Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

Author: Viljami

Some Notes About Doom Eternal

Posted on by Viljami

Last Saturday I picked up Doom Eternal. Its price was 30 euros. I decided to buy it. I have been thinking to buy this game for a while already. It is a very good first person shooter. I bought it for PS4. The game shelf in this store I was in was not so convincing. I am glad that I found at least one good game. Doom Eternal is a sequel to Doom that was released in 2016. This sequel was released in 2020.

The logic of this shooter game differs a bit from another strong FPS named Call of Duty. In CoD you basically have lots of ammunition all the time. It is necessary to take cover and move as swiftly as you can from cover to the next one. You get ammo and health packs here and there. It is also important to hit your enemies to the head preferably.

In Doom Eternal you basically have to kill monsters to gain health, armor and ammunition. You have to constantly keep killing your enemies to not be killed and to gain health. Armor is also important. Your health bar will stay up longer if you do have armor.

There is also upgrades to your weapons, maximum health and armor. Sometimes you will come across a puzzle to be solved. This makes the game have a clear rhythm. Weapons that you get to use vary. You might use rocket launcher to shoot your enemies from a distance. For a close combat you can use shotgun or even the chainsaw. Killing an enemy with a chainsaw gives you a bonus in health, ammo and armor. However you cannot kill every enemy with a one chainsaw swing. Sometimes the monster has such a level that you must use three chainsaw moves. So you can collect up to three moves and then you can finish a strong enemy.

There are many monsters in this game that we have seen in previous Doom games. I must remind you that the first Doom was actually released in 1993. Many of these enemies have a weak spot. Some of them are easier to kill in close combat. One monster actually swallows a grenade if you throw it to it. Another monster uses flamethrower in close combat so you have to beware that move, always.

I am satisfied with this game. However I don’t like that you cannot actually see, from a phone app, how many hours you have spent playing. So I don’t accurately know how many hours I have put in to this game already. I had to choose the easiest difficulty level. I am not so skilled in this game. I guess if I keep playing more I keep developing my skills also. By the way…I absolutely love the Xbox phone application. It is perfect!

How Internet Changed Gaming?

Posted on by Viljami

I got this idea when I was walking just some moments ago. I started thinking about internet and how it has influenced in so many ways our lives worlwide. Of course it has also had an impact to gaming also. So this blog post deals with gaming and internet. I am trying to get together a text about how things were and how they are now.

Take a look at this posts featured image. You can propably see that there is a Nintendo GameCube. It has four inputs for a controller. It has also a memory card attached and room for another memory card (so you can copy information from one card to another). This gaming console was released in 2001. So this was before smart phones, huge hard disks and internet connections. In 2001 gaming consoles didn’t have things like that.

If we think for a moment how were all these improvements brought to the consumers. They appeared little by little. Sony and Microsoft were among first to use large hard disks and internet connectivity. For a moment there was a point to have a PC for gaming. Do you remember going to LAN parties? You propably don’t. Today these events are rare. If you must know – they were parties where we connected our computers, that had Ethernet card, to a local network and played games like Counter Strike against each other in teams and even solo.

Playing multiplayer games has evolved. There is something so special when you just gather around the television in someones home and play your favorite video games with your friends. That feeling is unique. But things are changing. Nowadays you don’t have to leave home or take any hardware with you. You can connect with your friends online. You can even have friends that you interact only through internet.

This topic is getting me a rush of inspiration. I am writing this and I am starting to think where we are going. Most of the devices that use electricity could be quite easily be connected to internet. However I see this as a problem. It would cause a serious cyber security threat. And I don’t want to do that.

You can play also against artificial intelligence. I used to play also some first person shooters locally, you know, against bots. I am, after all, not so much into these new multiplayer games. I definitely like more playing single player campaigns be it FPS or some other type of a game.

Internet has also changed in a way that you can very powerfully share tips and even walkthroughs of games. You can chat while you play. The saved games can be stored in the cloud…if you have a subscription to the service that is required. You can also today collect your achievements and track how long you have spent playing a game. You can take screenshots and share also them.

This is a hug topic. I could go on writing this post but it seems it is a time to move on to something else, again. Internet has had a huge impact in gaming. It has pushed the progression of software and social media and all of the technologies that are constantly developing and changin all the time. One interesting side is how artificial intelligence affect gaming. Let’s keep looking forward!

The Last of Us

Posted on by Viljami

I have been watching, and also enjoying, the movie series The Last of Us on HBO. If you check IMDb for a rating you will see that it is 9,2 out of 10. Sometimes the movie that I like doesn’t receive such a rating. This time it does. There have been already six episodes of this TV series. I have enjoyed this series so far very much.

If you aren’t familiar with this game or the series I can explain the main plot. There is a certain kind of fungus that actually turns people into zombies. There are only few survivors that haven’t, at least yet, been infected. There are some main characters in this tv series. I think the series does a great job in describing these characters. That is also the strongest feature in this series.

The series is based on the game. Just in 2020 we got the latest The Last of Us game. It was called Part II. The first game after all was released already some time ago. It was released in 2013 for PS3 and it was developed by Naughty Dog. You might remember this game development company from a classic game called Crash Bandicoot. They have also released a game seiries called Uncharted.

The Last of Us was released to PS4 as a remaster in 2014. This is the moment that I first got into The Last of Us. As there are many similarities in the situation that the game presents it is understandable that it maybe wasn’t so popular during the pandemic. Or maybe the hype is all because of this? Who knows.

The game is as good as you can figure. I can recommend it, defnitely. So the TV series has been popular. It brings together some very detailed personalities that live their lives after this tragic disaster that ended the human populations accomplishments.

I can definitely recommend The Last of Us for anybody. You might have played Last of Us games or not but you have to see this. I am not aware of any release outside of HBO. This might make you to consider getting HBO if you don’t already have it. What finally made me order HBO was a series called “Winning Time”. Since I am and always will be a basketball fan I enjoyed that series also.

Most Anticipated Games of 2023

Posted on by Viljami

We can begin this blog post with some information. This is the 200th blog post that I have published in this blog. I have been writing this blog for three years now. And, yeah, I am not going to stop since I have still lot to say and lot to achieve with Intensive Gaming Diary. Let’s dive into todays topic.

The gaming industry has been struggling a bit with the global situation. There have been delays in hardware shipments and a lack of electronic components. Game developers have been forced to adapt to the situation. Gaming isn’t going away. In fact this year we have the priviledge to witness some great games that are going to be relesed.

There are many new games to be released. Games I am personally waiting the most are Diablo IV and the new Forza Motorsport. Diablo IV will be released 6.6. and Forza Motorsport will be released 26.5. One game that I have already pre-ordered is Metroid Prime Remastered. It has already received some very good feedback. I am waiting to get to play it. It will be released soon (3.3.).

Some other interesting titles include Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XVI, Starfield, Alan Wake II and Resident Evil 4. There are many more which I am not going to mention. It seems like we have a great selection of games this year and I think there is going to be lots of games to play.

I am still playing Gran Turismo 4 on my PS2. The status of the game states that I have completed a bit over eight percentage of the game so there’s lot to play also in this way. It seems to be a great racing game and I am very glad that I decided to pick it up. I seem to be constantly comparing it to the first game in which I fell in love with back in the 90s.

How did you like Alan Wake? It was first published in 2010. It was developed by Remedy. As a game it is a mixture of lightweight survival horror and action in 3rd person view. I personally found it entertaining. I completed it with my Xbox 360 already some years ago. It was released for PC also. And we are getting a sequel, Alan Wake II, this year.

One product I am waiting for is Nintendos new gaming console. As I am writing this we have not heard anything of this new gaming console. If you think that Switch was released in 2017 there is a chance that there is a new console coming to gaming stores sometime soon. After all PS4 was released in 2013 and after seven years we got PS5. So maybe the console will be available next year? Let’s hope for the best and keep waiting.

 

Is Gran Turismo 4 The Greatest Racing Game of All Time?

Posted on by Viljami

Although I have still not finished Resident Evil Village I picked up Gran Turismo 4. I have thought about playing GT4 for a while now. It is said to be maybe the best game in the series and it is definitely a very good racing game. It is definitely the best racing game for PlayStation 2.

Another very good racing and actually a rally game of this era is Richard Burns Rally. It was for propably a decade the most realistic racing simulation to be found. It was released also for PC and original Xbox while Gran Turismo 4 was released for PlayStation 2 with exclusive righs. Richard Burns Rally lost its spot as the best rally simulator since there were newer games released in this genre. I can mention titles like Dirt Rally and its sequel Dirt Rally 2.0 just to name some games.

I am playing GT4 with a game pad. The game supports also many tpyes of driving wheels. It would be nice to play it this way. I do have a driving wheel  but I am too lazy to try to learn using it. I would also like to have a decent driving chair. I currently don’t have one. But the game supports driving wheels and why not pedals also.

In Gran Turismo 4 you start with no license and also no car. You have only 10 000 credits. I started with getting a driving license. The first license and also the easiest to get is B license. There are several other driving licenses that give you access to competititons.

You have to upgrade your car if you wish to get some credits. Then you can upgrade your car more and maybe after a while you get a new more powerful car. Sometimes the game gets a bit repetitive because you have to compete in same chllenge for many times to get enough credits so you can make some progress. This can be dull at times.

Gran Turismo 4 has hundreds of cars. Getting a good car can be hard at times. You have to buy some upgrades to get to fiddle with your cars settings. The first thing I got to adjust was the transmission. You can set your car to have a high maximum speed with a lower acceleration level or the other way around. So, you can also make your car accelerate fast which then lowers the maximum speed. This can be handy in tracks that have lots of slow corners and not so much straights.

Graphics are a bit dated. Controls defnitely aren’t. There could be more decent music tracks in the soundtrack. I am talking about these nice tracks that we had in the first Gran Turismo. If you are thinking if you should return to the first game we can consider that if you haven’t played Gran Turismo 1 or 4 at all I think the fourth game would be a good way to start getting into Gran Turismo. I also liked very much the latest game of this series, Gran Turismo 7, that was released last year for PS4 and PS5.

Why Do I Find Games Attractive?

Posted on by Viljami

I have been recently playing Gran Turismo 4. I haven’t finished Resident Evil Village yet. I have played it for five hours. I also picked up Hollow Knight. This game has some very attractive two-dimensional graphics. I thought this would be a short game. I checked how long it takes to complete form HowLongToBeat dot com and I found out that it takes 25 and a half hours to complete. That’s a long time for this kind of a game.

As I begun playing Hollow Knight I started wondering what it really is in games that appeals to me? Is it the graphics? Is it the sound? Is it the way that you get to interact and really get involved in the story? The answer is propably the combination of all these things.

I don’t actually remember my early childhood. My parents have told me that I was excited about technology and different kinds of machines at an early age. I can believe that easily. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that I am today deeply interested in technology. I also have studied and I am currently working in the field.

What is it in games that appeal to so many people around the world? This question might not have a clear answer. There has to be something special about it. Video games have always since their first appearance been extremely popular. Back in the 1960s when a video game called “Tennis for Two” was introduced to audience it blew many peoples minds.

Today the business of producing video games is huge. Games are more popular than ever. Video games aren’t anymore just for children. Gaming has become a hobby for everyone. It doesn’t matter what is your gender, where do you live, are you poor or rich. There seems to be absolutely no limit. This can be a good thing but it might also be a bad thing.

There are lots of games that are very good. But there has been some huge disappointments also. Maybe the consumer should think about where he or she puts the money. And also we should support independent developers even more than we do today. This way we can have gaming as a hobby. And everyone will be happy, right?

Not Enough Time For Every Good Game

Posted on by Viljami

Some months ago I bought Silent Hill 4 The Room for original Xbox. I haven’t had time to play it and really get into it. There are also some other good games in this featured image. On the top is Dungeon Siege for PC. This is a good Diablo clone that was developed by Microsoft. I have played it but I haven’t completed it. It’s a shame since it is definitely a nice role playing game.

There is also a game called Black. This is a first person shooter for Xbox. I played it for some hours last year. It is very good but also a difficult game. I just got stuck because and found myself going through the same situation over and over again. It was a struggle and I couldn’t beat the game or even proceed from the point I was stuck in.

Not all these games in this picture have received marvelous reviews. I know that Goldeneye – Rogue Agent and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer aren’t so appreciated by game reviewers or even by common gamer people. I wanted to pick these games up. One reason was that they were so cheaply available. The other reason was that they are compatible with Xbox 360. I currently don’t have an original Xbox. I do have Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2. M;aybe some day I decide to move one of the other gaming consoles to side and add once again original Xbox to my forever evolving game console setup.

I remove, sometimes, a gaming console from my setup. Many times I also find some gaming device that can bring me multiple systems for one HDMI connection. I use mainly HDMI. PlayStation 2 is currently the only SCART connected device I have in my setup. Recently I bought a HDMI adapter for my GameCube. It cost me almost 80 euros but it enables connecting my console to a regular HDMI channel. I have thought about getting also a similar adapter for PS2. I found one for only 15 euros. I don’t know if its a one with good quality.

I also received some bonus credits from one game dealer. It was nice. I received 25 euros for buying ten times a purchase of 35 euros or over. I have been ordering already for years from this dealer. I used this sum of euros to buy six games. Four of them were for Xbox and the two other were for Xbox 360. It did cost me 50 euros after I used the 25 euros of bonus credits.

So I got these games for original Xbox: Batman Begins, Dead to Rights, Oddworld – Munch Oddysee and The Thing and these two games for Xbox 360: Devil May Cry 4 and Supreme Commander 2. I really enjoyed playing the first Devil May Cry although I didn’t complete it. I also played the fifth Devil May Cry but found it to be not so interesting. I think it has too many cut scenes in the beginning of the game and it seems to be too easy when it comes to playing the actual game. So I didn’t like it. I hope that the fourth game in the series would be better. I actually didn’t read a lot of reviews about this game.

You can figure that I buy a lot of games and usually I buy them for a cheap price. I have noticed that the price of some games is rising. You can take some GameCube games for example. I think that there’s always these high priced games that I won’t even look when I am skimming through gaming web stores.

I am going to have a holiday this year. It is yet too soon to talk about when it’s going to be and exactly how long will my vacation going to be. I might go to a trip. I will definitely play some games that I currently own. I hope I can spend some good times with games and writing this blog also. I do have the book project. I just haven’t once again had time to get deeply into writing more of it. Today I also designed a game with my pal that is currently doing some heavy programming with the second and even the first game that are under updating and also under development right now.

I Picked Up Something Good to Play

Posted on by Viljami

So I started playing Resident Evil Village. I was a bit frustrated because NHL 97. It clearly was a disappointment for me. Resident Evil Village was released some time ago. It isn’t the newest game that would have been available. It just happens that I like very much the whole huge series of Resident Evil games. I have always simple loved these horror survival games. This has been the case since I first picked up Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation back in 1998.

What I really like to do before getting into a game is to take a look at how long will it take for me to finish the game. I like many types of games. It’s just that if I start a new game that takes 60 hours to finish I have to make a sort of commitment in playing it. That’s why I like to play shorter type of games that take about 10 to 20 hours to beat. That’s one reason I don’t play so many role-playing-games today. I mainly like racing, sports and shooting games but if there is a good game that I’ve heard good things about I might just go and play that.

It was maybe two weeks ago that I got myself these two Max Payne games. I got the first one and the second one released in this series. They weren’t in sale in Xbox store. I did find the latest Resident Evil game for about 20 euros. So I went and bought that also. I have been curious about this game for a while. Although I didn’t immediately start playing it the matter stuck to my mind. I had to play it when I would have some time.

It is one thing to try to find time for playing video games. It is also a thing to find something reasonable and that has a good quality. Today I had the joy to have time and also interest in this game. The graphics are amazing. After playing a graphically poor ice hockey game on SNES this definitely was a blast for me. The graphics come as sharp as my 4K television can display them. The game looks really neat.

What it comes to story the game doesn’t deal with huge multinational company this time. I am talking about the Umbrella Corporation. Instead the story starts developing from the end of the last Resident Evil game. This is definitely a horror game. You get a gun, a knife and also a shotgun. There are some bullets left for you but you must use them wisely. There are typewriters but there is also an automatic saving feature.

I haven’t found anything to complain here. At least not yet. I have played only for about two hours. It is said on “How Long to Beat” website that it will take about 9 and a half hours to finish this game. So there is a good feel to the game. The game has as I mentioned good graphics, interesting characters and a nice story that keeps developing forward. This game is definitely worth my twenty euros. It is also nice to see in what direction Capcom keeps moving with this series of survival horror games.

Some Tips for NHL 97 (SNES)

Posted on by Viljami

Be it SNES or Sega Mega Drive – I love NHL 94.  I just like it so much. In its time it was popular and appreciated ice hockey game. NHL 97 for SNES is very similar in many ways. I decided to pick this game and buy it because I liked NHL 94 so much and I hoped it would have a decent season mode.

I start to play this game. I am greeted with some title screens. There appears to be some kind of a menu. I decide to first play an exhibition game to find out how to play this game. Since I have so solid experience from NHL 94 I decide to try to play this in difficulty of Expert which is the toughest difficulty level out of three.

I picked Anaheim Mighty Ducks because I like to play with Selänne and Karyia. They are fast and good players also in overall. After three rounds I haven’t scored a goal. It seems that it is hard to make one. I seem to loose the puck all the time. I didn’t set fighting on but I guess I will have to test playing also with that setting on.

I finally loose the first game in overtime as computer scores the first, and last, goal of overtime. I decide to try to play a season. The menu is a bit confusing. I manage to create a new player and select a team. I also adjust the difficulty level to a bit lower setting.

This game feels a lot like NHL 94. There are many things done a bit differently althought. The graphics and sounds have been moulded a bit. There are fights which do not exist in NHL 94. Scoring a goal is more difficult or at least it is modified. This is all in all a good matter. I have played NHL 94 so much that it would simply be boring for me to keep scoring and winning games 10 to 0.

I have some tips for players of NHL 97. Don’t tackle a player that has a breakaway. If you do the opponent will almost every time get a penalty shot. It isn’t worth mking that risk. Just try to distract the player that has the puck without tackling. You can use pass button but the referee might consider that to be tackling also.

There is a sure way to score in NHL 94. You have to skate with your player that has the puck to the other corner of the ice and then start moving to the other side going on the front of the goal and goal keeper and then shoot the puck while moving from left-to-right or right-to-left depending on the point you started. This way, or at least the game thinks so, the goalie is put to a side-to-side movement and you will definitely score a goal this way.

However I didn’t get to try this. NHL 94 gets boring quickly if you use this method to score like 20 goals in every game. So that is the reason why I avoid using this way to score a goal. I have to play this more to find out more ways to score a goal. One sure way seems to be to get in a breakaway and then press several times left-right-left on the game pad or right-left-right depending once again how you start the combination of key presses.

You have to be careful when your goalie has the puck. Avoid passing the puck when you have the puck near the goal. Don’t pass the puck from another side to the other side so that it passes directly in front of the goal. If your opponent gets to intercept your pass and your goalie is positioned badly this might lead to your opponent to score a goal.

NHL 97 seems to be a different game if you compare it directly to NHL 94. It is a sequel after all. I played the SNES version. I also have a PC big box version which is of course completely different game since you get to run it on such a powerful platform. I am talking about the power of a PC compared to SNES. The PC version has 3D modeled graphics and the gameplay differs also a lot.

NHL 97 is a good hockey game. I think althought that it isn’t one for me to continue playing for a long time. There are better hockey games. Some nice ones are NHL 08 on PS2 and NHL 2000 on PS1. I think you should check them out in case you like ice hockey games. NHL 97 was a cheap one to buy for me. I got it for 15 euros. I ordered some other SNES games with the same order so that’s how it goes this time.

Some Thoughts After Beating Max Payne

Posted on by Viljami

I finally had time to beat Max Payne. This is the first game in the series which consists of three games. I don’t know yet if I am going to play Max Payne 2 – The Fall of Max Payne or if I am going to try to play the game all over again with an increased difficulty level. After you complete the game in one of two easier difficulty levels you unlock these harder difficulty levels. All difficulty levels from easy to hard are “Fugitive”, “Hard-Boiled”, “Dead on Arrival” and “New York Minute”.

There was a kind of a problem right at the end of this game. This was the only time I had to look for a clue from a walk through that I found online. Actually that walk through was a YouTube video. I am not going to spoil the ending in any way if you are also interested in this game. This game was released for multiple gaming systems including PC, Xbox and PS2. I am not sure if there are some other ports. I prefer Xbox version since it gives you a nice feel of controlling and you can also save anytime you want. In PS2 version of this game there is only an automatic saving that really pisses the player off many times as the game is saved in a situation that makes it impossible to continue playing. This feature has everything to do with the fact that PS2 doesn’t natively have a hard disk.

I completed the game in “Fugitive” mode. This is the easiest difficulty level. I found out that I didn’t remember all the details that were in the plot. The story is simple but it is fun to follow. The world that Max Payne is placed in is very realistic or naturalistic in a certain way that also describes some urban scenery. There are guns, violence and drugs as well as deep and even satanistic clubs in which the action takes place in this game.

The game is very enjoyable. There is lots of action. The game owes much of its success to action and sci-fi movies like those directed by John Woo and Matrix. You get to view the world from 3rd person view. There are plenty of weapons. Shotgun is a nice weapon but it is very slow to reload. Then there are two types of hand guns. There are also some sub machine guns, a sniper rifle, grenades and an automatic shotgun which is a very powerful weapon. There is a limited amount of ammo. You get to use pain killers to increase your level of health. You have also an option to slow down time. There are two ways. You can first activate this bullet time effect and move to any direction or you can jump to the side as the time slows down. This can be very effective and it gives you more time to aim.

Graphics are very nice. Sound acting is somewhat confident. If you think some games that have a low quality of voice acting, like the first Resident Evil released in 1996, Max Payne does a way better job. The fact that Max loses his family in the beginning of the game gives lots of motivation for the player to progress in the game. You are on a mission. You have to survive in a cold world.

I don’t want to give Max Payne a score. It was something revolutionary back in 2001 when it was released. Today it is still relevant as a video game. It was also the game that made Remedy Entertainment famous. If you are looking for a retro shooter that isn’t as realistic and serious as today’s ultra realistic shooting games you can definitely pick up Max Payne. I can definitely recommend it. There is also lots of replay value. I might even play it through again with increased difficulty level. And don’t forget that this game has also two sequels.

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