Diablo III – The Battle With Diablo

Last time I posted I was telling you that I am currently playing Diablo III once again. I have now managed to complete Act IV. I just defeated Diablo. The battle took some time but as I had a strong character it wasn’t a hard one. I made it with the first try. This can be explained through my dedication to develop intensively my character. Well, I had to concentrate for a while. Let me proceed and tell you how the battle went.

I have now, after this battle, a character that is on level 59. There is this kind of a logic of how your character develops in Diablo III. Basically you will unlock skills which are bringing your characters actions, like attacks, and so on, stronger. Of course you will also pick up some items that give you armor and more power to your attack, for example.

Some say that Diablo III is a wack video game. For me it hasn’t lost its appeal. You don’t have to drag health potions from town as was the case with Diablo II. This was actually my case when I played it with a Paladin character. I have always enjoyed playing with a character that has a strong attack and low skill level on magic. Someone might say that Diablo III is too easy or light on the player. I have to say that when you compare these games you are definitely in a tough company. I think all Diablo games that have been released to this day are worth getting into.

Let’s talk about my character a bit. It is a Crusader. There are seven character classes in Diablo III Eternal Collection. These character classes are Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor and Wizard. I must once again confess to you that I have only played as a Barbarian and a Crusader. I like to use strong melee attacks and have a good sense when it comes to having a powerful armor. So, I am not going to explain so deeply about how these characters differ from each other. By the way, you can get your hands on some strategy guides either on the internet or in a form of a traditional published book. Since this is not a commercial I won’t provide a direct link this time.

There is point in adjusting your difficulty level. Bringing your difficulty higher you can achieve more experience points and level up more fluently. This was somewhat a strategy for me as I started playing Diablo III all over again with a new character. The difficulty level can be adjusted to very high values. I started as normal and then proceeded to Hard and then to Expert. I even played with Master difficulty for a while but changed soon to Expert. There are many other ways of how changing difficulty level will affect on how you are experiencing the game. For example monsters will have more durability and so on. Blizzard has utilized their software engineers and other professionals very fluently in this matter. I am talking about this game’s programmatic algorithms.

The battle with Diablo took me some tens of minutes. It was an easy battle since my character was so powerful. I have read that the character can be developed in this game to the level of 70. Then the development stops. We could discuss more deeply how algorithms of this game work. I am however not going to that. As I have earlier stated you should find information about that matter quite easily by using your favorite search engine.

There isn’t much more for me to tell you about this now a bit over ten years old action role playing game. I had my first touches with Diablo III as I played it with a PC back in the days. I soon also got a version for my PS4. This is actually my third console (Switch) with this game. I have played it a lot. This can probably exlpain why I am considering if it is a good idea to play this some more. Today, it feels easy to play Diablo III. There is however lots of deeper knowledge for a video game player like me still to be explored. This can be in form of different strategies and explaining to myself how these algorithms actually work.

How has this game actually been developed? This was released, as you must already know, by Blizzard. They have hundreds or maybe even thousands of people working with a game like this. So, its not only programming and developing algorithms. There are graphical designers, designers of discussion, dialogue and story, level designers, 3D artists and some people probably working also with the audio side of things.

This is basically everything I have to say about the fight with Diablo in Diablo III at the end of the Act IV. I am continuing to Act V soon. I will attach some more screenshots to my Instagram page of this blog. You can find them there. Please follow if you like the content. Peace!

Is Diablo III (Switch) Worth Playing in 2023?

Diablo as an RPG series is definitely something. The story first started back in 1997 when the first game of this series was released. My first experiences playing Diablo were achieved as I played it on my PS1. I remember my brohter playing it more than I did. He really liked the game. There were many limitations compared to Diablo 1 on PC. I can definitely confirm this.

The second Diablo game was so effing awesome that I spend one weekend six hours straight playing it. This happened in 2000 and I was playing it with a PC. Playing this fast-paced game trying to find rare and powerful items and developing you character made me an addict. I ended up finally finishing the game a bit later.

Diablo has brought action to role-playing. It might have created a completely new genre of video games. It was among first real time role playing games. As turn-based games have their supporters moving and making attacks in real time is really something else. It is said to have taken inspiration from this hockey game of Sega Mega Drive called NHL 94 which was released only some years earlier.

Blizzard had really hit the jackpot. There are many other games, like some strategy games, that were released. I am talking of course about Starcraft and Warcraft. Games seemed to be moving forward and starting to form as real time games where quick thinking is definintely a requirement.

Today, we are seeing the rise of Diablo 4. It has been released for latest consoles just couple of months ago. It has received good ratings from many reviews. We are still waiting for it to take its final form as there are many updates and patches also being applied to this game.

Is it still relevant to go back one step and play some Diablo III? After over ten years of being developed, the third game of Diablo series was released, finally, in 2012. It even caused a serious problem in which the internet was heavily used and the connection was finally lost. This happened globally when Diablo III was released. The game required the player to connect after the game was installed.

We are still waiting how Diablo 4 will take its final, or at least stable, form. I found Diablo III to be a bit of a disappointment when it comes to graphics. Well, the game is over ten years old. I am currently playing it with Nintendo Switch. Controls are fine. I am satisfied in what the game actually offers. It can take tens of hours to finish Diablo III one more time.

I really like graphics of Diablo 4. Also, I really like the game pad of my Xbox Series X. It is a bit better than Switch’s Pro Controller. I really think Nintendo should include Pro Controller or a similar to the package in which the console is sold in. It is cheaper than some other consoles although. We are also hearing some rumours about the next Switch console being released next year. We might see, finally, 4K graphics in a Nintendo console.

New and Better Controller for Mobile Video Gaming

I just got this piece of joy by mail. It is Turtle Beach Atom which is a controller for mobile devices. Actually it’s for smart phones. It cost me only 70 euros. I have seen this model being sold for about 100 euros. So, I got some discount.

I have been thinking about bringing my retro gaming to a zone of emulation. You know that you can fit every released NES game to a 237 MB of disk space. And all SNES games would take 1,7 GB. If you consider it you can probably get a micro SD card that has 128 GB of space for maybe 20 euros. That should hold a lot of games.

Of course only the required disk space isn’t the only matter that comes to consideration. You would certainly like to have a system setup that can handle as many high quality retro games on as many consoles as is possible. I figured that you need at least 512 MB of RAM, about a half of a GB, for running a Dreamcast emulation. I started to think about getting a new phone. It would cost me about 200 euros. I checked some smart phone models. They all seemed to have 2 or 3 GB of RAM. Then I remembered that I have an old phone laying around. So, I decided to use that.

Of course only the RAM that is available is not everything that an emulator needs. My old phone has decent level of performance. The model is Huawei P10 Lite. It is an old phone from 2017. I haven’t used it since the beginning of 2021. That is when I bought a new phone. Let’s consider some specs of my P10 Lite. It is capable of displaying Full HD quality video. That’s 1080 x 1920 pixels. It has 3 GB of RAM. It has a processor that is octa-core which translates to “4×2.1 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53”. I am not a big specialist on multiple core processors. The phone only has 32 GB of space so it definitely needs a memory card. I did have one laying around so I decided to put it to good use.

I set up some emulators. Duckstation was one that I installed. I also installed Retroarch which can handle many systems. I aimed for being able to play at least systems including GameCube, Dreamcast, PS1 and Nintendo 64. You don’t actually need a lot of power for playing games on systems that are older than SNES. I didn’t think to play newer systems like PS3 or Xbox 360. Some might want to play also PS4 on an emulator. That would require a higher permance personal computer. I am not saying it’s not possible.

So I am currently charging the battery of my Turtle Beach Atom controller. I have installed already some games. I picked one game from here and another game from there. PS1 emulation seems to be running fine and I am able to play N64 games also. Even only this is very satisfying. I remember having some tough luck trying to set up a Lakka OS based system some years ago and then I struggled with PS1 and Dreamcast games. I had an old PC that could quite handle the performance.

I am ready, soon, to try to test some games. At this time things seem to be working fine. I have to wait for about 2,5 hours for the battery to charge. It was then promised that the controller would be functional for 20 hours. This is a huge upgrade to the controller that I used with smart phones earlier. I have written a blog post about it in this blog earlier. I have broken the glass of my screen of my P10 Lite. I didn’t want to show it. That was the reason why I didn’t include ít to this blog posts featured image.

I hope this blog post gave you inspiration. There is a very good guide for someone that wants to build or assemble a system like this for retro gaming. Here is the link:

Android Emulation Starter Guide

 

A Retro Gaming Book About Nintendo GameCube

Yesterday I got to add a new retro game book to my collection of books. It is the book about GameCube, “GameCube Anthology”. This book is published by Geeks Line Publishing. I was very content when I found out that this book was available very easily from a well-known Finnish web shop. Now, I am not going to advertise here. Let’s just say that it was easily available. The price was 42 euros with the shipping.

There has been a lot of conversation about GameCube lately. It is a very popular console among collectors. This anthology consists of 360 pages. It is written in English. Through these pages the book tells the reader about technology and how the process of developing the console formed. There are games presented. Actually ALL games that were released, that makes the total of 647 games. It includes games that were exclusively released in Japan, USA or Europe. So, this is all good information for a GameCube collector.

I am not so familiar with Geeks Line Publishing. I did find also a book about Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES for short, and a book about Super Nintendo Entertainment System, or SNES. These both are available from the same web shop. I figured I am most interested currently in GameCube, so I picked this one up. Although a book about NES or SNES would sound interesting to me, also. As I browse through this publishers website I find that they have published similar books about other retro game consoles like PlayStation. All these books seem to be targeted for a collector.

GameCube is a very interesting system. It brings me closer to the feel of 2000s retro games that have this particular combination of game play and 3D graphics. I don’t have so many games currently for this system. I have all in all about maybe 15 or 20 games for GameCube. I have the remake of the first Resident Evil and RE zero, Super Mario Sunshine, Need For Speed Underground and Tony Hawks Pro Skater 4, just to name some games. There were several kind of “new” and “wild” ideas concerning the design of GameCube. First of all the controller was something other than those Dual Shock or original Xbox controllers we were used to. It was also something different to have these small 1,4 GB game discs instead of DVD game discs that had 4,7 GB of space for the game. There was no hard disk. You had to use a memory card. There were also four spots for a controller, so, you could play multiplayer on only one screen.

Why Nintendo did these decisions with the design? I think they probably wanted to stand out and create something unique that gaming fans would love. In my thinking this was a success. How otherwise would you still be playing these GameCube’s games after over 20 years since its release. GameCube sold almost 22 million units. It was manufactured between 2001 and 2007. GameCube was facing tough competition from Sony’s PlayStation 2, original Xbox and of course from Sega’s Dreamcast, that sold “only” 9 million units worldwide. PS2 was  the greatest gaming system back then when it comes to sold units. It sold over 150 million units.

I am hoping to read this book soon. I am currently reading some other stuff also. It definitely seems promising. Maybe I even figure some new games that I would like to add to my collection. It’s just that these games prices are a bit high right now. So, it’s not a good idea to spend all your money to GameCube games. Maybe we will get a GameCube mini console, soon, who knows?

Could This Be The Answer?

With all these hardware consoles you get a sense that there could be an easier solution. This answer would be in this case one single personal computer connected to the 4K telly with a single HDMI cord. It would take only one HDMI port. This isn’t a hallucination. There already are several computers available for this task. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the power that one modern PC today holds can handle almost any gaming console emulator from NES to PS4.

You would need one PC. This would cost something from 300 euros to several thousands of euros. You would also need a controller. I prefer Xbox Series S/X controller when it comes to emulator gaming. If you would like to change a controller between systems you would need to assign keys over and over again. You could be able to make a profile for every controller of every system. However it would be easier to play all systems with only one controller.

The first thing you need with this kind of setup is a reliable Linux operating system dedicated to emulation. At first it seems I would choose Lakka OS. It is a nice emulator that allows you to run several different emulators of different gaming systems. After setting up you don’t need to actually unplug your controller or get to your keyboard at all. So, I prefer Lakka OS. There are other operating systems available, like Retropie, Recalbox and Batocera. The last mentioned can be run from inserted USB stick without any other kind of installation.

If you want to play emulated games on systems like GameCube, PS2, original Xbox and Sega Dreamcast, you will need a powerful computer. I would say that you need more than a Raspberry Pi 4 can provide. I am not going to give you detailed specifications here. We can of course check what are the recommended requirements for an emulator like PCSX2. We can get to a conclusion that you would need at least 8 GB of RAM and a GPU with something like 4 GB of VRAM and capability to run DirectX 11 or OpenGL 4.5. Well, what about the processor? The processor would need to support AVX2, have a rating of 2600 and have four cores with or without hyper threading.

This kind of an emulation station could be your solution to this very interesting question. As prices of games are ricing this would make your wallet heavier at least for a while and enable you to play lots of retro game content. There is of course also the question about breaking every copyright law that exists. This is a difficult matter. Let’s just say that it is not legal to load hundreds of games from internet for free. While this is illegal there seems to be very few choices. You can pay hundreds of euros of games that cannot or are very hard to rip to ROM file and play with your emulator. Some emulators need also the BIOS of the system they are emulating.

Nintendo has been busy bringing its retro content available for those that have an online Nintendo account. You can probably figure how popular retro games currently are. It must be stated that it would be nice, for us game hobbyists, to be able to somehow get our hands to this content for a reasonable price. Playing original games on original hardware is becoming more and more expensive. And it must be said that game consoles don’t last for several decades and must be at some point at least repaired.

Some More Hype for The GameCube Gaming Console

The game I have been playing lately is Medal of Honor – Frontline for GameCube. I managed to get a copy of this game and it’s a cheap purchase. If you consider the hype that surrounds GameCube nowadays the price for this game was low. I have seen many GC games sold for hundreds of euros. I am not going that way…at least not yet.

What do I think about the game? It’s a nice and kind of early first person shooter. There was a  Medal of Honor released also at the same time for PC. They somehow wanted to separate the console version from PC version. This happened in 2002.

GameCube controller brings this games input a bit more sensitive. It is although far from perfect. If you compare this FPS game to what we see and feel today it is not even decent experience. But I am not a person that purely rates games and especially when they are retro games. You got to just give props to the makers. It has been over twenty years and a game that you can play today is valuable in this way in my opinion.

We can take Halo and compare it to Medal of Honor – Frontline. Where Halo wins is the smoothness of controlment. Just the way that your crosshair moves over the screen feels magical. I think Halo was the first FPS that actually worked very nicely in this matter.

I somehow still like the feel of this game because it just brings so many memories to my mind. If the controlling is a bit clumsy there are still elements in this game that I like.

I have many other games for GameCube. It’s a nice gaming console. The controller is unbeliavable especially when you consider that it’s over 20 years old. If you like retro gaming I can definitely recommend for you to get yourself a GameCube.

Are You Ready?

Xbox Series X was released November 10th 2020. It has been about two and a half of year. It has been a successful and popular gaming device. PlayStation 5 was released at almost same time. Nintendos latest gaming console was Switch and it was released in 2017.

Are you actually ready to buy another console? There have already been some information leaked about the new and upcoming Xbox console. It has been six years since Switch was released. It would make sense that Nintendo would release the next new console in this new console generation.

I think Xbox Series X has still a lot to give. I think also that it will sell even more when it becomes available more openly aand freely. There have been some difficulties in delivering consoles to consumers to buy them since this gaming systems release. I am still kind of waiting for some great game titles for this console.

Technology companies keep pushing new hardware in the direction of consumers. This isn’t a new fact. You can see this clearly. Just take a look at smart phone manufacturers. This matter is present also in personal computers. Even some software companies are pushing people to update to their operating system that actually runs on a computer that has to be powerful.

The question seems to be – where are these new and amazing games for Xbox Series X? We haven’t seen many game titles released recently. We have seen games like Hogwarts Legacy and Elden Ring. But I still think that there is a need for some attracting new games for todays newest game console.

What about our screens? Would you update your gaming television also if there would be a new game console released tomorrow? Would you have to make that update? Would you like to make that update? And finally what would it cost? Would we be gaming with screens that are even sharper than 4K? There are so many questions.

I was actually thinking about this when I handled my Nintendo Switch the other day. How does a game consoles price take a form? You can get the newest Nintendo console for about 300 euros. But, yes there is a but, you don’t get a decent gaming controller with the system. You have to buy a new controller also. I had to pay 70 euros for a good controller also. Xbox Series X had a controller invcluded with the system. But, yes there is a but also here, I had to buy a cable for the controller. Eventually I bought a battery and a charger also. They were cheap after all.

So, there’s a price that you pay for the gaming system. There are also other matters that might make the price even higher. And of course you have to buy a game or two if you want to enjoy your new gaming console. I am not so excited about these new and upcoming gaming consoles. I am hoping that there will still be some nice gaming titles to be avaialble for Xbox Series X and PS5 and also Nintendo Switch…and why not even for PC.

The Enemy of My Dear Hobby

Where should I begin. Firstly I must admit that I am frustrated with this issue. GameCube seems to be very popular retro gaming system right now. It has been maybe six moths that I bought this console. GameCube was released in 2002 in Europe. So this console might be 20 years old. Who knows, exactly?

Of course the hardware has its limitations. It would be much nicer if I could just rip the games that I have to a rom file and install for example Batocera or some other Linux OS to any computer that meets the system requirements to play these GameCube games. Currently there is no solution like this. There is nobody selling any kind of hardware to ripping your roms to be used by you only…and you already own these games!

Small gaming stores have a responsibility. But that responsibility for me is very limited. I understand that they can only give you a guarantee of one or maybe three months. But where are the experts that are able to repair these old gaming consoles?

What is my issue here? The answer is that my GameCube refuses to handle game discs properly. I have already cleaned the disc reader very carefully. I did that once. After that the console worked just fine…for maybe an hour! I have also unplugged the power and AV cables and plugged them in again. This also makes GameCube do something but it clearly isn’t the right solution.

This is the same problem I had also with my original Xbox and my older PS2. Both of these machines are out of use and I am keeping them in a storage right now. These consoles are definitely of a low quality. If you compare these devices to for example my Xbox 360 or my PSOne you definitely get the picture.

These problems make me think once again if its really comfortable to spend so much effort to getting an old physical device to run your retro games on. It makes me, and maybe even you, consider buying some newer hardware. But why, oh why, aren’t there a solution here for us retro heads? Why can’t you make a new GameCube mini console? Or maybe a device that we could rip our games to another device or computer?

GameCube is right now a popular device. For a while ago I also bought a HDMI adapterto my GameCube. There are plenty of games available right now. Prices of these games are also high. There seems to be a certain appeal to this system. And I defionitely would like to play these types of games.

We are desperately waiting for Nintendo or maybe some other party to release a better console for playing the games of this system. I can guarantee that it would make you some money. And please…make it available also in where I live and that is of course, Finland.

Some Tips for NHL 97 (SNES)

Be it SNES or Sega Mega Drive – I love NHL 94.  I just like it so much. In its time it was popular and appreciated ice hockey game. NHL 97 for SNES is very similar in many ways. I decided to pick this game and buy it because I liked NHL 94 so much and I hoped it would have a decent season mode.

I start to play this game. I am greeted with some title screens. There appears to be some kind of a menu. I decide to first play an exhibition game to find out how to play this game. Since I have so solid experience from NHL 94 I decide to try to play this in difficulty of Expert which is the toughest difficulty level out of three.

I picked Anaheim Mighty Ducks because I like to play with Selänne and Karyia. They are fast and good players also in overall. After three rounds I haven’t scored a goal. It seems that it is hard to make one. I seem to loose the puck all the time. I didn’t set fighting on but I guess I will have to test playing also with that setting on.

I finally loose the first game in overtime as computer scores the first, and last, goal of overtime. I decide to try to play a season. The menu is a bit confusing. I manage to create a new player and select a team. I also adjust the difficulty level to a bit lower setting.

This game feels a lot like NHL 94. There are many things done a bit differently althought. The graphics and sounds have been moulded a bit. There are fights which do not exist in NHL 94. Scoring a goal is more difficult or at least it is modified. This is all in all a good matter. I have played NHL 94 so much that it would simply be boring for me to keep scoring and winning games 10 to 0.

I have some tips for players of NHL 97. Don’t tackle a player that has a breakaway. If you do the opponent will almost every time get a penalty shot. It isn’t worth mking that risk. Just try to distract the player that has the puck without tackling. You can use pass button but the referee might consider that to be tackling also.

There is a sure way to score in NHL 94. You have to skate with your player that has the puck to the other corner of the ice and then start moving to the other side going on the front of the goal and goal keeper and then shoot the puck while moving from left-to-right or right-to-left depending on the point you started. This way, or at least the game thinks so, the goalie is put to a side-to-side movement and you will definitely score a goal this way.

However I didn’t get to try this. NHL 94 gets boring quickly if you use this method to score like 20 goals in every game. So that is the reason why I avoid using this way to score a goal. I have to play this more to find out more ways to score a goal. One sure way seems to be to get in a breakaway and then press several times left-right-left on the game pad or right-left-right depending once again how you start the combination of key presses.

You have to be careful when your goalie has the puck. Avoid passing the puck when you have the puck near the goal. Don’t pass the puck from another side to the other side so that it passes directly in front of the goal. If your opponent gets to intercept your pass and your goalie is positioned badly this might lead to your opponent to score a goal.

NHL 97 seems to be a different game if you compare it directly to NHL 94. It is a sequel after all. I played the SNES version. I also have a PC big box version which is of course completely different game since you get to run it on such a powerful platform. I am talking about the power of a PC compared to SNES. The PC version has 3D modeled graphics and the gameplay differs also a lot.

NHL 97 is a good hockey game. I think althought that it isn’t one for me to continue playing for a long time. There are better hockey games. Some nice ones are NHL 08 on PS2 and NHL 2000 on PS1. I think you should check them out in case you like ice hockey games. NHL 97 was a cheap one to buy for me. I got it for 15 euros. I ordered some other SNES games with the same order so that’s how it goes this time.

My Current Tiny Collection of NES Games

I didn’t have a Nintendo Entertainment System when I was a child. It didn’t prevent me from getting my hands to this console. I remember that at least two of my friends from school had this gaming system. We played Super Mario and Mega Man just to name a few of my favorites. This nostalgic feeling is the reason I started collecting NES games.

I have a retro gaming console that can handle NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy and Master System game cartridges. That’s right. I play my 80s and 90s retro games from real physichal cartridges. I have used also emulators on different computers, including Raspberry Pi, but I find it satisfying to play my retro games the way that I do.

I have also an original NES controller that I use while I play NES games. Let’s get to my collection. I have 12 NES games. I have been collecting games of this game console for about three years. That’s when I got the first game of this system.

The first game in this collection was Super Mario Bros. 3. It is in my opinion maybe the best game and definitely the best platformer game for this legendary gaming system. If you look carefully to this image we have here you can find that I have Double Dragon 1 and 2, Big Foot, Gremlins 2, Kid Ikarus, Gradius, The Adventure of Link, Tetris, Total Recall, Ice Climber and Gauntlet 2.

There are still some games I would like to buy and add to my collection. Some of these games are Mega Man, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario 1 and 2, Punch Out, Probotector and some others that just don’t come to mind right now. There are also many great games that I don’t even yet know about. I have imagined that I would some day get a CRT television that would enable me to play shooter games like Duck Hunt. There are also some very good shooters for PlayStation 1.

How much have I paid for these games. I think the most expensive from these games is the Zelda game. It cost me 80 euros. I just had to buy it. This game is a bit rare so I was lucky to even have an opportunity to buy it. I buy my NES games usually from different game shops. Sometimes I find a game from flee market. Because of corona I haven’t been to flee markets a lot lately but this I know is going to change. The cheapest games in this collection are somewhere around 15 euros.

So for this small collection you can probably spend something from 300 euros to 500 euros. I suggest that if you are going to play your NES games also and not just collect them just buy them like two or three games at a time. This way you can enjoy playing them. I think one of the most important ways to enjoy games that bring you nostalgia is to just give them enough time. You can definitely spend two to three hours for one game. You can also try to complete them. To this day I haven’t been able to beat Super Mario Bros 3. I have spent lot of time in trying to do so.

I think you have already some good ideas for starting to collect NES cartridges to your own collection. Buying retro games can also be a way to invest your money in case you become financially challenged some day. There are lots of collectors out there. I almost forgot one good title and that is the first Final Fantasy. This is a one rare game. Also some NES games are very expensive today. You can see a game that costs several hundreds of euros or even more than that.

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