bit more moves to make if you compare these abilities to something that was present originally in the first Sonic The Hedgehog game. If you manage to pick up 50 coins in a stage you get to a bonus stage. There are seven levels that all have three stages to play in this game. The speedy running and a minimum amount of thinking seems to work as a good game plan. However there are some spots in this game that require a bit of problem solving or you could even call it a strategy. But the less you worry and the better you complete your presses of buttons the more you will advance in this game.

Sonic Origins Plus is a nice compilation of Sonic games. I did finish two of the first games, Sonic 1 and 2, earlier. I think I played them last summer if I recall correctly. So, I do have some more playing to do if I want to finish also Sonic 3. There’s lots of content all in all. If you are a definitive fan of Sonic games or if you want to reminisce on some retro content this might be something worth getting your hands to.

Rainbow Six

Posted on February 21, 2025 by Viljami

Rainbow Six is a book written by Tom Clancy. It was published in 1998. There were also several video games made based on this book. My favorite game from this series is Rogue Spear. I have also played Rainbow Six 3 – Raven Shield. The latest game in this series was released in 2022.

This book is a long one to read. It took me several weeks to get through it. There were almost 900 pages that were written with a small font. Tom Clancy is a clever and very good writer. He manages to keep you strained throughout the whole reading experience of this book. I have recently read also Power Plays by Tom Clancy.

If we discuss about the games I can tell you that they are kind of first person shooter types but you have several soldiers for you to control. There are many strategic points that you must take in account. You get to chose the teams and plan your actions. There are many ways to complete the missions. You have to be precise with your shooting and everything that happens around you.

The weapons and also other gear are being described very clearly. The precision with the action is very needed. You can also enjoy multiplayer mode if you want to. I think one good game to start from in getting into Rainbow Six would be Rainbow Six Siege that was released in 2015 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and also for PC.

Rainbow Six is only one part of this whole group of tactical and war-related video games. There also do exist games like Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, Endwar, H.A.W.X. and The Division. All of these games are inspired by these books that Tom Clancy wrote. Sadly, Tom Clancy died in 2013. These games still live on and many from these games mentioned above are still getting sequels and updates. So, the legacy of Tom Clancy still lives strong.

Rainbow Six was a nice book to read. I wouldn’t have picked it for me to read if it wouldn’t had anything to do with video games. I think that this book was although very long to read. I think it was something like reading The Lord of the Rings book or maybe some book from Stephen King. I usually read books that take me about one week to finish and I read mostly non-fictive books.

Today Rainbow Six and every game in the series has a lot of meaning for me. I still have Rogue Spear as a big box standing on my game shelf. I actually have two cases but only one of them still holds the disc. I had the original box but the CD was missing. So, what I did was I bought another copy from a local Finnish game shop as it was luckily available for purchase.

Tom Clancy has written many books throughout his career. His first book was “The Hunt for Red October” and it was released in 1984. Many of his works were also made into cinematic movies. The movies were directed by John Mc Tiernan, Philip Noyce and also Robert Lieberman. His style of writing was very suitable for also movies and games. This whole load of material can be somewhat categorized as having everything to do with warfare.

You can find more information about Tom Clancy from websites like Wikipedia. There is all-in-all a lot of information available. You can even use a search engine to search for this information. I think artificial intelligence would have also something to say about this writer. I just wanted to express how I felt about the book and also my relationship to these video games. I can recommend this book if you like thrilling moments and closely detailed action just take my advice when I tell you that the book can take some time to read.

Some Reasons for the Success of Nintendo Switch

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Viljami

Today Nintendo Switch is the third most sold video game console. Only some legendary and popular devices are above it in the statistics. Those consoles are PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS. I am talking about the global top list of consoles sold. The statistics of a specific region, like North America, Europe or Asia, might differ from the ones that I here am writing you about.

The most sold consoles, huh? PlayStation 2 has held this position for a long time now. It dominated the statistics being the first DVD player for many gamers. It has also a very wide selection in a form of a game library. People were expecting something like this already when only PlayStation 1 was available. During this period we saw a great increase in the number of gamers worldwide as new players and groups were starting to get interested in video games.

What about Nintendo DS and its success. Why did it take place? I guess this has everything to do with it being a portable gaming device. You could take it everywhere and it provided solid library of games and a decent three-dimensional environment for these new types of video games. I guess that before the era of smart phones (I think Apple begun this era by releasing the first iPhone in 2007) this was something very attracting for a gamer.

We are taking now Nintendo Switch in to account while we are having a conversation about the most sold gaming consoles. And actually why is it so? Well, there are some quite clear matters that we can think for a while. One of them is that Nintendo Switch has a gaming library that has a very good quality. There are several Nintendo exclusive games being still released that are very good ones and that you cannot play on another console.

We have to take in count also these delivery problems that Sony and Microsoft faced during the pandemic. This is a reason you cannot underestimate in these talks. There was a long period of time that Xbox Series X and both PS5 models, the one with the disc drive and the one without, were totally unavailable. You could find a Xbox Series S if you were lucky but there was no serious lack of Nintendo Switch consoles. The availability might be the biggest reason that Nintendo Switch climbed to such high levels of units sold during these times.

Why is the Nintendo Switch so cheap? The price is today about 300 euros here in Europe while PS5’s and Xbox’s pricier models wear a price tags way higher. You have to consider that Switch doesn’t come with a proper controller so you might have to spend like 70 euros for Pro Controller. This is of course optional. One factor of the low price seems to be that Nintendo Switch is very underpowered especially when compared to its main competitors of this generation of consoles. It is compared to Xbox 360 when we are discussing about pure performance. The upcoming Switch 2 that we are going to get more information from Nintendo by 2nd of April is said to be as powerful as PS4. So, the pure power is not the case when dealing with success here.

We also cannot forget the appeal of Nintendo’s brand. They are known to be a “mega” huge gaming company since the early days of Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short, back in the beginning of 1980s. It was the video game console that made home video gaming popular again while many consumers were very disappointed in Atari’s 2600 and especially their games and overall quality that finally caused a big depression of video games consuming and playing in the first years of 1980s. NES was definitely the console that made gaming popular again. You could trust Nintendo and it was something considered to have a good quality.

Today PS2 has sold wolrdwide over 160 million units. Nintendo DS has sold 154 million units. Nintendo Switch is behind these two with 150,8 million sold units. It is very exciting to see how is the Switch ending up to sell as the sales might dive down after or even before Switch 2 is getting released. How many people are going to buy Nintendo Switch if the Switch 2 is already available? The price of this new Nintendo console is predicted to be somewhere between 400 or 500 euros. However the price or other details, like release date, are not yet officially announced.

Point and Click (Adventure) Games

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Viljami

The idea for today’s blog post originated as I got to play a remake of Lucas Arts classic point and click adventure game Day of the Tentacle. I have only played so little of this game and I don’t really have enough experience from it that I could tell you anything else about this game. Lets just say that it is still something worth to experiment with even today.

Instead of writing you about just one game I decided today to tell you about point and click games in general. There are loads of great games if you end up enjoying this type of games. This whole genre was at its time something that the latest hardware could support. This era was dominant way before we got used to playing in these interactive three-dimensional environments.

To understand point and click games we have to talk about how they evolved in such a direction. Where did this genre actually come from? The first thing, when it comes to adventure games, were text-based games. First adventure games were like this – you actually had to type in every move you could make in the game. Sierra leveled the game up so you could move around. Some years after point and click games became very popular. You could just click and point what you were trying to do in this game. It was a new way that you could interact with a video game. Of course you used your mouse to perform these operations.

Adventure games, and so also point and click games, involve a lot of discussion between the characters in which you have to make choices. There is also a lot of items that you have to collect and use with other items to solve different problems. You often have a score that tells you something about how you are progressing in the game.

Many adventure games in the 1980s were brought to you by a gaming company called Sierra. The strongest adventure game in the end of 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was Lucas Arts. It brought us games like Maniac Manson, several Monkey Island games and many more. Sierra had also some point and click titles like the Space Quest series. I think the third one was somewhat a point and click adventure game. As Lucas Arts developed their user interface to suit point and click playing style also Sierra had to level up their games.

Day of the Tentacle is full of humoristic scenes, conversations, interaction and puzzle solving. It is promised a steady five hours of playing time that is described by “How Long To Beat” website. I have only completed a small amount, under 10 percentages, of this game but I think it was worth its price. The game is available today for Xbox Series S/X as a digital copy. I think there are versions for some other devices also. The price is today about 15 euros but the price might come down a bit if there is a huge sale or something like that. I paid only three euros of this game during a sale opportunity.

Some other classic worth-to-mention point and click games are Sam and Max series, Indiana Jones adventure games, Full Throttle and The Dig. Sierra has also some adventure games that have to be mentioned: Police Quest series and Space Quest series, Leisure Suit Larry games and also King’s Quest series.

Some other notorious point and click games are Clock Tower series and Discworld series. You can probably find more from your favorite sources of information be it a search engine, an actual physical book about the subject (my favorite is Juho Kuorikoski’s book (“Suuret seikkailupelit – tietokonepelien klassikot) about adventure games in general) and maybe you could try asking an AI tool for more information. This tiny blog post seems to be too small for a more detailed description. This was my post this time. I hope you enjoyed. See you next time!

Frontlines – Fuel of War

Posted on February 11, 2025 by Viljami

I came across this decent first person shooter, Frontlines – Fuel of War, while browsing the web and trying to find some new games from one of these on-line game shops that I seem to be almost constantly enjoying. I bought some more video games and I chose Frontlines – Fuel of War to be also included in my latest purchase.

I didn’t know almost anything about this game. I did find out that it was playable on Xbox Series X through backwards compatibility support. The game has been released back in 2008 for Xbox 360. Before I started playing this game I made a search about how long would it take to finish the game. I also wanted to know its grade on Metacritic. I was content as it seemed that it would take 5 and half an hour to finish this game. It had received 75 out of 100 from critics and 7.2 out of 10 from users.

At this moment, right before starting to play, I wondered how the game would feel like. It is an FPS after all. It seemed to be a short game but that is not a matter at all for me. I actually like short games. I cannot remember a game that would have taken over 30 hours to play that I would have finished lately. Instead I have finished games recently, for example Split Second, that took only about ten hours to complete.

The actual game, Frontlines – Fuel of War, feels very different than any Call of Duty game out there. Now Call of Duty is a legacy and I don’t have the sense to compare these games. This game is only slightly like CoD. It manages to be just a bit more original in a way that actually manages to impress me. I do like this game. I do like playing it.

The controls take some amount of getting used to but after a while they seem to be working nicely. You reload, run, zoom a bit, crouch and shoot just using your game pad. There are many weapons, not loads of, but still many. In the game you have to consider a bit about tactics. There are some tanks that can only be taken out with a bazooka or another tank.

Many times I find myself dying in this game. It seems that if you don’t get an area under your control fast there is going to be an endless amount of enemies that just keep appearing to the fight. After you conquer a spot you get a tiny break from the action. There are also some vehicles that you get to drive with. One working tactic is to get a tank and drive inside it near to the enemy and then abandon the tank and start progressing through the level. You just have to be careful because only after three hits a tank is going to be destroyed.

The game does remind us about the war in the Middle East. This is very notable. Even the title is giving an idea of this. It seems that the developers haven’t tried to hide the message. The game can also make you idolize soldiers and of course this kind of a game has this sense of a slight propaganda. After all this doesn’t bother a seasoned gamer almost at all and you can concentrate to just playing a nice FPS game.

Now I don’t seem to remember if I paid ten or fifteen euros for this game. The game is a bit short. It can be a somewhat valuable purchase if you are into these special and unique type of FPS action games. It might not be the greatest shooter around but it is something to play and it can entertain you for a while. I didn’t try any multiplayer functionality and I don’t have an idea about that at all. I just played the campaign mode for some hours. I decided to set the difficulty level to “normal”. I originally started with a difficulty level of “casual”. There is also a hard mode that makes the game have three difficulty levels all in all.

Best Gamepad for PS3?

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Viljami

I have recently spent tens of hours playing some PS3 games. I played mainly Colin McRae Dirt 2 which is a good quality rally racing game originally released back in 2009. There are still many good games that you can play on PS3. This video game console can still hold its place among gamers hearths. I don’t consider it being yet a retro console.

PS3 was released originally in 2006. You can find many games for it with a cheap price tag of about from 5 to 10 or maybe 20 euros. There are some rarities or games that seem to be more expensive. Of course it must be considered that while the quality of the actual physical console is good the hardware is actually already getting a bit old now. Luckily it is already possible to run these games on a PC with an emulator. You just have to have a PC with a decent performance.

The thing that this time inspired me to write this blog post was that I came to think about what would be the greatest or best gamepad for PS3? The Dual Shock 3 isn’t a bad controller. It operates a wireless controller but I used to use the cable with it all the time just in case. It required a cable of a length of 3 meters and I think that is just a perfect length for a cable like this. I continued this workaround with my PS4 later.

I currently use a wired controller with my PS3. It is Spartan Gear Oplon. It isn’t an expensive controller at all. It does cost and it is also available for a price of 20 euros. It can be also used with a regular PC for any video game. It has actually a USB connector. I think this is a very good solution. The controller is very compact and seems to be very durable.

If we compare the latest Xbox gamepad with Oplon I have to say that the Xbox controller seems to be a bit better. So I wouldn’t recommend Oplon over Xbox Series S/X controller. Of course the Xbox controller is also a bit more expensive. I think you can get one for about 60 euros of price. The Xbox controller works nicely in wireless mode and especially if you purchase a good quality battery or batteries and a charging dock. So, you don’t actually have to keep the controller plugged in with the cable at least not all the time.

I have owned my Spartan Gear Oplon for many years already. I haven’t noticed anything that would make it a bad choice for wired PS3 or even PC gaming. It is a decent option for a retro game playing with PS3. The gamepad feels light as it doesn’t utilize a battery at all. I would recommend however the latest Xbox gamepad if you are gaming on a Linux or Windows device. I have to say that the Xbox controller suits especially well with Recalbox on Raspberry Pi 5. I also use it for PC gaming today with my Windows 10 that is actually going to be unsupported the next October as I am forced to buy a new PC or move to Linux completely.

As a short summary I have to conclude that Spartan Gear Oplon is a decent, cheap and durable option that can challenge also Dual Shock 3 controller as your main controller for playing video games with PS3. Some other very good PS3 games that I also like and am going to probably play are all Ratchet & Clank games, Hitman series games and maybe some Need for Speed games and especially NFS Shift 1 and 2 are good choices that you can choose to play. All in all the PS3 has still a lot to offer as it has these classic titles. The hardware seems to be durable and if something with it fails you can in any case go to the emulation as your backup option.