Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

Category: 2000s

Why Am I a SEGA Person?

Posted on by Viljami

Sega was my key to this whole video gaming hobby. I think it was 1993 when I got my Sega Mega Drive. I played a lot of it. This was of course making me not to play so much NES, SNES and even later Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Lately I have tried to catch up on Nintendo’s retro stuff. I have even studied some Game Boy games.

Nothing created such a rage inside me than a Mega Drive game that I was trying to beat. You can say that Mega Drive games are a bit repetitive in their nature so you had to be perfect on a try and if you failed you had to start all over again until you eventually would run out of lives and after that continues. Yeah. We didn’t have lots of memory for saved games back then.

Sega also made me to be angry to my mates that were playing some Streets of Rage 2 with me in collaboration mode. It became aggresive so suddenly. As I was playing with my brother we had many arguments. We were told that we took the game too seriously. We were separated and we both couldn’t play Mega Drive for that day anymore. This made me think even when I was a small ten-year-old child. And I didn’t take it so seriously. There was just something about how Sega made players a bit frustrated. I think that is some of the appeal of this franchise.

After Sega my life with Nintendo’s gaming products was again pushed towards later times because it happened that I bought a Sony PlayStation in 1997. This of course made me distant also to Sega Saturn. I have only lately been again interested in it. As PlayStation had real 3D games I thought it would absolutely have so much more to offer compared to Saturn. This thinking has changed, maybe just this year, and I have been interested in Saturns games which aren’t actually so much 3D games but it has some very interesting titles that Sony doens’t have.

So these choices made me to play certain games. Today I understand that the variety of different and good or decent game titles are from many different consoles and every consoles have at least some good or decent games be it that many of the best games are released on certain systems. This makes me definitely interested in exclusives. And this interest hasn’t faded when it comes to modern consoles.

What I was essentially missing a lot as a child were mainly NES, SNES and Game Boy titles. Later I missed some Saturn titles and N64 and GameCube titles. I also didn’t ever get a Dreamcast. So what caught my attention was first Sega and then Sony. Did I follow Sony a lot? Maybe not. I never had a PS2. Can you think about this? I hardly can.

All in all we can say that there are for all of us these gaming consoles that brought us to the hobby or maybe to some to the profession. It is your own curiosity that makes you want to dig deep and try to discover some old games that you haven’t yet played. And this is also what makes video gaming interesting.

THPS 4 on GameCube

Posted on by Viljami

I can definitely say that Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is close to my hearth. I have been involved with playing it since the first game came out in the late 90s for PlayStation. THPS series has many games and they have been released for several different gaming consoles and also on PC. So there are lots of systems that you can play THPS games on. That also means there are different ways to control the character inside the game.

It goes almost without saying that I am used to playing some THPS with a PlayStation game pad. About two years ago I wrote a blog post here in this blog about how the THPS 1 + 2 HD remake felt like on PS4. Of course the way how you could use a modern DualShock 4 controller was amazing. I was very pleased with this pair of remakes. The graphics were also very nice. I felt like these games really respected the original games.

This time however I played THPS 4 that was released for GameCube. If you take a PS1 controller and compare it to a GameCube controller you start to see all these differences. But when you get to playing the controller feels almost the same. There are some differences. There are also many similarities. Basically there is a group of four buttons on the right. There is also only one trigger button on the right side and also on the left side.

I really like playing THPS 4 on GameCube. I also like very much of this era of gaming. THPS was released for GameCube in 2002. There is a certain appeal to the games of this time. There were more games released and while the graphics weren’t anything you could really compare to today’s games they still make an impact to me as a retro game hobbyist. I like the feel that GameCube’s controller gives.

I am very happy that I decided to buy this game some time ago. It gave me some value and I mean something else than financial value. Tony Hawk once said that THPS games cannot get you to learn actual skateboarding but they can give you an idea of how skateboarding feels like. I am also content about having some free time to get into this game.

I have currently completed, I think, 22 percentage of the game. I get to spend some hours playing this game during last weekend. I have also played some WRC Generations on my Xbox Series X. It seems to be a decent rally game. So, maybe I write something about it the next time!

I Don’t Mind That a Game Is a Bit Old

Posted on by Viljami

Sometimes I don’t realize how fast time keeps moving. If you consider that Colin McRae Dirt 2 was released thirteen years ago you probably get my point. In my opinion this rally game has aged beatifully. It is still a very good game. Maybe not the best of this series but you have to consider the quality of the games that you compare it to.

As you might think already I started going through all these games that I haven’t had enough time to try to complete. It is nice to understand that when you spend some time playing a game it kind of reveals itself and you can really get into the game you are playing. It takes time, doesn’t it.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 has a specific style of driving that you’ll have to adapt to. It isn’t a simulator racing game. Driving in this game differs a bit from some other racing games that I have recently played so it takes some time to adjust to it. It isn’t so difficult after all. You can also in this game adjust the difficulty level if you find driving too easy or even too hard.

There’s lots of visual detail in this rally game. You get to know some actual persons that are driving the vehicles. As you have probably figured you get to drive rally cars and you also have many more types of cars that you have to drive. I think that’s where the “dirt” in the games name comes from.

Some other racing games that I have recently played are, of course, Burnout 3 Takedown, WRC 10 and Forza Motorsport 6. If we compare this game to these other racing games I can say that Colin McRae Dirt 2 offers a very good, maybe a bit easy, experience for the player. There is a challenge also if you adjust the difficulty. You can also set damage on or completely off. It is common, at least for me as I drive these driving games aggressively, to bump in to another racer.

Colin McRae Dirt 2 is one of those games that I have thought about playing for a long time. As other Dirt / Colin McRae rally game titles are very familiar to me I like this game. I still have a lot to play. I am hoping to complete this game and it looks good so far. I have now put six hours to playing this game.

Still Trying to Beat This Game

Posted on by Viljami

I am still trying to beat Burnout 3 – Takedown. I have played it for about nine hours and I have completed 40 percentage of it. During the weekend I had some time to play this game. I played for about three hours. I had some other things that I just had to do. I spent some time making music and also seeing some friends also.

Today it seems that I don’t have so much time for playing video games. Working makes me a bit tired. I have to make a choice of how to spend these free hours. It can be a difficult choice sometimes. I also read a lot. I have been reading a book about a music band System of a Down. Just yesterday I read thirty pages.

The book is written in Finnish. I read also books that are written in English. It would be fun to some day read a book that would be in French or maybe Swedish. I have studied these languages just to get my knowledge to a higher level and also as a hobby of some sort. I studied French in high school. Swedish is compulsory in school in Finland.

I checked from the website that tells you how long it approximately takes to complete a game and it said that Burnout 3 takes 14 hours to be completed. If my calculations are correct it would take me way more time to beat Burnout 3 Takedown. It would be something like 20 hours. At least I think so.

There are some other games that I would like to play. I just haven’t got the time to thoroughly get into them and even beat and complete them. It’s easy to start a game. It’s also easy to get into a game. After some hours the game starts to be more challenging. I am noticing about my playing habits that I don’t complete most of these games I start to play. This is how the markets work. Today, gamers aren’t completing their games. They just move on to another game and it’s a bit sad to me.

This brings us once again to the sad conclusion that there are too many games available. You can think about this for a while. You have new games and then you have retro games. My gaming library consists of both new and retro games. That makes me think I have some older games that I would like to play and I also have these new  and even upcoming games that I woul like to play.

But what the heck! I am going to get these new games. Just thinking about releases like Diablo IV and the new Forza Motorsport makes my hearth beat a bit faster. What are some games you just have to play in your lifetime? I think there are too many to even mention. And I think you’ll have to find the ones that you want to play and even complete and you have to find them yourself.

Games That Are Too Repetitive?

Posted on by Viljami

There are some good things about Nintendo GameCube and then there are some bad things about it too. I lately got this gaming console. I decided to remove Nintendo Wii from my setup for now. Wii might have been great but I just didn’t have time or inspiration to get into the games that I bought for it deeply. I did play GameCube games on it and went and bought GameCube. Now I have many games, two controllers and a memory card for it.

I absolutely love how the original game pad of GameCube works. The layout is way different from regular PlayStation and Xbox game pads layouts. It’s once again a case of Nintendo being original. I like the format in which games are delivered. GameCube is from the generation of consoles that includes original Xbox, PS2 and Dreamcast.

There are however some things about GameCube that I don’t like. I am not using, at the moment, the digital output of my GameCube since I don’t have the necessary adapters or cables. I have a 4K capable television and I have to say this – the graphics look crappy. I just have to adjust to this. An attitude of not taking it too seriously and thinking that this definitely is a retro console helps a bit. After all it has been twenty years since it was released.

I have very good games for GameCube. If you think about Resident Evil Zero you get how nice games there are for this gaming console. I have a sport title NBA Courtside 2002 that features Kobe Bryant on its cover. Then I have a driving game. That game is Need For Speed Underground. What do I think about this game? There rarely are bad games in this game series. I just like some of them more than others.

Need For Speed Underground is a bit repetitive. What that means is that it forces you to drive same tracks over and over again with a same car. Although there is some sort of experience score that keeps updating even if you don’t finish first in a race. In some races you have to finish first to get to the next race. The progression is slow and of course this makes the time to complete the whole game a lot longer.

It is said that Sega Mega Drive games were in overall too repetitive. You cannot say that about all games released on Mega Drive. Let’s take an example. Think about Gynoug. It is a very nice shooter that sadly is awfully repetitive. It is very easy to get stuck in Gynoug. Then you will find yourself playing the same part of the game and starting from the same point over and over. You cannot say this about Sonic the Hedgehog or Streets of Rage.

What are some things in gameplay that make game to have variability? The ability to save at any time is one key to this. Or the ability to not save at all. Then you will have to start playing the game all over again. But it keeps you from going the same short part all over again. Some games  have passwords instead of an ability to save a game. Constant progression is one thing. You might have experience points that you get from for example every race even if you don’t win the race. This gives you a feel of progression. And when your experience score unlocks a new track or a new car it makes you also progress.

Having a difficulty option is in my opinion a way better for increasing the amount of times that you can keep yourself playing the game all over again even if you have finished already on a low difficult level. You can decide for yourself if you want to keep playing the same game with a higher difficulty. Sometimes you get stuck in a game. Then it might help to look up for help from a walkthrough online. Today there is lots of help available. You can for example use YouTube if you like. It is nice to know that there are these specialists of gaming available here in the internet.

To make the conclusion for this blog post we can say that GameCube is a very nice gaming console that has some games on it that are a bit repetitive. Being repetitive is only a cheap way to make people play a game for longer time. It should be a lesson for game developers working today and in future also. Mega Drive also has games that are repetitive. But it is clear that not all games on it are as dynamic as can be when it comes to gameplay. Enjoy your games, be them retro or new, and have a nice day!

 

What Is Burnout 3: Takedown About?

Posted on by Viljami

I have some experience playing this game. The game, as you can tell, is Burnout 3 Takedown. It was released in 2004 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. I am playing it on my Xbox 360. The first touches of this game I had already back in 2006 and I was then playing it on original Xbox.

Burnout 3 Takedown can be categorized, and has to be categorized, as a driving, or racing, game. Well, compared to my latest experiences about WRC 10, we can definitely state that this isn’t simulation definitely. But aren’t the coolest games almost every time those games that are the most playable. I can make a comparison to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. It isn’t a skateboarding simulation. Maybe Skate series was or tried to be something like that.

As we are talking about fun, entertaining and challenging game, I can share with you some tips that I’ve learned during these years that I have been playing this game. I actually bought this one also for PS2 that already some years ago broke down so I couldn’t make any progress. I bought this game maybe a year ago and just, I think, yesterday started getting back into it. So I’ve progressed already a bit and I have 15 percentage of the game finished.

What about the driving tips I talked about? As there is several types of events let’s first talk about races against one or several opponents. Try not to drive too far ahead of the pack. This makes you more vulnerable for crashing and losing your position as the leader of the race. Try to focus on knocking out the second fastest car. That way you can keep your position and earn a lot of boost so that you can take out more drivers, earn yet more boost and eventually you will win the race. If you have a good opportunity to accelerate or drive fast just after you have knocked out a driver you can really sometimes make a difference. But this depends about what kind of a part of a road you are on. You probably get the idea.

Playing Burnout 3 is not all about driving fast and faster than your opponents. It’s also a lot about taking risks. It doesn’t hurt also if you have quick reflexes and a keen eye to spot your driving line clearly. You are almost constantly trying to figure out how to get through the traffic. It also helps if you can analyze a bit about the risks and if you can make sense when to take a risk and when not to.

This game also knows how to be entertaining. There is a commentator that cracks jokes and throes in a punchline or two in between the racing events and even during them. The music in this game is backing well to the whole experience. It might be for younger players, but after all this game is already a retro game. And today’s retro gamer’s are a bit old. Well, it has been 18 years since the game was released.

As I did a quick search it appears that Burnout 3 isn’t available at the moment in Xbox Store as a digital release. There might be some copies left and sold as physical copies but then again you would need at least Xbox 360, if not original Xbox, for you to play it. So this might be something for the collectors and retro gamers. If you have an opportunity to buy it I will certainly recommend you to do so.

I have bought maybe ten copies of original Xbox games but I haven’t yet had enough spare time to get into them. You can probably find out about them when I post my next blog post. I have games like Silent Hill 4 The Room, Goldeneye Rogue Agent, Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer, Alias, Jurassic Park Operation Genesis, True Crime Streets of L.A., Hitman Contracts, NBA Street vol. 3 and Need For Speed Underground 2 waiting for their turn. Also  I just ordered myself a Nintendo GameCube, so you know just what might be in my next blog post. See you soon and I hope you enjoyed the post.

I am Keeping my Xbox 360 (and here are the reasons)

Posted on by Viljami

Some days ago I got myself a Xbox Series X. I finally managed to purchase one. It wasn’t easy. The availability of this new Xbox console was poor and it was so for over a year until this week as I noticed that it was actually finally possible for me to actually just buy it.

Xbox Series X is a great console. It can play a lot of these older or so to say retro titles. So it can play games of original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. But all of them aren’t playable. You can probably just check this from your favorite search engine. If you type in the search field something like “original xbox games compatible with xbox series x” you will get a list that can tell you actually which of original Xbox’s or Xbox 360’s games can you play with the latest Xbox.

So we now have this information. It turns out that only 63 of all original Xbox’s and 632 out of all Xbox 360 titles are playable on Xbox Series X. I have also this older gaming console that is Xbox 360. It, of course, can play all of Xbox 360’s games. Also, it can handle 464 out of all almost 1000 officially released original Xbox games.

Of course, if you have original Xbox, you don’t have this issue of owning some games that you just cannot play on any device. Since my original Xbox broke down about two years ago I am going to have to rely on my Xbox 360 and I am still not able to play all these games I own. Actually, also my PlayStation 2 broke down about the same time. I don’t think I have so much trouble playing it’s about 60 games that I own since I have reliable emulators available on my computer. Xbox however doesn’t have so solid emulation on a PC.

I actually removed from my own game shelf all of the titles that I currently am not able to play today. There were several games I liked involved. Sadly I only have a limited amount of space in my gaming setup. So, I could have bought a new used original Xbox that would have fixed my issue. But  decided not to. Also what might disappoint a real game collector and game hobbyist is that I at least currently lack the skill to repair my original Xbox. If you actually want to try to repair your game console there are instructions for you in internet.

I had to give up on some of these Xbox titles. But at least there are tens of games in y game library that can be played with my Xbox 360. And that’s one reason for me to keep it and try my best to maintain it’s condition. Xbox 360 was first released back in 2005. So it is an old gaming console. The original Xbox was released in 2001.

Some of my favorite games of original Xbox that I can still play utilizing my Xbox 360’s backward compatibility include Forza Motorsport, Halo 1 and 2, Colin McRae Rally 04, Black and Shadow the Hedgehog. Titles like Second Sight and Silent Hill 3 and also Colin McRae Rally 3 aren’t playable on Xbox 360.

As there are lots of popular titles in all of the released title library of all Xbox consoles that may not be playable on these more recent devices I wouldn’t be so much surprised if there would some day be some kind of Xbox mini classic console released for all of these retro gamers and fans of classic Xbox titles. There is also an ongoing and huge effort on bringing PC emulation for Xbox to be the reality.

Maybe these were all the reasons for me to stick to my Xbox 360. I am currently playing Forza Motorsport 3. After I have completed it I am planning on starting to play Colin McRae Dirt 2 which is a very good game in this Colin McRae Rally series of rally games that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to play a lot. I am hoping to complete it also. You can find today a Xbox 360 game console from any gaming store online and it doesn’t cost you a lot. You can probably get one for around 100 euros.

The Xbox Experience

Posted on by Viljami

I have a history with Microsoft’s game console, Xbox. Sony had already entered the field back when they released their first console, PlayStation. Back then I remember some of us, players, felt that Microsoft was only after big profits. They had already shown their somewhat greediness in operating system business. Why do they have to enter the gaming field?

PlayStation 2 was released before original Xbox. In next years it sold a lot and  it sold over 100 million units as Xbox sold “only” about 30 million units. This figures aren’t as accurate as could be but I think they give a tip about how the markets were formed. As Sega retreated their efforts to bring new gaming to markets, Sony and Microsoft kept competing against each other. And of course there was also Nintendo.

Today we can compare the most powerful home gaming consoles and we can talk about PlayStation 5 versus Xbox Series X. Actually, I just got my Series X yesterday. I have been using Xbox Series S for over one and a half years. I do have PS4 but I don’t really have any experience from PS5 be it digital or a device with an optical drive in it. Of course I have experience from latest games of Nintendo Switch and PC also. But it seems to me that I could compare PS5 and Xbox Series X, since they are, in my opinion, really close to each other.

I have very good experiences of Xbox. The thing that I have liked the most is the Android app that I can use to share my screenshots, see the time that I have spent on a Series S/X game and also to see what trophies I have achieved. It has been really easy to work with my account. It was really easy to move all my data, like saved games, to a new gaming console as I made the transition from Series S to Series S. I can also see how my player points look like. The account and the app also can show how many points I have gathered playing Xbox 360 games. I currently have 76 percentage of all of the trophies of Forza Motorsport 3.

My experiences with PS4 aren’t as convincing. I got my PS4 back in 2014. So I have used it for several years. Today, I find that if we compare this experience in overall to the new generations experiences that I’ve had I would like to tell you that…I actually like Xbox Series consoles more. PS4 has some kind of Android application also. But, for sharing a screenshot, you have to plug in a USB stick. That’s a bit wack. Also I didn’t like the overall feel of most games. I think they went after eSports players and made many games too difficult for an average gamer. In my opinion these games also lacked some playability.

Don’t get me wrong. I think PS4 is a great console. Although when compared to Series X/S it cannot compete. There are many really good games on PS4. I especially have enjoyed NBA 2K14, Dirt Rally (1 and 2.0), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 and many others that I really don’t recall as I am writing this.

What I mainly wanted to say in this blog post is that I have enjoyed Xbox Series S/X very much. I don’t know if you should think that Series X is better than PS5. I think you should make up your own mind and maybe have a conversation with a friend about this. Xbox is nice but I have some very meaningful history with PlayStation. And of course – don’t forget Nintendo and if you are a bit of a retro type don’t forget Sega…and maybe even Atari.

Getting in to GameCube

Posted on by Viljami

I bought a used Nintendo Wii about one and a half years ago. I figured I could also play some GameCube games with it since it’s backwards compatible. So I got two consoles for a price of one. Nintendo Wii consoles aren’t actually so expensive. The one I got was about 80 euros.

I have learned that at least with GameCube I like to have an original gamepad. I wrote about this already earlier. I also have a memory card. Games that I currently own for GameCube are ISS 3, Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time, Dead to Rights, Wave Race – Blue Storm, Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil and NBA Courtside 2002.

I can definitely save some space because I have a console that can play Wii and GameCube games. There are some used games available. Some titles are pricy. The controller requires a bit of getting used to. It differs a lot from controllers like DualShock 4 or the Xbox’s controller. After getting used to it the game pad does work well.

GameCube might not be your choice if you want flashy and modern graphics. It was originally released in 2001-2002. It’s main competitors were PS2, Xbox and DreamCast. Out of these four consoles PS2 sold the most. Xbox was sold the second most. Third was GameCube and then there was Dreamcast. GameCube is definitely a retro console. It reminds of this great era when game developers took more risks in game design decisions.

If you are into GameCube you should check a game called Eternal Darkness. It is kind of a survival horror game. I have heard good things about it. It is although a pricy game. I can see it being sold for 170 euros in a local game shop. There are some very good Mario games released for GameCube. There is even a game where Mario’s buddy Luigi is in the main role.

I am still excited about GameCube. Resident Evil Zero is definitely worth a while. ISS 3 isn’t a bad football or should I say soccer game. You can play with Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside 2002. I just might try to grab some new games for this console. And I definitelty would like to have some time to spend playing these games that I have mentioned in this blog post.

The Original PlayStation Controller

Posted on by Viljami

So I bought Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 about a week ago. I was going to play it with the PSOne console that I’ve had for about five years already. I got my PSOne from a flee market for a low price of fifteen euros. It has worked since the day I bought it. I’ve had no issues.

I had a cheap accessory controller for PSOne. I figured that I would need a gamepad that would be more accurate and that would feel better. I first checked some prices of DualShock controllers. DualShock 1, which was for PS1 originally, was sold for about 25 euros. I found DualShock 2 and it would cost from 35 to 40 euros. As you might already know DualShock 2 was the original controller for PS2.

I have a PS2 console also. It is currently broken. It was finally not able to read any of my game discs. I still have about fifty or sixty games for PS2. So I still have some controllers. I just didn’t yet know or remember if they were in a reasonable shape and could I use them with my PSOne.

As you might also know PS2 was backwards compatible with controllers of PS1. So these controllers work with PS1 and PS2 and of course PSOne can use also them. You can play PS1 games also with PS2. And to mention also PS3 can be used to play them.

Unfortunately my only DualShock 2 controller was a  bit broken. It had been for many years in storage. It didn’t fully recognize a press to the right on the controller. I had another controller which wasn’t original one. It felt a bit wack also. I had to buy a new Dual Shock 2. I thought it was worth it.

Only a week had gone since I had ordered my fresh and cool skateboarding game. I made a new order to the same store one more time. I just had to buy also some other games. I might write something about them later. I have tested the controller and it works very nice.

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