Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: PC

V-Rally 4

Posted on by Viljami

I just started playing V-Rally 4. I got it for a cheap price of three euros. This was a digital purchase through Steam store. I made the purchase a bit over two weeks ago. Seems to me that I was very lucky because I just checked and the price for V-Rally 4 is now 30 euros on Steam. I am playing this game with my brand new Windows 11 desktop computer. I also have a 4K display. So, the graphics of this rally game look really nice.

This is the latest game in V-Rally series. The game was first released in 2018. This means that it isn’t the newest rally game available. It also although indicates that any patches that would fix any gameplay or performance issues have been probably very much solved. I have to admit that I am only in the beginning with V-Rally 4. I have played it for only about half an hour. I do find it a pleasant video game about rally racing.

Some earlier releases in the series that V-Rally 4 belongs to can be detailed as retro games. I think first two games were released already on the first PlayStation 1. I somewhat  remember trying to play V-Rally 3. This game, I think, was current in the era of PS2. After a quick fact check through a search engine I found the information. The third V-Rally game was actually released in 2002 for PS2, Xbox, GameCube and Windows (PC). So, there seems to be a gap of sixteen years between V-Rally 4 and the previous game in the series that is V-Rally 3.

I don’t have a clear memory of playing any V-Rally game on a PS1. I am quite sure that I did never own a copy of V-Rally one or two. I might have played V-Rally 3 for a while but I don’t remember that also so clearly. I do remember games that belong to Colin McRae Rally series. I also recall clear memories of the WRC rally game series. Also, I have to mention a very good, but a bit old, rally game series that was released in the 2000s for original Xbox. This series is Rallisport Challenge one and two. Especially the sequel is a very good game. When it comes to conversation about the best rally games of all time you have to mention also Richard Burns Rally every time.

So, I am yet to experience probably a good rally game. V-Rally 4 is promised to have content for a decent 21 hours. This information can be found from the “How Long To Beat” website. This website and also a database can be utilized or at least I use it to determine a duration for any game be it retro or new. V-Rally 4 provides racing but also some strategic decision making. You have to have a complete team and you are managing a budget. You have to have a manager, a technician and an engineer or possibly several. The career journey begins with a moderate vehicle. You have to make smart decisions all the from the beginning to the end.

I am expecting V-Rally 4 to be at least an entertaining experience. I hope it has enough challenge to keep me interested in the game all the way to the finish. It seems to me that you have to keep your eyes open when it comes to Steam. They actually have an autumn sale coming very soon. After another fact check I can confirm that there is a sale on Steam from 29th of September to 6th of October. Besides all the games that are going to be on sale I am also very much waiting for Silent Hill f to drop. This game has a price of 80 euros. This is the standard edition and there is also a “Digital Deluxe” edition that costs 90 euros.

What Is So Special About Xbox 360?

Posted on by Viljami

Xbox 360 was originally released back in 2005. So, what was so special about it and how it seems to be relevant even this day when we are living currently the year 2025? For me personally the console was a huge part of my gaming setup for a long time. I had it hooked on my television for several years before, a bit sadly it finally refused to run any game discs at all. The problem with the console was dust. I actually tried cleaning it with pressured air but finally I decided to remove it completely from my setup as it didn’t work anymore. I got my Xbox 360 back in 2017 as I bought it from a close friend who had decided to sell the console.

Xbox 360 was a fun case in that you could play a lot of original Xbox games on it also. I am now able to play every original Xbox game on Batocera. I wrote about my adventures with Batocera just last month. I think its a very good gaming operating system. It is possible to run Xbox 360 emulation also on Batocera if you happen to have a very powerful PC. Raspberry Pi, even if it is the latest device, is not currently able to run games like these. So, it is very much possible to emulate Xbox 360 on a device that can run an emulation system like Batocera.

Xbox 360 was as a gaming console a follow up to the original Xbox. It actually sold 84 million units and was finally discontinued in 2016. The sales are so good that any Xbox console hasn’t come close to selling as many units as Xbox 360 did. Its toughest competitor, PS3, sold also well. PS3 managed to sell 87,4 million units worldwide. Many of the most popular games of this era were released for both of these consoles, Xbox 360 and PS3. There were some exceptions also. Xbox 360 saw games like Forza Motorsport from 2 to 4, Gears of War series (first three games), Fable 2 and 3 and Halo 3 and 4 while we saw games like Resistance series, Metal Gear Solid 4, God of War III and Gran Turismo 5 and 6 only on PS3.

Technically Xbox 360 was a huge jump compared to its predecessor original Xbox. The game discs had about 7-8 GB of space which was a slight upgrade if compared to original Xbox that used DVD discs that have about 4,7 GB of space. There were different options and models when it comes to hard disks. The size varied from 20 to 500 GB. Later, when Xbox 360 had been in the markets for two years, there was also a model available that utilized HDMI connectivity. This is how I got my Xbox 360 hooked up to my television to be a part of my gaming setup back in 2017.

Controller was nice. Games were good. The lifespan of the console was long. There were some technical issues as the console was somewhat rushed to production. The problem was largely know as the “red ring of dead”. In this situation the console wasn’t fully operational and expressed a red circle on the consoles front panel. I haven’t experienced any issues and the problem was finally fixed. Consumers that faced this problem did get their console finally repaired or replaced. If you find this topic interesting, please search more information since I don’t have all the details. Lets just say that there were some major issues but the developer of Xbox was able to overcome the issues and finally everyone was somewhat comfortable with the situation.

Many Xbox 360 games can still be enjoyed as Microsoft’s Xbox Series X is very much backwards compatible with over 600 games out of all over 2000 Xbox  360 games. Only 63 out of all original Xbox games are compatible with Xbox Series X. You can also keep in mind  the possibility to play Xbox 360 games on an emulator like Xenia. System requirements for Xenia are: operating system should be preferably Windows 11, CPU should have more than 6 cores, GPU should be NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti or later, the PC should have at least 6 GB or more RAM. Xenia is available also for Linux.

The Power of Batocera

Posted on by Viljami

This blog post mostly deals with what Batocera can accomplish as an operating system for a PC. I recently bought a new personal computer. There were many reasons for this and one of them was the global transition to Windows 11. After October 14th (2025) Windows 10 wont be supported anymore by Microsoft. This means that there are no guarantees that your Windows 10 computer would be functional. There will be no security updates. So, I had to buy a new PC mainly because of these considerations.

My older PC was bought at the end of 2020. It wasn’t an old computer. It just wouldn’t be supported by Microsoft anymore after October 14th. I have to agree that it had some age already, but I really wasn’t ready to buy a new computer. I would have liked to use the old one a bit longer than was actually possible. My new PC runs the latest PC games smoothly. It also runs Xbox 360 and PS3 emulation which wasn’t possible with my older PC.

I figured that since my old PC was powerful enough to run PS2, GameCube and original Xbox emulation, I wanted to use it as a retro gaming platform. I have had some nice experiences with Recalbox, so, that was my first option. Well, I wasn’t at first able to get Recalbox installed directly to my older PC. It did run but it was kind of installed to my USB stick. I wanted to try to install Batocera instead. I had heard a lot of positive debate about it. So, I went with Batocera and finally it worked like a dream.

Batocera is an operating system that is very much related to Linux and is also dedicated to being able to run some retro games. My older PC was powerful enough for this purpose. After some fiddling with installations and moving some games to the computer I managed to get some games running. I think original Xbox, GameCube and PS2 have many interesting games for me to play and experiment with. Since all my gaming consoles of this particular era have ended up getting finally broken I figured that emulation could enable me to play these kinds of video games one more time.

I have this issue with older gaming hardware. I have a Nintendo GameCube, Sony Playstation 2 and also an original Xbox but they all broke down as I had them set up in my corner of gaming in my living room. I guess they are gathering too much dust and finally end up not reading the disc at all. I also have a Xbox 360 console that isn’t functional and the reason seems to be dust.

You can actually run Batocera from a USB stick but I wanted to install it to my older PCs hard drive. This required me to boot the computer to my USB stick. This required some fiddling with BIOS settings. This isn’t actually difficult but it requires some knowledge. However there are instructions that can be found online. I also wanted to wipe my disks completely. I did it with a program called ShredOS. Now, this procedure took about 14 hours. I ended up running it through overnight so I wouldn’t need to monitor this. After I got rid of all the content from my hard disks, that were a 2TB disk and a 256GB disk, both of them SSDs, the actual installation process was simple. Of course I had to set up all of these systems BIOSes and move over all the game roms.

I wanted to be able to play my retro games on the Batocera that I had installed with a controller of Xbox Series S/X. I find this controller to be as comfortable as a controller can be. I also bought a good quality cable that was three meters long. This way the controller didn’t need a battery at all. I don’t actually mind about the cable. I actually prefer using cable over using a battery in a controller. The latest Xbox’s controller is also a natural choice because it is very much compatible with a PC. I am playing my GameCube, original Xbox and PS2 games with this controller. It is very versatile as a game pad.

Batocera needs some power to run this kind of emulation. It is nice to be able to actually have a dedicated device for playing retro games like this. I am very content that the system is able to run also Dreamcast games if I would just set up the BIOS and move over the game roms. You can also play some older video game consoles games with Batocera. Some of these games feel a bit clunky since they are a bit old already. All in all I find Batocera a good video gaming operating system for any gamer. It is a good way to utilize also your old personal computer if you are replacing your old PC maybe because of the transition to Windows 11.