Retro Archives - Page 4 of 15 - Intensive Gaming Diary

The Use of Memory in Game Consoles

Posted on March 12, 2024March 13, 2024 by Viljami

Today’s topic for this blog is the use of memory. I decided to write about the use of memory in game consoles. We are dealing with things like memory cards, hard disks and random access memory. I also tell you a bit about processors and how computers deal with the actual ways in which the player interacts with the game.

This is not a science writing but more like something that I wanted to briefly write to you since I happen to have some experience in playing these video games and I also have this background in studying and working with computers. I have been playing games a lot. I have read a book or two about the use of memory and also studied a lot about this subject.

What really made a difference in the use of memory for video game consoles was the introduction of the optical drive. You did have a space for couple, maybe four, megabytes for your game. Well, like you might know, a CD-ROM disc has somewhat a space of 650 MB. So the amount of space was more than 100 times larger.

What about saved games? A supported disk drive was introduced with the release of the original Xbox. It might be the first game console to have a hard drive. Before this we had to use memory cards for storing and also organizing our saved games. Hard disks also allowed many other things. It also made installing games to the hard drive a norm.

I am trying to explain the difference between temporary memory (like RAM in the world of computers) and staying memory (HDD and/or SSD drives). So basically RAM, or Random Access Memory is something that the system uses while it is powered. After the power is cut off the memory disappears. In programming you use different variables to store the data temporarily.

Hard drives can save data that is included in these variables so that it can be accessed also later on. Earlier there were typically HDD drives used which offer a lot of space but they are much slower in processing the data than newer and more expensive SSD hard disks. The data in a SSD or HDD can be saved in different forms. Sometimes the programmers can use text files and sometimes forms like JSON. Data can also be serialized in a way. There are many possibilities. Basically you are saving something to some file or files. Sometimes there is also some sort of database used.

The data moves between the components of your gaming device through different kinds of busses. You can probably read more about electronics from your favorite search engine or maybe you can create a prompt for AI. I am not going to try to expain this so thoroughly at the moment. But if you are interested you can find more about this.

How does the gaming console work basically? There is a loop in the program code that keeps refreshing the screen. The frequency is blondly called FPS. It stands for Frames Per Second. This can be for example 60. The system reads all values of variables that are in the code and updates everything regarding to the values that the variables hold.

The game system detects any interactions using the code. The game detecs what controllers buttons are pressed and for how long. Then the screen keeps updating. There’s a lot of things happening. The main source for the things that are happenig is the actual source code of the game. You might think that it is easy to read a source code but it actually is pretty. It is way harder than reading something that a blogger has written to a blog post. And only the person that has written the code might fully understand it. Sometimes even this is not possible. The code can and is actually preferred to have comments in it also.

So to summarize this blog post we can conclude that memory is used in many ways in game consoles. Data is saved and handled. We have come a long way from game consoles like Sega Mega Drive in which you aren’t able to save at all (you do if you have a battery inside the game cartridge) to modern consoles in which you have huge SSD drives of several tera bytes of space for lot more content than just your saved game data. I encourage you to find more information if you are deeply motivated in learning more about this very interesting topic.

Itchy, Tasty – The Book About Resident Evil

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Viljami

Itchy, Tasty is a book written by Alex Aniel. It tells the story of Resident Evil video game series that was developed by this huge game developer Capcom that became famous by releasing Street Fighter II for arcades and Super Nintendo. Street Fighter wasn’t their first game but it might have been the game that took Capcom to the top. The book has been published in 2021. It holds well over 250 pages and is focusing on the games that were released in the series before Resident Evil 5.

Resident Evil begun with a game titled Sweet Home that was a NES game. There were debates about releasing a horror game for such an childish and powerless gaming console. While there do exist many great games on Nintendo Entertainment System the developers at Capcom thought that it would be difficult to release a good horror game for this system because of its limitations. The music and graphics would have been too unimpressive to satisfy the vision they initially had about the new horror game that was about to be developed.

Itchy, Tasty describes how Resident Evil managed to create something completely original and new in video games. It can be held responsible for creating a new genre of survival horror. It took some elements, the weird and stationary camera angles, just to name one, from first games of Alone In The Dark series that was released some years before the first Resident Evil. You can probably figure how Resident Evil impacted on games like Silent Hill and any other survival horror game that has ever been released.

For me Resident Evil 2 was the first game in the series that I actually played. It wasn’t the first PlayStation 1 game I played. That honor goes to Gran Turismo. But that piece of survival horror really impressed me. Well, it made me also feel agony but in a somewhat desirable in a way. It is hard to describe this game to a person that hasn’t played it. I think about RE2 as a retro game. It was something impressive back in 1998.

Soon after, maybe some moths or something like that, I had beaten RE2 and wanted something more to play. So, I picked up the first Resident Evil. I soon found that it was also a very good game. I also completed the third game. As there were several spin offs that I haven’t got into I cannot say that I would have played every game in the series. I do have completed Resident Evil 5 but that is just out of the scope of Itchy, Tasty.

The author of Itchy, Tasty, Alex Aniel, is very much involved in the gaming scene. He writes firmly about the history and development of this series. Every game that was released before Resident Evil 5 is covered. Even a game for Game Boy Color has been mentioned. What I found as a very interesting piece of knowledge was the part of describing how the first game was ported to Nintendo 64. You know, it was originally developed for PS1. What is the main difference between these systems? Well, N64 used 64 MB game cartridges while PS1 had an optical disk drive that used CD-ROMS that had 650 MB of space.

This wasn’t the only difference between these systems. N64 was faster when it came to loading the data that game used. It is miraculous how it was actually possible to fit RE2 to a N64 cartridge. Later the series moved on to GameCube. For a while there was a decision in place that RE games would be developed only for Nintendo GameCube. As you might know already this wasn’t a long lasting decision as you can today find RE4 for PS2 also from your favorite gaming shop.

I can recommend this book especially for someone that is a fan of survival horror games. There are many interviews and a lot of background information that makes clear how the writer of the book has come to the writing of this material. Mainly persons that worked closely on the series have been included in these descriptions.

Double Life – Music for PlayStation

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Viljami

Double Life – Music for PlayStation is a music compilation CD featuring various artists. There is also a demo CD for PS1 included. It has demos of games: Ape Escape, Wip3out, Ridge Racer Type 4, Omega Boost, Anna Kournikova’s Smash Court Tennnis, Tomb Raider 3, Um Jammer Lammy and Crash Team Racing. So it has eight game demos.

This might not be the most meaningful find I have ever bought. Just something I got interested in while I was in the local flee market. It didn’t cost a lot. I think I got this for two euros. The CD plus PS1 demo disc have been released in 1999.

I do have a memory of seeing this compilation back in the days while visiting a record store. It might have been a super market. I really don’t remember so clearly.

The music featured on Double Life is the type of music you might hear while playing PS1. I didn’t like everyt track. Obviously I didn’t buy this thing for the music. I just thought it would be something I would like to own.

If you aren’t so familiar with PS1 demo discs like the one included in Double Life let me reminisce and also explain what they actually are. So, back in the 90s it wasn’t even possible to buy digital games. As PS1 was the most popular, maybe the best, gaming console out in the market there had to be some way for gamers to know what games were going to be released in the near future.

The promotion of new games was very much a responsibility of video game magazines. Well, there might have been some gaming websites already but my point here is that web wasn’t in the end of the 90s what it is today. Today you can definitely download a game demo easily and watch the trailer online also.

PS1 demo discs were released to promote new and upcoming games. They had several demos of games. I remember clearly playing a demo of Resident Evil 2 before buying the game. You could test the game and play one demo for maybe 15 minutes or something. Just so much that you could make an opinion on if the game would be interesting and something that you would actually buy. There are several tens maybe even hundreds of these demo discs released.

So, just wanted to write a blog post once again. There haven’t been anything special happening in my life. I have played my video games and I have been, lately, reading a book about Resident Evil series’s history. I might write something about that book next in this blog. So, stay tuned for some more content.

My PS1 Games Collection (Currently)

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Viljami

I recently wrote a blog post about the first PlayStation. This gaming console was first released in 1995. That makes it almost thirty years old. I had to make a decision and move my PS2 away to storge from my gaming setup. I replaced it with my PSOne console. That made me to take a look at my current PS1 games collection for this retro gaming system.

I have well over sixty games in my collection of PS1 games. Some games are definite classics. I have to mention the Final Fantasy series. I have four games in this series. They are FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII and FFIX. I would like to own some day FF Anthology and/or FF Origins. There is also a pixel remaster collection of FF games from I to VI for Nintendo Switch out there and I have a feel that I might some day buy it, also.

PS1 was actually my second gaming console that I owned. My first console was Sega Mega Drive. PS1 turned to a more mature way in a sense. It also introduced real 3D graphics to gamers all over the world. I sold my PS1 and all games and other accessories in the beginning of 2000s. This is something that I greatly regret.

Some other games that are of good quality are the first three Resident Evil games, Vagrant Story, Colin McRae series of two games, Tenchu 1 and 2 and also Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 to 4 and the first two Grand Theft Auto games. These are just few good titles that come to mind when I look at this collection.

Some PS1 games are cheap and some are expensive. You can get a sense about this as you browse through your favorite gaming web shops. The library for PlayStation 1 is enormous. There are almost eight thousand games in it. You have to understand that some of these games haven’t been sold in every region so there might be some games that are only available in some areas of world. PS1 was in production all the way to 2006 and it received new games through all these years. I believe there are no limitations for a new game to be released for it even today.

I am keen to find some new games for my collection. I think I do have almost every most important game that I used to play back in the days. I also have some titles that I somehow didn’t have some way an opportunity to get into and that I just recently had a chance to get into. I think there is lots of games still out there waiting to get discovered.

Visually PS1 graphics are appealing but you definitely cannot expect so much from this retro console. If you desire I can also recommend to getting into some DreamCast or GameCube games if you want some more powerful graphical experiences. There definitely are limitations in these retro games. You have to remember that these games are retro and you yourself have to like retro games if you wish to play PS1 games in 2024. And this is why we are using the term “retro” all the time.

PS1 was there among one of these 3D capable gaming consoles. It introduced gaming to many of us. I remember hearing for the first time that some over or almost 30-year-olds were also getting into playing video games. PS1 was the most powerful of Sony all the way to when PS2 was released. There were over 100 million units sold. PS2 sold over 150 million units.

Alone in the Dark Series

Posted on February 7, 2024February 7, 2024 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.

The Logo of PlayStation Is So Cool

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Viljami

Let’s start with the logo of PlayStation. It is time to start blogging again after a short break. Why we’re at it I might just say: “Happy New Year”! It’s the first post of the year 2024. We are going to talk about Sony PlayStation and especially the logo of it.

I started to admire how the logo looks. It forms the letters “P” and “S” that, of course, stand for “PlayStation”: This particular picture is of the smaller console named PSOne. It is my only PS1 that I currently have. I also have PS2 but it isn’t working currently. Of course, you can use emulatorsa and I have also Duck Station on my PC for these PS1 needs.

Where do we continue? We can admire the long list of games, I think there are several thousands of them, the cool looks of the controller and its superb controllability or the amazing graphics. It was back then the coolest gaming console that delivered us games like Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo.

Later some more powerful consoles have taken the place of PS1 as the number one console but it still gives me a nice and warm feeling when I boot up a game or another inside this system. The design is in every way amazing. I mean, do you recall the intro that the console gives when you start it? There is the logo, once again, and this unseparable sound or a piece of music and then you are told which area the console is from (is it Europe or America or some other region).

Playing with PS1 was like listening to rock music. It was for many the introduction to 3D capable graphics and also to sound. It could deliver CD quality audio. The controller was the most advenced thing in the field at the time. Some have done this better later but PS1 was the first. You might say that DreamCast is the best console ever but that’s just like comparing rock music to jazz – everyone has their own preference.

PlayStation had at first a standard controller. It was later updated to DualShock that had tumble effect and also two thums that made controlling the happenings and interacting with the game more comfortable. As I said many have built on after PS1 was dominant. Few have come close to what PS1 gave to us gamers.

I alreaday mentioned some games. Here’s a list of some of my favorites: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Spider-Man, Colin McRae Rally, Legacy of Kain – Soul Reaver, Abe’s Oddysee, Fear Effect, Final Fantasy VII and many more. You can find a better listing from Google or Bing or Yahoo. You can even ask about it from some sort of a AI tool. We are living the year 2024 you know!

What I also like about PS1 is that the games weren’t, with some exceptions like FFVII, that long. I remember playing almost every game I had to completion. I have to mention also Tony Hawks Pro Skater here since I almost forgot it already. Am I too excited while I am writing this. It might be so.

I encourage you to do your research on this topic and take your facts even further. I think we had a very interesting and also inspiring topic here to discuss about. It was the first of the year but there are still many more posts coming to this blog this year and even after that. So, stay tuned and keep enjoying your games!

What Is Abandonware?

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Viljami

Have you heard about abandonware? Does it actually mean that you can just copy abandonware and can it be in some way profitable for the original developer of the game? In this blog post we are trying to get a thorough answer to these questions.

There are many websites that provide some old games that you can download and install them to your PC. Many games are or can be played on a modern personal computer with a modern operating system. There are games also available for emulators. Some games require a special software application like DOSBox. So it is possibly to play old DOS games with a new PC.

The case of abandonware concerns console game and computer games. Some game companies, like Nintendo, like to stick with their old copyrights and try to ban and make copying old, or retro, games totally illegal. They are acting like this even when clearly there is not a clear option for them to collect a price for this kind of a game that is already some tens of years old.

Some companies publsih remakes. Some companies totally abandon their game. This is where the term gets its true meaning from. What then means public domain? Could games be released in public domain? This means that you could re-publish a game of this kind and even take some parts of the game and make a new game out of it with paying nothing for the original developer.

What would it mean if we had all old games in a public domain? We wouldn’t have to pay for our retro games. There would be more websites sharing these games. There would be a lot of exploration and even research done by playing these games and getting to understand their content.

There are many games currently classified as abvandonware right now. You can find a deeply involved website titled “My Abandonware” that provides ten of thousands of games for you to download. You can download games like Silent Hill 2 or Need For Speed Most Wanted for free. If there is a game that is currently in any form commercially avaialble this is mentioned and it isn’t possible to download it as a free copy but there might be a demo version available.

I have written here in this blog earlier that we are having difficulties of maintaining and keeping old games, I am talking about games that are 20 years old or even older than that, available. Are we supposed to just forget these games? I thinkthey have high value even if nobody has a way to buy them.

What should we do? Should we make every 20 year old game totall free? Should we allow some other parties to make more good remakes out of all these old games? Could large companies like Nintendo provide more opportunities to buy and maintain a collection of old and retro games?

We are having this business that is very profitable for game shops. You buy a physical copy of an old game and the price is very high. You keep the game for years. Of course you have the original gaming system. But what happens when the game gets so old and the divece you are playing on has become broken? Do we just delete this stuff and move on? I think we should think more about maintaining old games and trying to remember also in the future what they are all about.

Basically a game ends up as abandonware because the original owner of this game doesn’t find a way to make the game somehow profitable again. Every game can be profitable when it gets released. After many years the owner doesn’t care about the game and so it becomes abandsonware. There is an issue also with the copyright. It is hard to make a remake out of a gaem that is abandonware. This is why public domain would be a consideration.

Some Notes About Game Boy Color

Posted on December 9, 2023December 9, 2023 by Viljami

In this blog post I write to you about Game Boy Color. Playing video games with a handheld device seems to be interesting. At least that’s what it is to me. Nowadays you can load an emulator to your smart phone and play games like this. You can even get a game controller that uses Bluetooth. Why would you bother to buy a real hand held console? Should you buy one or not? In this blog post I am trying to answer these questions.

I have right here, in that featured image, Game Boy Color. It was first released back in 1998. I think I bought it last years summer. So, the console has been with me for a while now. I bought it for 80 euros. You might be thinking of getting yourself a Game Boy Color. So, let me tell you some facts about this model of a handheld gaming system.

Let’s start with the bad facts. The screen is very poorly lit. You really have to focus your eye for it. The lighting has to be almost perfect for you to enjoy playing with this device. That must be the biggest bad fact about it. Actually I think we can move on to describe what is good in this device.

You can adjust the sound volume very nicely. It has this sort of a wheel that you can roll. You can also plug your headphones in. This makes playing in a bus or a train much more private and you don’t also annoy other passengers. The sound quality is adequate. I mean it’s way nicer than for example PC speaker. The device is powered with two AA batteries. There is also an option for an external power supply unit. The connection type is 3V and the plug is of size 2.5mm x 0.7mm. You can probably get this kind of a power supply unit for maybe 20 euros. I recommend buying one that you can adjust the output and the size of the connector. Let me make this clear – the power unit doesn’t have to be precisely designed for Game Boy Color so you can use this kind of an adjustable unit.

You can play Game Boy games on Game Boy Color. Of course there are some newer games that are only supported for Game boy Color. Game Boy Color reminds a lot of Game Boy that was released about ten years earlier. If you are thinking of playing Game Boy games I also recommend an adapter that enables you to play Game Boy games on a SNES. This adapter can cost something like 35 euros. This way you don’t have to suffer from the bad screen. Let’s tell you also that there are several other ways to play Game Boy games and this includes emulators also.

What are some good games? From Game Boy I definitely recommend Super Mario Land, Link’s Awakening and Pokemon games. As is with these old retro type games usually there are a lot of poor quality games available also. Some of these are trying to act as some sort of ports of these really famous and popular games. I can just mention games like Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto. So as you can probably imagine the power of this system is not so great. But there definitely are some good games made for you to play on a Game Boy Color.

My Game Boy Color is a bit broken. What I mean is that the power switch doesn’t seem to function at all. So I power up the device by inserting two batteries and that’s when the device turns on. Another way would be to use a power supply unit. The thing that the power switch was broken probably made the device’s price lower. I don’t know if some talented electrician could fix it. And when it comes to fixing I can tell you that there are many professionals that do repair and even mod old electronic video game consoles including Game Boy Color. It is a popular mod to replace the display. I don’t have information about how much would it cost. I know that there isn’t a service like this available in my home country (Finland).

Let’s summarize. Should you get yourself a Game Boy Color? I think you should consider this decision wisely and deeply. The price is a bit high. Playing with this bad type of screen makes it a bit awkward. Although the device provides a good entertainment for for example a long road trip. The design is very strong and I can figure that it can take some hits and not being broken easily. In today’s era of sensitive electronic devices these features are a welcome exception. Or, if you don’t have any money left in your pocket, you can just buy a Super Game Boy or use an emulator. Think wisely.

Does Emulation Really Hurt Someone?

Posted on November 24, 2023 by Viljami

You can spend hundreds of euros to retro video games. Where do these games come from? Some games are sold for a low price to shops that sell games that sell them forward at a more realistic price. This is how this field functions. You really cannot blame them for running a business like this. You have to get your living from somewhere. And game shops are very valuable for us game hobbyists in that they deliver us many games, consoles and all this other stuff, also, that we need to keep our hobby in a big role in our lives.

How about individuals that are selling their old video games? Once again there is this issue of money involved. You have something valuable and someone wants add just that game to his or her collection. Why not sell your game? Of course you cannot sell it at such a high price that the game shop is selling it. This makes sense, right?

Well, some people try to find a game at a low price and then sell it to someone with a higher price. This is familiar to many of us. It’s called scalping. I did notice this rice in prices. I bought Silent Hill 3 for PS2 in 2017 from a game shop. It cost me 15 euros back then. Recently I saw this same game. Its price was 75 euros. Actually, I don’t want to get rid of this game so I am not going to sell it. But if I was after an economical win situation I would probably sell this game.

So the money goes right here to the individual that is selling the game. Alternatively this amount of money goes to a game shop. This doesn’t make a lot of sense when you consider that big game companies are telling us that it is harmful to their business that consumers are installing emulators and running rom files on them instead of buying a physical copy of that game.

It might be the case that these huge companies would like to make more remakes out of old games. Why not bring more of those mini consoles to the markets? There would certainly be a demand for original Xbox mini console or a GameCube one. This isn’t however anything close to the reality. This is only a dream. While we have seen many classic mini consoles there isn’t going to be one made out of every legendary retro game console.

What if you bought a really powerful computer that would have enough disk space for a huge collection of game roms that could run these games on different emulators? I certainly find this option appealing. I do like buying and collecting old hardware and games. Just that I have faced issues with old hardware. They don’t seem to last for a long time. Dust might be the enemy. And I don’t have the skill necessary to fix these consoles. Currently I have several broken consoles in my storage in my apartment. It might be nice to get them repaired but I am currently also considering of getting a computer with some retro emulation so I wouldn’t have to worry about games not functioning.

Where should you start with this new idea? There are complete operating systems dedicated to retro game emulation. These are open source so they don’t actually cost you anything. You just have to have a powerful enough computer if you want to run games of PS2 or GameCube. If there is enough power in your PC you can even run PS4 games on an emulator, today. You can install, of course, emulators on your laptop or desktop. I myself am interested in this idea of having a PC that I would only use for console emulation. So, I don’t want to run Windows 10 or even any regular Linux operating system. There is something better for retro gaming.

I am talking about a retro gaming operating system. It works like this. You just install the OS and then upload the rom files, that are the actual games, to it. Then you plug your game pad and start up a game. You only turn the PC off or on and you have this simple but effective user interface that you can operate with your game pad. This is what I am talking about.

I am going to mention Lakka OS and Recalbox at this point. I have some experience with Lakka OS as I had it on a PC for maybe some months some time ago. I really liked this system. Although I found out that I wasn’t able to play anything that would require some serious power. I could run PS1 games but I would have liked to run PS2 and GameCube on this system. I just lacked the power. I am hoping that I would be able to get a more powerful PC for this purpose.

You can definitely find out more about Lakka OS and/or Recalbox. You will find them through your favorite search engine. These kind of setups can also run earlier games, like SNES or NES or something else, smoothly. Recalbox is supporting several tens of different video game consoles. Always also be critical about these thoughts I have provided here. Please use your own caution and thought when trying to accomplish your game library. Remember who put these games together and have an appreciation towards them. That might be another topic for another blog post. So, I think that’s it for this time. Thanks for reading!

Is a Cheap Game Always a Bad One?

Posted on November 15, 2023 by Viljami

We have two very good games here for PlayStation 1. Do you know how much you would have to pay for a game like this? If you don’t know you can make a guess before I tell you the answer that I have. I bought these games for no less, or more, than 10 euros per piece.

We are talking about some high quality games. THPS2 is a definite classic. No Fear Downhill Mountain Biking isn’t a bad game at all, also. In fact it was featured some time ago on a popular Finnish video game magazine as a some sort of a hidden gem that everyone probably would not recognize as a classic high quality retro classic.

If you take a look at some PS1 retro game titles you can find that many games have a price tag of several hundreds of euros. What makes the price of some games so low? And how does these different factors infect the price of a retro game?

If you consider THPS2 you can figure that it was a popular title. Lots of gamers bought this when it was first released. So there are currently more used copies available. If you would like to compare this to something more rare and/or expensive think about Castlevania Symphony of the Night. It costs something from 200 euros to 900 euros considering the condition and some other factors.

If you want to save some money or want more value for your games I can recommend inspecting some private people that are selling games. You can find these from for example eBay or some other similar website. In Finland we have “huuto dot net” and “tori dot fi”. You often find cheaper prices there. It is also more beneficial for a game seller than just to bring your used games to gaming shop for discount or a minimal sum of money. This is of course understandable from the perspective of a retro gaming shop since they have to maintain profitable. You can clearly understand this.

Prices of retro games have been high and it seems like the prices are only getting higher and higher. You can however find these titles for as low as 20 euros that also give you something for your hard earned money. Just check some of these cheaper titles. There are good quality and cheap games available for most systems. Some of these systems are PS2, GameCube and/or Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System or SNES.