Intensive Gaming Diary

Blog about different aspects of retro and new video games.

Tag: nintendo

Why I Bought PSP In 2024?

Posted on by Viljami

Here’s a blog post about PSP (PlayStation Portable). I bought one this year. Why would you want to get a PSP in 2024? Here are some reasons…

PSP is very cheap today. I paid 80 euros for it. It has been some months already. I really like the device. I got also an adapter and a memory card (microSDHC) that holds 32 GB of storage. The deal included also a charging cable. I actually had to buy the memory card and adapter separately so they weren’t included in the price of 80 euros.

What are some good games for PSP? I bought three games: Colin Mcrae Rally 2005, Marvel – Ultimate Alliance 2 and NBA 2K13. These are just some examples. You are actually able to play PlayStation 1 games on PSP. The games seem to be more advanced than PS1 games as PSP was released later than PS1.

You can also play games like Metal Gear Solid – Peacemaker, Silent Hill – Shattered Memories, God of War – Ghost Of Sparta and Gran Turismo just to name a few. There are a total of almost 2000 games in the library of PSP games. Many of the games are ports of well-known titles.

I just today read some news that Sony might be working on a new portable gaming console. We have seen a handheld console already after PSP. That device was PS Vita.

We have seen how Nintendo Switch can be played in a handheld mode and it can also be connected to a television screen. Right now Switch is in the top five of the gaming consoles that are sold most. The top position is held now by Sony PlayStation 2 and Switch is actually on the third spot right after Nintendo DS. I do own also a Nintendo DS.

I am not very comfortable playing a handheld device. I enjoy more  about a gaming console when I can connect it to a big screen and play it with a good quality gaming controller. I like to sit and lean my back towards a comfortable chair or a sofa when I play.

Handheld devices can be nice if you are on the move. It is very nice to play a device like PSP in a hotel room for example. A handheld device is good when you don’t want to carry around many cables and other heavy equipment.

You can also check some games on a PSP emulator also. There is a very nice emulator called PPSSPP. The games do have some limitations and cannot be compared to some device that gets connected to a 4K or Full HD screen. Also the controls are a bit compromised.

Gremlins 2 (NES) – Some Notes About Gameplay

Posted on by Viljami

Gremlins 2 – The New Batch is a very neat Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short, game. In this game you control the main character, Gizmo. I am not going to go over the movies plot or setting. If you haven’t seen Gremlins 1 or 2 yet I think you should really watch them especially if you’re really into 1980s and 1990s entertainment.

As with any NES game the controller is a lot more simpler compared to a modern gaming console. You have directional buttons, select and start button and A button and B button. This is of course very logical and clear to anyone familiar with NES. I am mentioning these because I think that Gremlins 2 makes great use of the controller. The movement of the main character is very fluent in every way. As fluent as in a retro game like this can be.

The movement consists of directions (up, down, left, right), jumping and shooting. When you press the jump button Gizmo is up in the air for a short moment. You have to try to time your movement and jump so that you actually get over a gap in the game. This takes a while to learn but is very essential in the actual gameplay.

There are a total of 5 levels in this game. It can take several hours for the player to finish the game. The amount of continues isn’t limited in any way so you can continue to play as long as you wish. You get a password when you loose your life and you get to this menu where you can choose to continue to play or quit playing. At the end of the level 1-2 you get a better weapon that deals more damage and shoots a bit further. It is difficult to move to any other direction than directly to up or down or left or right but this is also possible in this game.

There are some clever strategies in Gremlins 2 that you can utilize to try to succeed better in playing the game. When you fall off the edge you get a chance to float around with a balloon. This way you can move freely over enemies or gaps until the balloon wears off and you fall to the ground. You have three hearths of health. When you get hit with an enemy you loose a half of a hearth. So, you can get hit six times after you loose your life and have to start from the beginning of the level. After getting hit you are “immortal” for a while and you should take advantage of this to progress more efficiently.

Sometimes enemies move in directions that are random. Try to figure where and how the enemy is moving and then shoot it to destroy it. Collect pearls that you get from defeated enemies. You get to go to a shop at times in the game and you can buy more lives, health or upgrades to weapons. Write down the password each time you die in a level.

Graphics and animation, also in the cut scenes, are very adorable for a game that was released in 1990. I am currently in level 2-2 out of the total 5 levels that the game ultimately has. There are many different enemies in the game that have you to think about different kinds of strategies. This is a very good NES game that I can recommend for every NES fan. I have the actual, real, physical copy of the game that I do play on my Retro Trio console. The game is a bit cheaper when it comes to its price. It can be bought from a game shop (here in Finland) for about 30 euros. You can probably get it cheaper if you buy from some private individual or from flea market of some sort as is usual with older, retro type of, video games like this.

A Casual Gamer Or A Serious One?

Posted on by Viljami

The last time I wrote a blog post I was in the middle of getting into Black Ops 6. It just so happened that I got stuck in the campaign and somewhat lost my interest to that game. I decided to first pick up Art of Rally that is a rally game for Nintendo Switch. I didn’t finish that. Instead I started playing some Doom. This is the version of Doom that was released in 2016 and ported in 2017 for Switch.

It didn’t stop there however. I did spend some hours with Doom. Yesterday I got stuck again and this time with Doom. So, when I first woke up this Saturday I decided not to play more of Doom. Instead I picked a new game. It was actually still sealed. I had bought it maybe six months ago. It was time for me to play some Aces of Luftewaffe. I played this shooting game for maybe one or two hours.

This idea I think isn’t such an unusual matter. I am talking about how we today consume these games. There are extremely many games available. As you can think there are new games and also old, retro, games that you can pick and play. Newest games we are seeing today as rarer ones. There are many games that we get remakes out of and that we do play. Many games seem to take something old and add nice graphics and some updated features and release them even with the same title. Just “remake” gets added to the games title.

I am not complaining after all. I might not finish every game but is actually every game a great one? Or should it even be like that? I think we need some smaller and maybe indie titles that we don’t take so seriously that can make a difference when it does come to them titles that we do play a lot and that seem to be taking video games to a next level. What I am actually saying is that every game cannot be as popular, good selling and interesting as a game such like for example Skyrim.

This seems to be the case with these ambitious game developers that seem to hope that their own game would achieve the sales and the popularity that only so few of these games can achieve. Am I, or are you, a casual gamer that just plays a game or two in a week and that spends only so little of his or her time in a video game? That is the question that I seem to be trying to think and resolve in my mind.

We can also think about collecting. I seem to be interested in many games. I buy a lot of games. Usually a low price gets me going. That is probably why I do have such a large library of games. Well, there is just so much to write about today. So, maybe we’ll leave it this way this time.

Having Some Fun With A Retro Game

Posted on by Viljami

I had the pleasure to find a really fun game that I got yesterday as a loose copy. This means that I bought a game that was in a good condition but it didn’t have the original cover or leaflet at all. I wanted to play that game. I was also informed that the disc was in a good and acceptable condition which was proved to be actually true when I finally checked the disc.

The game was Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2 for Nintendo GameCube. I have lately been banging my head with two titles. Those are first, Gran Turismo 6, and second, Sea of Stars, which is a nice role-playing-game. I have put tens of hours in these games but I seem to be unable to finish them. I have spent a bit over 40 hours to Gran Turismo 6 and a bit over 12 hours to Sea of Stars.

What NFS Hot Pursuit 2 offers is a nice and fluently constructed game-play. Everything seems not to be so much about your driving skills. You can drive like a perfection and still end up getting busted by the police. The whole game centers on trying to achieve at least third position just to be able to progress to the next race that gets unlocked as you achieve this placement.

When considering graphics GameCube has, of course, its limitations. You have to consider this game to be a retro title. Sea of Stars, which I play on PS4, seems way better. Even Gran Turismo 6, that I play on PS3, looks better. But after all everything isn’t always about the technical performace. Hot Pursuit 2 just seems like something I could spend about two or three hours today as I was palying some video games on a regular Saturday.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 for Nintendo GameCube as a loose copy cost me 15 euros. This seems to be just the right price. I did manage to advance in the actual career mode that I chose to play. I didn’t finish the game but I might get back to it in a while. I am a bit concerned about finishing Sea of Stars. It does take about 28 hours to finish this RPG. I am also a bit thoughtful about finishing only a bit over 50 percent of Gran Turismo 6.

Today I also finally ordered Call of Duty – Black Ops 6 for Xbox Series X. I got it for a cheap price of 50 euros. I could have supported some small time game shops but this just is how it came about this time. Of course I am already waiting to get my hands on this brand new FPS. While thinking about some games I have yet not finished I managed to get something out of one of these Need for Speed games that I luckily had a chance to purchase and add to my collection of GameCube games.

Rayman 3

Posted on by Viljami

I recently bought Rayman 3 for GameCube. I paid fifteen euros for it. This is a very nice price and the disc was in good condition. I am also glad that unlike my PS2 and original Xbox consoles my Nintendo GameCube seems to be working at least at the moment. I have owned GameCube maybe for two years already and I haven’t had a critical issue with it.

If you know something already about Rayman series of video games you definitely know that the first game was a pure two-dimensional platformer type of game that also had some medium difficulty level problems or puzzles that you as a player had to go through and solve. The first Rayman game was described to be a hard game to compplete. It was released for Atari Jaguar, PlayStation, Sega Saturn and MS-DOS.

Back in 1995 it was still unclear if video games would actually be fully three-dimensional when it comes to gameplay and graphics. But when Rayman 3 was released for GameCube in 2003 it was clear that it would be a 3D platformer game. This was the direction in which video were clearly moving.

I have to say that this is a very good game. You have some action in it and also some puzzle solving. I haven’t fully completed the game but I have played it for maybe 4 to 5 hours when I’m writing this blog post. It takes about nine hours to complete Rayman 3. So, I have a lot to play still.

While Rayman 3 is a very good game there are some things that kind of disappoint me. This has everything to do with the game being a bit old after all. There have been many advancements in the field of game development since Rayman 3 was released. The camera is most of the time on a nice angle but sometimes it gets a bit frustrating to adjust it. Also figthing scenes are also frustrating since the aiming system is a bit wack. You have to really try and handle the main character when there is a battle going on with some of the game’s enemy characters.

Graphics still look nice. The game is a nice addition to my collection of Nintendo GameCube games. It’s hard to actually realize that the game is now over 20 years old. The GameCube’s controller fits perfectly to the needs of the player that is involved with Rayman 3.

The latest Rayman games I have seen were released as some sort of platformers for PS4. I haven’t, yet, played a Rayman game on the newest consoles, like Xbox Series X or Nintendo Switch. Of course the game is designed also so it can be played also by the youngest players we have – little kids. The game is also suitable for a grown up. This is definitely a plus for this game and it has gained many fans through the years.

Rayman 3 can be frustrating at times but in overall the game feels nice to play. It offers you a decent three-dimensional experience and some nice action that you can be involved in. It is a good buy for a Nintendo GameCube collector and I can recommend it to every retro game fan out there.

NES Games That Are Still Relevant in 2024

Posted on by Viljami

You might not spend so much time with NES games as you do with modern games that directly aim to keep you focused for tens or even hundreds of hours. This has everything to do with quickly advancing technology. Designing games goes forward also when the developers learn more and more and more hobbyists are starting to get into the world or playing video games. In this blog post I go through some NES games that are, in my opinion, still relevant today.

There are practically hundreds of games in the whole gaming library of NES. If you don’t have a clue what gaming console I am referring to I can tell you that NES comes from words Nintendo Entertainment System. It is a retro console that was introduced to us, gamers, in 1983. I have picked up these five games that I own. These all are very good games and I can definitely recommend them.

I have a Retro Trio console that plays NES, SNES and Mega Drive games. I can also use an adapter to play Master System or even Game Boy games. These adapters I have bought for a cheap price. I think I paid just under 40 euros for the Master System adapter and maybe 35 euros for the game boy adapter. It is very nice to play Game Boy games this way. The screen is very clear and bright compared to the screen of Game Boy or Game Boy color. There are some other ways also that you can play Game Boy games but lets not get carried away too much.

You can of course take your chance and use any NES emulator to play NES games on your PC. If you are going with this option I definitely recommend to get a replica of the original NES controller that you can attach with a USB cable. This brings the certain sense of authenticity to your NES games. These physical copies can be a bit pricey. They can cost anything from I think 15 euros to even 100 euros. Some rare games are even more expensive. So, I totally understand if you go the emulator way at least when you are just starting to get into NES games. The USB controller I mentioned earlier has a price tag of maybe 20 euros. I have never got into troubles with the compatibility and you can probably get it to work easily even if you use Linux.

You can sense that for example Super Mario Bros, that was released in 1988, has this certain lightness in the whole gaming experience. I mean the fact that it uses only so little memory. You can talk about randomly accessed memory or even hard disk. As I think you have witnessed NES doesn’t have a hard disk at all. You can use saved games in some games since they have an extra battery that enables long term memory usage. With emulators you can of course go around this and use saved states that come with your favorite NES emulator. So, this is one more reason to use software emulators instead of old retro hardware.

Graphics are two dimensional in these games. Sound is of course pretty terrible. If you are deeply into “chip tune” musical genre you might even like it that way. I personally think it is some kind of miracle how they could program the music for these games with all these limitations. Same goes to the overall design of these games. There are over 600 NES games that were released. These five are the ones that I have managed to grab. I have a total of maybe ten or twelve NES games in my collection. I did buy these all already some years ago. I can definitely say that I enjoy these games even if they are old and even if the time keeps moving forward. I think Nintendo did  agret job!

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.

Beginning to Play Signalis

Posted on by Viljami

Last time I wrote to this blog I was playing Super Mario Wonder. I actually completed that and decided to dig into my pile of Nintendo Switch games that I just haven’t had time to play. At least that was the case. Since I now had some time I decided to start playing Signalis.

Signalis is described as a horror game. I would also call it an adventure game. It has been a long time since I played a game that would remind me of this game. I think Signalis is like something pure that has been missing from my latest gaming experiences. There are actual puzzles and problems for you to solve. Saving is not allowed at every moment. There are these certain parts and places in this game that you are allowed to save your game.

Signalis has been developed by rose-engine and published by Humble Games. It was released in 2022 for Windows, PS4, Switch and Xbox One. I have to admit that I have already been used to these extra sharp 3D oriented graphics that look very realistic. The way that Signalis opens up with its graphics feels amazing. Graphics designers have really done their job. I find the look of this game to be satisfying even if a slight retro feel seems to be present all the time. You can actually tune up the settings so that your screen looks a lot more like it was presented from an old television.

I just checked how many hours approximately it takes to beat Signalis. The web page (HowLongToBeat) informs me that it takes nine hours to finish it. So if I put same amount of effort as I put into playing Super Mario Bros Wonder I should be close to completing this game, say, maybe next week or something like that. It can take several days since I have work to do also. But it is nice to know that this game doesn’t take so long to beat as I find myself sometimes stuck on some games that take a bit longer to finish. Just to inform you I can tell that it takes about 50 hours to beat Red Dead Redemption 2.

I have only gone through the first level. Right now I just woke up and started exploring the first level. It isn’t possible to save your game right in the beginning of the game and that seems logical to me. In the first level there are some areas or rooms to explore. You have to collect some items and solve some puzzles. The problems seem to have a logical way for them to be solved. So you won’t find any humorous puzzles like those from retro type of adventure games like Monkey Island or Leisure Suit Larry. At least I haven’t stumbled on any since I just started to play Signalis.

The game reminds me a lot of Resident Evil. The camera angles are more reasonable although. The horror and anxiety are created mainly through graphics. I don’t even recall hearing any background music while playing. If there is some music it is very soft and in the form of some genre like ambient or something very close to that.

Switch is a nice console to have. The library of games that are available is already huge and it keeps growing all the time. It is also a nice console to collect games for. It was first released in 2017 followed by the release of Switch Lite in 2019. I currently have some tens of games for Switch. As there have been rumors about a new Nintendo console to be released soon we are still waiting for more information about this. A big question is if the new console would have any kind of a backwards compatibility.

It was nice spend some time today starting to play Signalis and as I also finished Super Mario Bros Wonder I think I had a nice day all in all. Today it was very Nintendo Switch related. I am hoping to get to spend some more time with my Switch. I’ll write a new post some day soon. It was nice to see you here and you will get to read something from this blog very soon!

Super Mario Bros Wonder

Posted on by Viljami

Today I have spent maybe three to four hours into continuing to play Super Mario Bros Wonder for Nintendo Switch. This game deserves its spot as one of the best games available for this console. I proceeded to world number four. This game has eight worlds in it.

I just love the game play. Nintendo has put together a definite classic once again. There are many elements from earlier games but there is also something new for those of us that have witnessed the whole legacy of Super Mario Bros. I can picture gamer’s of all ages playing this video game.

It is said that Super Mario Bros Wonder takes ten hours to complete. That being that you manage to pass through slightly demanding puzzles that this game offers. There is a lot to explore. Mario or which one of the characters you happen to play the game with has many new abilities. You can add a special tag that can give you a skill like floating in the air or jumping a bit higher.

These certain elements are present here that are always relating my thoughts to this game series. We have seen earlier games like New Super Mario that have tried to bring back that feel of a nice platform game. This game reminds me a lot of the first game that was released in 1985. I also see many similarities to Super Mario Bros 3.

A big plus also in commercial sense is that kids and adults can all play this game. As you can see that the game is recommended for ages three above. Getting into the game isn’t difficult. I only got a bit stuck in these certain puzzles and made it to the end of the world 4. I had slight problems with tasks in the game that concerned invisibility. It was hard to jump to a certain spot while the character wasn’t almost at all visible. I think I will try to get through this point some day but it isn’t just today.

I don’t think you can complete the game in one sitting. Otherwise the game is very playable and progresses very fluently. The levels information that is provided to the player before entering the stage includes a rating of difficulty starting from 1 star and ending to I think 4 stars or maybe 5 stars. At least that was the way as I played these levels.

You can explore the whole surroundings quite freely. To progress you have to collect these some sort of rewards. You don’t always have to have everything completed to advance. So you can also skip some parts that might seem difficult. There are lots of item to collect. Coins are of course present as are cash points that enable you to buy many other items including extra lives. One hundred coins collected gives you of course one extra life as is usual in Mario games.

I definitely think this is the best Nintendo Switch game that I own currently. It is targeted to all ages but I wouldn’t call it childish in any way. More so it reminds of a deep technical fantasy type of product. Something that engineers and computer enthusiast have brought to all video game fans. And I have to mention one thing. I never got into Tears of the Kingdom so I cannot compare these two games directly. And how would you compare them? That’s like comparing an apple to a pear.

I am going to write one more paragraph to finish this post. I love Super Mario Bros Wonder. It being directed to whole family just makes it a better game and a better product. Congratulations Nintendo! You managed to bring Super Mario to us gamer’s once again with this game: Super Mario Bros Wonder.

Playing Some Tony Hawks Pro Skater On Nintendo Switch

Posted on by Viljami

I have now played THPS 1+2 for a bit over seven hours. It really makes me to go back, with an amount of nostalgia, to this game series that so many of us still do love. I am playing this on Nintendo Switch. I have also this very neat controller that is actually Pro Controller. I think it is the best way to play sports games and many action games and also driving games. I do not have a driving game currently for Switch but it might be a fun to have one some day.

I first started playing the first THPS game on PS1 back in the 90s. It made a huge impact on me as a player of video games. Skateboarding has been popular but that hasn’t always been the case. Some other famous skateboarding games are Skate or Die for NES and Skate series. I also have to mention a game called OlliOlli right here. But if you think about THPS back in the end of 90s you have to consider that it made skateboarding a very popular field of extreme sports.

How it feels to play it once again remastered one might ask. I think that these developers have made a great job. The music is  a big part of the game. In the original game it at times felt like the music stopped too soon since the runs were only one or two minutes long. In this remake they have kind of corrected this issue and the music track continues to play more constantly.

All these tricks are present in this remake. You can grind and manual to get some points in your run. You can also do air tricks like grabs and also flip tricks. You get more points by combining tricks as creatively as possible. This guarantees a good score of points for you. You have different attributes that you can add points to also. So your skater is also developing all the time as is also the case of your actual skills in playing the game. There are many famous skaters for you to choose from. Of course Tony Hawk is included as well.

THPS has been released in many forms for many different consoles. One of my favorite games in this series is THPS 4 for GameCube. Switch offers you a decent an similar way of control that was utilized in the original game for the first PlayStation. I am talking mainly about the layout of buttons. Pro Controller doesn’t differ so mmuch from Dual Shock controller that is actually the game pad of PS1.

It is nice to play this skateboarding game once again. I feel so much of this nostalgia. At the same time I am glad that this remake turned out to be a good game in overall. While it does require good reflexes I can compensate a bit on my skills in playing this game. Who knows how many hours I did spend on this one. I mean especially the first game. I picked up also THPS 3 for PC back in the early 2000s. Today I have also a copy of that game for my PS2. I am also glad that my PS2 is currently working and that I can utilize it perfectly. Although I haven’t recently played any particularly excellent games on it. I am hoping to get some time to play Tenchu – Wrath of Heaven and also continue my campaign in Gran Turismo 4. I would like to complete it but it seems to take a long time and also a deep dedication if I wish to finish it.

I think this is all for now. Hope you are feeling nice. This game I think is available nicely and it doesn’t cost so much if you are buying it for Switch like I recently did. It is also available for any other modern gaming consoles including Series S/X and PS5 and PS4. It is available also now on Steam for PC so if you are more into some personal computer gaming I guess you can check that out.

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