Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Halo – Campaign Evolved

Posted on by Viljami

I just recently finished Halo – Campaign Evolved. This game was released only a moment ago. It took me ten hours to beat this game. It would have been nice to get to play this from a physical release but since it isn’t yet available I decided for this time to go with a digital copy. The game is now on sale. I did pay the full price of 60 euros. I think it is available for a discount now and the price seems to be 48 euros for the Standard Edition. This game is also available for PS5.

The original and first Halo game, Halo – Combat Evolved, is a legendary game that was released for original Xbox back in 2001. The game offered something smooth in the form of a first person shooter that you could actually play with a game pad. This was something that we had already seen in games like N64s GoldenEye. The first Halo game was still something better and even bigger.

So Halo – Campaign Evolved is a remake of the old classic. I have to say that it is a decent game. It isn’t anything special. I still had lots of fun while playing it. Only time will tell what kind of a Halo game we are going to see next. The games or a game (we don’t yet know if there are going to be several Halo games released in the future) that are going to be released will be developed by Activision.

By the way I am sorry that I don’t have any screenshots for this blog post and also on my IG share. I have to admit that I just couldn’t figure out how to take a screenshot with my Elite 2 game pad. It is a good controller but it seems to lack the functionality to take a screenshot quickly. I also didn’t want to play with the regular game pad since the elite one is way more comfortable.

If you check the grades that Halo – Campaign Evolved has received you can tell that everyone wasn’t totally satisfied with the game. I can actually very clearly understand this. If a game is a remake of such a classic video game the expectations are of course high. What do I have to say to this? I think Campaign Evolved isn’t a total failure. I actually very much enjoyed playing it. Is it something that all the fans were waiting for? It probably isn’t a fulfillment of these demanding fantasies after all.

Lets discuss the gameplay a bit. All the familiar weapons are present in the game. You get to use grenades and a bazooka. You have to keep changing your weapon and there is a somewhat limited amount of ammo available. Sometimes you have to pick up an alien weapon since all of your other weapons are out of ammo. There is some melee fighting present but it is nothing like in some recent Doom games we have already seen.

The enemies are numerous. They usually drop some weapons but some enemies don’t. If you fire an alien weapon it actually heats if you keep firing it for a long period of time. Then you have to cool out for a while and after that you are able to shoot again as is normal. This functionality is present only in alien weapons. Sometimes you have to pick a weapon that isn’t as powerful as the weapon you did use earlier. There are many types of enemies around. There isn’t a lot of exploring involved in this game which is also in my opinion a good matter.

This autumn is a busy time for gamers. We have already seen the release of games like Silent Hill – Townfall and Control Resonant. We are going to see the release of games like GTA VI and Zelda – The Ocarina of Time remake. I personally am going to play next some Silent Hill f. Actually just before I started writing this blog post I actually started the installation process with my Xbox Series X. I think I am going to go to play the game now for a while. See you in the next post!

Some Thoughts About Nintendo

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post is dedicated to some thoughts about Nintendo. First of all I have to respect this company. Back in the 1980s when NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) was released it really brought video games back to life again. There was a huge depression on video games. This was mainly because many low quality titles were getting released and consumers were disappointed in the overall quality of games. Nintendo showed the way for Sega and many other companies while we started to head for the video game competition of the early 1990s.

In my mind Nintendo is a company that has deep roots in gaming historically and also even today. Now I am a Sega fan and my first console was Mega Drive. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t like some stuff that Nintendo has released. I have had a keen interest in past consoles, like NES and SNES, with some GameCube and Wii stuff also and I do have Switch, Switch Lite and Switch 2. I also do like some Game Boy titles that have been released through the history of video games. For me it isn’t all about Nintendo. I am a huge fan of Sega, Xbox and PlayStation also.

Last year I did buy Switch 2 very soon after it was released. When I had my latest vacation I brought my Switch Lite with me while I was at our summer cottage. Switch Lite is a very nice handheld type of gaming device that has some very good games. During this trip I played some Disney Illusion Island. IT was a good game and I played it for maybe three hours. Somehow I didn’t continue playing when I was back at home. I really don’t know why. The game is a good platformer type of game.

When thinking about the whole history of Nintendo you definitely have a huge library of games on several gaming consoles. Nintendo has been a bit strict against its old titles. It is a known fact that Nintendo doesn’t like its retro titles to be shared freely. This is a difficult issue to think about. Nintendo has tried to solve this with its online service that offers many retro games if you pay for the service. The price of this service is 20 euros for a single user. This service offers also some other features that I am not going to go so deeply into. There has been some serious debate about some GameCube emulators. The most popular of them seems to be Dolphin emulator.

I have really enjoyed Switch 2. When it was released last year (2025) it was thought to be an expensive product. If you think about the price today it seems to be a low price for such an advanced console. We have seen the prices of PS5 and Xbox Series consoles rising recently. We shall see how high the price of PS6 is going to be when it gets released. It is considered that the release will happen maybe at late 2027 or early 2028 or something like that. We are not going to get PS6 or a new Xbox this year. That can certainly be said at this stage.

I have really liked the Switch 2 Pro Controller that I bought with my Switch 2 back in the last year. It is of a very good quality. We have seen many awesome games already getting released for Nintendo Switch 2. I have really liked titles such as Donkey Kong Bananza, Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata. There are many Switch exclusive titles. Someone might say that Nintendo’s exclusive games are a bit childish. I don’t really have an opinion about that.

What more can I say? I very much enjoy playing every game that I own for Switch 1 and 2. I do have maybe one hundred (I really haven’t counted them) games for Switch 1 and some tens of games for Switch 2. I also like very much of the fact that Nintendo is keen on releasing some games from smaller or independent developers. The library of games is convincing. This is all from me this time. See you soon!

Thoughts After Playing NHL 27 for Five Hours

Posted on by Viljami

NHL 27 was released exactly one week ago. I bought it almost instantly as I noticed it was offered for 50 euros. The discount for such a new game was a good one and I ended up buying this game. The normal price would have been something like 73 euros. I got it for Xbox Series X. I did have to wait some days for the delivery. I got to play my NHL 27 just maybe three days ago.

How is this newest NHL and ice hockey game? I have spent already a bit over five hours playing this game. The graphics look really nice. The gameplay feels somewhat comfortable. I did set the game controller settings so that I have a slap shot mapped to B button and wrist shot mapped to X button. This is for me a more comfortable way to play. You also have the option to shoot with analog stick. I really don’t like playing with this controller setting but the setting is there for the player to choose.

Defending in this game takes some time to adjust to. You have to be careful not to take a penalty. I found it to be a good strategy to try to not slash with your stick in any way and rather just try to see where the opponent is trying to pass the puck and where are its players trying to move and in this way try to defend and maybe try to intercept a pass and get the puck to your own team.

Attacking takes some adjusting also. You have to remember that the latest NHL game I have played was NHL 21. I remember also the huge disappointment that I had with NHL 20. In NHL 27 you can try to pass the puck to your teammates while also trying to get a good chance to shoot and trying to make a goal. Sometimes you pass badly and you loose the puck. Your players get at some point also tired and you need to make sure to give your players a chance to substitute with a teammate.

After five hours of playing NHL 27 I feel like it is a decent hockey game. It isn’t a great game. It is a decent one. I don’t know how much I am going to play it in the future. I did like that I could choose Carolina Hurricanes as it has some Finnish players. It has Sebastian Aho and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Ice hockey is very popular here in Finland and almost everyone is talking about ice hockey when the world championships are going on. This happens every year. We also have the national hockey league that some of the people I am in contact with are enjoying to watch from television or being actually at the stadium.

I got this game for this discount. I think it is a good game to buy. I can recommend it if you are really into ice hockey. There are many game forms and NHL 27 might be a fun game to play with a friend on the same screen or maybe even through an internet connection. I am not so much of a multiplayer person. I am usually only playing the single player campaigns be it a shooting game or a sports game that is in question.

NHL 27 does feature the latest players and teams. I don’t think it brings many changes to how then last NHL game was. I think this was NHL 26. I would like to see something that would make this game an addictive to play. It is now a game that is a bit frustrating to play. Maybe I haven’t found some of the ways that the game offers a challenge for a video game player. I just hope it isn’t such of a disappointment for me as NHL 20 was. I played NHL 20 for tens of hours only to find out that it was a plain disappointment as a sports game.