Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

Category: 2020s

Split Second – A Good Driving Game from 2010

Posted on by Viljami

I recently bought Split Second for my Xbox Series X as a digital copy. It was a cheap game (I bought it for about ten euros). I actually have played this game earlier but the platform was PC. I remembered having a great time with this game so I decided to grab it.

Split Second reminds me of Burnout 3 – Takedown. The gameplay has been adjusted. You don’t actually try to crash other vehicles. Instead you trigger some trap type of obstacles in your opponents way so that they will crash. You get power to trigger these traps by following close at your opponents tail or by drifting while you are driving in a corner.

I have to say that Split Second isn’t a perfect game. It has its flaws. Then again what game today wouldn’t have some disappointing features? The driving can’t be considered a simulation. It is actually very much like playing an arcade game. It is also already a bit outdated with its graphical presentation. This game was originally released for Xbox 360 and PC and surely also for PS3. So, I have played this video game for PC and Xbox 360.

This game reminds me of a somewhat better era for video gamers. Back in 2010 these games were easy to get into and also easier to complete finally. Every game released weren’t as ambitious commercially and in terms of how addicted gamers would become to the game that was in question. I kind of miss those days. We had way more games released. I think that every game can’t be a masterpiece. Every game cannot be a legendary one.

As there are fewer games being released and more money involved in the development process we are getting this clear picture of the state of this industry. Game developers might be aiming too high. At least thats how I feel. Well, maybe we will get some support in this matter from some indie developers.

One thing we can also have a debate about is how Nintendo has managed to get its console, Nintendo Switch, to be such a success. Switch is currently the most sold gaming console ever. It is soon passing PS2. I think its pricing and these good quality games that this platform seems to have have given this gaming device the success that it does currenlty have. Are you waiting for Switch 2? It is rumored that it will have a backwards compatibility with current Switch and also that it might not be such a powerful system when comes to pure technical performance.

As you can imagine I did play Split Second a bit over ten years ago with my PC. I have the game also as a physical copy. I have the frigging DVD disc! It is almost frightening to see these DVD boxes in my video game shelf. They are something that collectors do not wish to have. Do you have a DVD drive still in your PC? I do have, but actually I have disconnected the power supply from it. I did this partly accidentally as I had to change some parts to my desktop PC a while ago. I just haven’t had the time to try to connect the power again to the DVD drive. Actually I have also an external DVD drive that I can connect to my PC through USB. The main point of this paragraph must be that PC has been a digital platform for several years alreaady. What I mean is that if you buy a PC game you propably buy a digital copy of it.

There are plenty of good Xbox 360 and even some original Xbox games available in the digital store of Xbox. I actually bought three games just the other day for 21 euros. If you are into Xbox 360 gaming I highly recommend getting your hands on these games. It is a very good option for buying the physical game from a game store. And of course you might just have an only digital gaming console. Digital gaming seems to be more and more popular as the provess does progress.

Latest New Games That I Added to My Collection

Posted on by Viljami

So, this is a blog post about latest new games that I added to my collection of video games. I got these for cheap prices. I bought Lords of the Fallen and Dying Light 2 for Xbox Series X and Batman – Arkham Knight for PS4. I am not going to go so close to how much these games did cost. I am such a person that values a cheap price. I often find myself thinkinh about a game if its in a very good sale.

As you might see I haven’t yet opened the seal of Dying Light 2 and Batman – Arkham Knight. Sometimes unopened games can have a better selling price if you are selling them to someone after many years. However I am not planning to sell these. I am going to play these two games when I have time.

The game that I have played for about four hours is Lords of the Fallen. It is an action role-playing-game with smooth looking 3D environment. The camera is positioned as a 3rd person view. Gameplay is versatile and I think after playing already four hours I still haven’t managed to get a full grip of all of the controls and features that it offers. This is a very nice game and I hope to be able to play it some more later.

I have recently bought many retro games. It is also nice to buy new games for alternation. I am lucky as my PS4 seems to be working. I wonder if it’s going to break and I think some day it actually will. I hope it would last for many years. I’ve had a bad luck with my original Xbox and PS2 consoles and I found that they are not so durable after all these years. It has to be mentioned that these devices are over twenty years old. I wonder also if they have such a good quality after all. Maybe newer consoles last better in frequent use. At least I hope they do.

Dying Light 2 has had some reviews that have been positive. Everyone just doesn’t consider it to be a good game at all. I have played the first Dying Light game and I didn’t enjoy it so much. I stumbled on this copy of the sequel and since it was sold at half price I thought I could buy it after all.

Batman – Arkham Knight for PS4 was sold at a price of twenty euros. It is a re-release as PlayStation Hits. If a game gets re-released it propably tells you something about how it has managed to get an audience and how well it has sold. I think this one can be also a very good game to play. It is a bit older game (but not a retro game, at least yet).

All-in-all I am content in these new games that I have bought. I like to buy games that I like and am able to play. My collection keeps slowly growing. I like to keep games that I have bought in my collection even if I have already completed them. Some games I store in my gaming shelf and some games I have to put in to separate storage that I have. So I have some consoles and games positioned nicely for the collection to be visible also to some friends that come to visit our home.

I Read a Lot

Posted on by Viljami

I have to make it clear – I like reading and I read a lot. This hobby that I have might not be so popular at this moment in our history and in our society right now. I have read tens of books during the last years. I actually don’t have any statistics to back this up. I only have this pile of books that is showed in the featured image of this blog post. I have read all of them.

I have this habit of putting a book that I have read to a pile. I have many piles like this. I also have a pile of books in my home that I haven’t yet started to read. I read one book at a time. Sometimes I abandon the book I am reading but this is not so usual as I can find many topics interesting  to me. These kind of rules help me to grasp on this hobby. At times I feel a bit amazed of how large these piles are.

“Why do I enjoy reading?”, one might ask. I have always been an introvert. This was apparent all the way through my childhood. I liked drawing. I stayed home for hours drawing. When I was seven years old I learned to read. I was nine years old when I started learning English in school. At first I read books written in Finnish. Lately I have picked up some books that were written in English. I have thought about also reading a book written in French or Swedish since I have studied both of them.

I haven’t really counted how many books I have read. I can make some conclusions. During my four week vacation I read four books. That makes one book per week. I don’t normally read at a pace this fast. The time I do spend reading is depending very much on what else I have to do. This includes working, cleaning the house and things like that. Also, my other freetime hobbies take up some time.

Some topics I am interested in when it comes to books are technology, future, science, physics, space, video games (of course), programming, computers, philosophy and phychology. I do read also fictive books (like that book written by Dan Brown that you can find form the image featured on this blog post).

I just wanted to impress this side of my life also. I read a lot. Currently I am reading a book about Linux and its creator Linus Torvalds. The book is titled “Kapinakoodi” that means “Rebel Code”. The book is a bit old but the topic is fascinating.

Raspberry Pi 5 and Recalbox

Posted on by Viljami

I made a decision and went and bought the latest Raspberry Pi computer. It is officially called Raspberry Pi 5. It is a very powerful computer and it costs only about 100 euros. You also have to buy some accessories with it so you can make it usable. You have to buy a cable or two and maybe a cover and also memory card and a controller. All pieces included the total price was, I think, maybe 250 euros.

This is still very cheap when you consider that this thing has 8 GB of RAM. The performance is very good. I decided to pair this with an operating system called Recalbox that enables you to turn your Raspberry Pi 5 into a retro gaming machine. I have installed the OS and found some emulators to be working while others seem to have some issues. But if you consider that this is very much something that you have to really spend time and inspect carefully I think the functionality of this thing is very good.

I decided to include in this small setup an Xbox Series controller. I picked a nice lime colored model. The controller alone cost only 50 euros. I connected it with a 3 meters long USB-C to USB-A cable. So, I am not using Bluetooth to connect the controller but that can also be done if you need that functionality. I think setting up Bluetooth controller seems to be an easy task since Raspberry Pi 5 has Bluetooth integrated in its circuitry.

I connected my Raspberry Pi 5 to my LAN network with an Ethernet cable. Moving BIOS and ROM files from your main computer to the Raspberry Pi computer is fairly easy. I think there is some kind of a limitation that makes moving large files, over 5 GB of size, impossible when using Windows network. Or at least it wasn’t possible when I tried it out. Of course you can pick out the memory card and move the file directly to it. That might be the solution.

I picked a memory card that has a size of 128 GB. The type of the memory card that Raspberry Pi 5 uses is microSD. There is a connection for HDMI output so you do need a special cable for that too. The HDMI cable I used is a HDMI to Micro HDMI. As there are several different pieces of hardware it can take some time to plan what parts you really need and should buy.

Installing Recalbox is not so complicated if you have some experience of installing operating systems to PCs or to Raspberry Pis. I am leaving this part also for you to search for through internet. I think you can find these instructions very easily. I used a program on my Windows 10 called Raspberry Pi Imager. I think you should use this program also.

There are some competitors available for Recalbox. You can try also Lakka OS or RetroPie. I actually first tried Lakka OS but after all I was more convinced with how Recalbox worked. RetroPie even didn’t have yet an image file for Raspberry Pi 5 so the installing of it would have been an exercise of some extra thinking. Recalbox was the best as it was easiest to install and I have noticed very few issues with it.

Of course you need also the games and game systems BIOS files. So you need to move the ROMs from your PC to your Raspberry Pi 5. You can find games easily from internet. They might be sometimes fractured somehow and there can be bugs. To eliminate this you should rip your games from actual CDs or DVDs. This is especially easy if you are emulating PlayStation 1 or 2. Also, I have to mention that downloading games is actually against the law. Also, if we are strict, you would have to rip also systems BIOSes from a system that you actually own. I actually had an issue with a downloaded game and I came to senses that it had a bug that freezed my game and made it impossible to carry on forward playing it.

So I have had time to experiment with my Recalbox OS. I now have a system that supports mainly and most importantly PS1 and Dreamcast along with many other gaming systems with a bit lower specs. I haven’t been able to get GameCube games running. Also the PS2 emulation is under work right now for me. I also found out that N64 games work but they somehow don’t respond to game pad input at all. So, this is also under work.

If you aren’t afraid of some fiddling with the hardware and software, like moving some ROM and BIOS files to their proper paths and maybe renaming the files correctly. a Raspberry Pi 5 with Recalbox OS can be a fun project for you. It is very easy to check if correct BIOSes have been setup properly. There is a text file generated after the BIOS check has been run from the user interface of Recalbox that clearly states what BIOS files are needed and also which ones are optionally needed.

Hades

Posted on by Viljami

Hades is an action role-playing-game that was published for Xbox Series X in 2021 after being released also already for Switch and Windows back in 2020. It isn’t currently one of the latest games but since it was priced very nicely (I paid only 19 euros for the physical copy) and there were news in this Finnish gaming magazine, Pelaaja, about the next Hades game, Hades II, to be released soon, I decided to pick this game and start to go through it.

Hades borrows elements from different role-playing-games. You don’t actually gather experience points. You buy upgrades that will help you to finally complete the game. You can have different strategies along your way. I have played Hades for almost thirty hours now and I have reached the final boss of the whole game only once. There is a certain need for luck in your guest. Also you play the game you get to understand how the different enemies take action and you learn how you can defeat them more easily. One of the key matters is your level of health. You have to try to dodge your enemies when they are trying to get you.

While the story is not so deep Hades does offer a lot to play. You do die often but when the game progresses you get longer runs eventually. Hades takes some time to learn to play. so you understand how the enemies take their action and when is the proper moment to try to hit them with your weapon. There are many different weapons to choose from. You first have to unlock them and then you will get to choose which one do you prefer. I ended up using the type that reminds me of a rail gun. It can shoot twelve times, quickly, and then you have to reload. You can also shoot a grenade that makes lots of damage. My main way to try to complete this game has been to try to get a weapon upgrade that triples the damage and also makes you vulnerable to the grenade. There are many other upgrades for weapons available and you can also unlock features that make you get a nice upgrade more likely.

Hades has very nice controls in overall. It is a very nice and fun game to play when you get the hang of it. The graphics are made to remind of some cartoons. Of course I have to say that all of the characters take deep influences from Greek mythology. Many characters that help the main character as the story progresses are actually sort of gods. I just had a conversation about this game with my friend and we talked about if this game is actually a three dimensional one or not. I don’t have a clear answer to this. The graphics look nice and they work very well.

You will also get a code with your physical copy of Hades so you can download the soundtrack of the game. The music in Hades feels nice while not having any deeper relation. I am saying that the music has an effect but it isn’t actually in the center where everything happens in this game. There are just so many other elements in this game that hold your attention. Music is nice but not so appealing. I have to say that for example in games like Burnout 3 Takedown or the first Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater the music had a very important role and this is just not the case with Hades.

You get to move a lot while you try to dodge the attacks of the enemies. You have to time your attacks well so you can be victorious. You progress through the levels. There is an enemy boss that you have to defeat after every level until you finally get to battle with the main boss of the whole game. It is of course the Hades. So the whole game is about trying to escape from your father’s home. After you finally loose your life you will have to start from the first level, again. The game consists of these runs. I have now had almost one hundred runs that are also attempts to escape.

This is a very good game. If I would have to say something negative I would say that it seems in a way a bit repetitive as a game and it has only a few levels. It does give you a lot to play. After all I do have spent almost thirty hours playing it. The game mechanics and the way that you handle the main character are very good. This all makes Hades a very pleasant game to try to beat and also to play.

What Made Tomb Raider So Appealling?

Posted on by Viljami

I wrote some time ago about Tomb Raider and how it’s 3D modeling made an impact to the whole industry. Now, we have seen Tomb Raider trilogy remake and I think it’s time to get back to this game once again. I actually got the remake collection and gave it some hours. The question here clearly seems to be that how and why was Tomb Raider so popular.

First of all I have to say that this game was a product of its era. 3d worlds were just beginning their story. The controls are clunky and not so good if we compare them to some more recent video games. There are many situations that you have to face when playing Tomb Raider today that just make the game seem a very old one.

The biggest problem seems to be how you control the main character Lara Croft. Jumping is hard and the camera is at times in a very bad angle. These 3D environments aren’t so impressive as they appeared to be back in 1990s. Tomb Raider was released in 1996. I have a copy for PC and PS1. The original game, that I happen to have in the form of the original CD, I think, can be updated so that the graphics will look even sharper.

What about the main character? Lara appears to be a female. This was still an exception back in 1996. Lara Croft was definitely one of the first female main characters. Of course these games are directed to these nerdy guys that are also into 3d and C++ programming. This was, back then, something for the real nerds.

You can feel the excitement as you play the original game. You get to interact with some very edgy and exciting environment. This can, of course, bring you many memories and make you feel the nostalgia. You start to think how could you yourself create a 3D game like this. And this game also gave programmers many ideas not to say anything about a mod that was available that made Lara seem to be totally naked in the game.

I really like Tomb Raider. Would I spend tens of hours playing it once again. Well, maybe not. Time has progressed heavily. Biggest flaw is the controlling of Lara. It just makes playing the game a pain. If you pick a good 3D game from an era of maybe even five years after 1996, say 2001, you can get something much more enjoyable. Why would you pick this one when there are many better games available.

How about the PS1 version that we have on this featured image right here? Well, it is the same game that was released for PC but with worse graphics. It is nice to handle Lara with Dual Shock controller. You can also pick a retro PC, one that has 486 processor, and play the game.

In conclusion, I don’t recommend going back to the world of Lara Croft. The game was something different. Take a note on the use of the word “was”. I know how inpiring this game was. Its impact was enormous. It broke the ice for something bigger and better. So, I suggest you get something some years newer for a new game that you would like to play.

NBA 2K24 Is a Disappointment

Posted on by Viljami

I bought NBA 2K24 as it was in discount. I paid 22 euros for the Switch edition. I already knew that the Switch version has some limitations. So, the graphics could be better. There were also some other issues. I know that it also takes some time to develop your player so that it is comfortable to play with the character you have just created.

NBA 2K24 is the latest in the series of good quality basketball games. There is lots of expectations. I think this game is very much a disappointment. The main reason I am actually saying this is that it just doesn’t feel like a fun and enjoyable game to play. It pretty much offers the same as earlier games in this series. I really think that the developers of this game should have made a better game.

I really don’t know if the game offers something more in a long run. I mean that I spend a bit over five hours playing this. What I experienced was not satisfying. My player is awkward. He doesn’t know how to score. He takes some rebounds but that’s all he does well. How many hours of this miserable playing do I have to go through to really at some point enjoy this game?

So, my player is weird. His shot release is awful. He feels a bit clunky. The movement is slow. I don’t even want to talk about trying to make the freethrows not to mention three-point-shots. I know that you can enjoy and keep playing this game, or a quite similar one from the past, for several hundreds of hours. But…this isn’t a game that I am willing to play for such a long time.

So, I think I am going to quit playing this game. I think I paid too much for this one. I don’t know if there is going to be some sort of an update or not. I am very glad that I didn’t pay any more of this kind of junk.

I also got another game from discount with this same delivery. This game is Assassins Creed Mirage for Xbox Series X. I paid 25 euros for this game. I hope I find it more enjoyable than NBA 2K24. Assassins Creed Mirage has received better reviews than NBA 2K24. Somehow my hopes aren’t that high.

I have also some games that I haven’t had time to get into. I just have to find some more time for these. The games are Dead Space (Remake), Hogwarts Legacy and Sonic Frontiers. I also haven’t touched Alan Wake II yet. I am waiting also for the new System Shock. These games that I have mentioned here in this paragraph are all Xbox Series X games.

So, some games can be sort of a disappointment and this sadly is the case for NBA 2K24. Some of these big releases seem to fail at times. That is of course natural. I can imagine how much money is envolved. This surely is a disappointment financially also. We are looking forward for more gaming experiences. I hope we get to see some more good quality games this year and also int he near future. Stay tuned…

Black Future 88

Posted on by Viljami

Black Future 88 is a 2D shoot-em-up game for Nintendo Switch. I picked it up as I bought eight more games to my game collection of Switch games. I bought these games as they were on sale. I paid about 22 or 23 euros per game. These games were on sale so I decided to get a bunch of them. Black Future 88 was the first game that I started to play from these games that I recently bought.

This shoot-em-up has nice looking graphics, animation and visual effects, although the graphics are two-dimensional, and also some nice background music. The content is styled to be sci-fi or cyberpunk. The game offers some nice action. Basically you try to avoid getting hit by enemies ammunition and try to kill them before they get you. As you go on shooting everything that moves you collect items from dead enemies. When you die you start the run over and also your weapons get reset.

You can handle two weapons at a time. So, there are some elements of strategy also. As you die and your run ends you get points which unlock new items to be available in the game. You can also unlock new characters this way.

While this is a fun 2D shoot-em-up the game does get a bit repetitive. Also the story is nonexistent. You get the items completely randomly. The game seems to be looping through as you try to collect more points and level-ups run by run. This is a small game and not your typical triple A game. The price of the game was somewhat low and I also got some discount. So I didn’t pay a whole lot for this one. I actually paid only fourteen euros for this one. I think that is a fair price as I have already spent many hours playing this one.

I am not even near to complete the game. I could find information that Black Future 88 takes about five and a half hours to complete. I think that is very accurate information. As the art in this game is very comfortable the game lacks a deeper insight that would make you more than just superficially addicted to playing it. It’s repetitiveness reminds me of an old MS-DOS game. You could compare it to a shooting game like Space Commanders that is a Space Invaders clone. The only interesting way to try to complete that game is to try to beat the high score which also gets deleted when you actually quit the game. This comparison can tell you how it actually feels to play Black Future 88.

I could recommend this peace of gaming if you like small indie games. If you like to go deep and explore and feel the game and want an interesting story this might not be a game for you. The cheap price feels comfortable. This game is a small one and doesn’t even try compete with games like Breath of the Wild or something like that. So, it is an enjoyable game that has its flaws. I think there are some reasons that make me like this game.

NBA 2K23 – What Determines If Your Three-Point-Shot Goes In or Not?

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am going to break it down with the three-point-shot. What does determine if it goes in or not? First of all I have to say that I am not a programmer of this game. I don’t have a direct access to the source code of this game. My conclusions are relied on purely observing the software while I have been playing NBA 2K23. I have to mention that I do know a lot about programming as you might already know. I also have some knowledge of playing real basketball which helps me to draw these points.

Release of the shot

You get to set a release for the shot while you start to shoot the three-pointer. Now every release seems to be different. I can see that this mechanism that detects your shots release is very precise. It counts every millisecond. It is hard to make the release a perfect one for every shot. Sometimes also a perfect release has to be achieved in a random period of time. So, the best release can be and sometimes is different and it can also be somewhat random, also.

Your players shooting skill

Your player has the ability to shoot a three-pointer. This makes your player a better shooter. So, there are more shots going in. Your player has a very unique ability to shoot. You are getting customed to setting a good timing and rythm for your shot. Although you can maximize your skill of shooting but every shot never goes in. You have to miss one way or another.

Your defender

You can get yourself some space before you start to shoot. This makes it easier for the shot to be a successful one. I have some idea that some defending players have a skill that makes their opponent to miss more likely while they are defending a player.

Who is making the assist

I am playing currently NBA 2K23 with Philadelphia 76ers. I have noticed that when James Harden passes me the ball the success is more likely. There might be some kind of a variable that adjusts the propability more closer when Harden is making the assist.

Every shot won’t go in. Every shot also is unique. If we would gather a table of some sort of the different variables we could see how these values affect the propability of the shot being a successful one. This information is, of course, very valuable for the developers of this game. I can deeply understand why they aren’t sharing this information just for everyone. Also, this information is only my own conclusions that I have made playing the game. It also does have something to do with that I am somewhat a technically capable person in a way.

This conclusion was very short. It might help you to realize how the game actually works. It is also an answer to some of my thoughts about why am I not succeeding more better in shooting the three-pointer in NBA 2K23. So, without further reverse-engineering we can continue to play some more NBA 2K23. And maybe study a bit more about programming and game development.

Alone in the Dark Series

Posted on by Viljami

I have played lots of games during my whole lifetime. I just thought that it might be interesting for readers of this blog if I would write about Alone In The Dark game series. They might not be the best of the best in survival horror at the moment but their influence to this genre is huge. There is also a new Alone in the Dark game getting released in 2024.

The first game in this series was published in 1992. If you were playing it back when it was released I think there is a chance that you played it on a PC. Some of the first three games of Alone in the Dark were also released for PlayStation during 1990s. There are a total of seven games in the series.

What makes the influence huge was how the camera angels were adjusted. It made the game a scary one. Also the game utilises 3D graphics in a way that was never ever seen back in 1992. The most popular game that took influences of Alone in the Dark was Resident Evil and it was released in 1996 at least for PC and PS1. I obtained a book about RE some time ago and I am hoping to get to read it soon. I just have to finish the book that I am currently reading so I can begin with the book. It is called “Itchy, Tasty” and it is written by Alex Aniel.

Games in the series that were released during the 90s were of good quality in the standards of the games of that era. I think it might be a waste of your time to get back to them seriously. Well, maybe if you want to experience something old. There might be a retro feel in them.

So, is there a game in this series that would be a nice game to play even today? If we take a look on two games that were released in 2001 and 2008 we can figure an opinion for this question. Let’s face it. These two games are poor games. They don’t live up to standards and they defnitely don’t match my expectations. Out of these two the one released for PS2, Alone in the Dark – The New Nightmare, is better but it isn’t in any way a great game. It has also received a score of 66 out of 100 in Metacritic.

While these two games weren’t so good there are of course excpectations gathered towards this new Alone in the Dark game that is set to be published this year (2024). The genre of survival horror might bem rising its head again since there are rumours about new Silent Hill and also Resident Evil games getting released soon. There was already a short Silent Hill game released recently. It was only for PS5 and its name was Silent Hill – The Short Message. The game was released for free and it takes maybe three hours to complete. So, it is a short game for the fans.

One of my favorite game shops is saying that the new Alone in the Dark will be released in 19th of April. It will be released for PS5, PC and Xbox Series S/X. You can buy the PC release for example from Steam. The game has received open and cheerful welcomes and many fans are expecting this game to be good. For now we must wait for some more information. There are some trailers and early previews of the game avaialble online. You can also order it in advance if you wish to play it as soon as is possible.

 

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