Recent Game Purchases

I saw some amazing games on one nice game shop. Some of them could be considered retro games but also a PS3 game and an Xbox 360 game caught my eye. I made the order and it only took two days for the package to arrive. Just yesterday I got to pick the package.

So I ordered five games. The first two caught my attention as they were GameCube games. I have a strong effort in collecting as many and preferably good and actually playable games in this small but steadily growing collection of GameCube games. The two games were Mortal Kombat – Deadly Alliance and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4. That Mortal Kombat game has a grade 81 / 100 on Metacritic while THPS 4 has 91 / 100.

I also got another NES game that I can now add to my collection. This was a role playing game called Gauntlet II. I really didn’t know a whole lot about this game before I bought it. But it didn’t make me miserable at all and this had everything to do with it being so cheap. It cost me only 25 euros. And it was in a decent condition. It was loose but that’s how I like my NES games. I don’t actually like so much of the packaging of NES games…for some reason that I cannot explain clearly.

I also got, for very cheap of course, a game for PS3 and a game for Xbox 360. The PS3 one was Castlevania – Lords of Shadow. I have played Castlevania games from 1980s and this game in my thinking is based on these older games. I think it is an attempt to offer some high quality graphics and game play for the fans and maybe even for someone that doesn’t even have any idea about these original games.

The last game that I got yesterday is a Need For Speed game. The title is as presented completely “Need For Speed – The Run”. For this game I don’t have so high expectations. There are probably tens (probably not hundreds :D) of these NFS titles out there. I think some of them are really good and others are not so good. I finally decided to give this a try.

I got these games just yesterday so I haven’t yet had time to play them. As I have written here in this blog earlier – I have a huge backlog. The thing that I’m glad about is that I actually almost completed Burnout Takedown. I got now 88 percentage of it completed. I also got my hands dirty, oh boy, what a way to say it, and started playing, finally, Crash Bandicoot 4. And what it comes to completion I now have about 35 percentage of this game finished.

Right now, as you can probably imagine, I am just a little bit tired. I am, again, trying to stay active and bring you, my dear readers, some new content at a good pace. It has been a week or so since my last blog post. I wanted to give you something to read and think once again. I hope we see again soon!

Games That Are Too Repetitive?

There are some good things about Nintendo GameCube and then there are some bad things about it too. I lately got this gaming console. I decided to remove Nintendo Wii from my setup for now. Wii might have been great but I just didn’t have time or inspiration to get into the games that I bought for it deeply. I did play GameCube games on it and went and bought GameCube. Now I have many games, two controllers and a memory card for it.

I absolutely love how the original game pad of GameCube works. The layout is way different from regular PlayStation and Xbox game pads layouts. It’s once again a case of Nintendo being original. I like the format in which games are delivered. GameCube is from the generation of consoles that includes original Xbox, PS2 and Dreamcast.

There are however some things about GameCube that I don’t like. I am not using, at the moment, the digital output of my GameCube since I don’t have the necessary adapters or cables. I have a 4K capable television and I have to say this – the graphics look crappy. I just have to adjust to this. An attitude of not taking it too seriously and thinking that this definitely is a retro console helps a bit. After all it has been twenty years since it was released.

I have very good games for GameCube. If you think about Resident Evil Zero you get how nice games there are for this gaming console. I have a sport title NBA Courtside 2002 that features Kobe Bryant on its cover. Then I have a driving game. That game is Need For Speed Underground. What do I think about this game? There rarely are bad games in this game series. I just like some of them more than others.

Need For Speed Underground is a bit repetitive. What that means is that it forces you to drive same tracks over and over again with a same car. Although there is some sort of experience score that keeps updating even if you don’t finish first in a race. In some races you have to finish first to get to the next race. The progression is slow and of course this makes the time to complete the whole game a lot longer.

It is said that Sega Mega Drive games were in overall too repetitive. You cannot say that about all games released on Mega Drive. Let’s take an example. Think about Gynoug. It is a very nice shooter that sadly is awfully repetitive. It is very easy to get stuck in Gynoug. Then you will find yourself playing the same part of the game and starting from the same point over and over. You cannot say this about Sonic the Hedgehog or Streets of Rage.

What are some things in gameplay that make game to have variability? The ability to save at any time is one key to this. Or the ability to not save at all. Then you will have to start playing the game all over again. But it keeps you from going the same short part all over again. Some gamesĀ  have passwords instead of an ability to save a game. Constant progression is one thing. You might have experience points that you get from for example every race even if you don’t win the race. This gives you a feel of progression. And when your experience score unlocks a new track or a new car it makes you also progress.

Having a difficulty option is in my opinion a way better for increasing the amount of times that you can keep yourself playing the game all over again even if you have finished already on a low difficult level. You can decide for yourself if you want to keep playing the same game with a higher difficulty. Sometimes you get stuck in a game. Then it might help to look up for help from a walkthrough online. Today there is lots of help available. You can for example use YouTube if you like. It is nice to know that there are these specialists of gaming available here in the internet.

To make the conclusion for this blog post we can say that GameCube is a very nice gaming console that has some games on it that are a bit repetitive. Being repetitive is only a cheap way to make people play a game for longer time. It should be a lesson for game developers working today and in future also. Mega Drive also has games that are repetitive. But it is clear that not all games on it are as dynamic as can be when it comes to gameplay. Enjoy your games, be them retro or new, and have a nice day!

 

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