The PlayStation 3 may have had a rough start, but by the generation’s end, it boasted an impressive library of exclusives and third-party selections. Internationally, it even managed to eclipse the Xbox 360 sales, taking a solid second place to the Wii. Of course, some games perform better on the Xbox 360, but the PS3 was occasionally a great platform to play these games on, too, as well as get the most from Sony’s PlayStation Studios. For this list, we didn’t include HD or digital ports from past consoles, just to keep it fresh. Here’s a selection of 50 games that we recommend you try out on the PS3!
1. Yakuza: Dead Souls – James
Kiryu just can’t catch a break, man
For fans of the Yakuza series, there is no shortage of games. You’ve got the mainline series, the “Kiwami” remakes, Yakuza Gaiden, Ishin, Judgment, the PSP Black Panther games, Kenzan (the only game not available in English) and finally Dead Souls. After playing through all of those, you’ll be thinking, “What on Earth could they possibly come up with now?” Zombies. It’s zombies. Taking place during an alternate Yakuza 4, a zombie virus breaks out and yada yada, you know the rest. The story isn’t really the point with this one, as with a lot of Yakuza content, it’s all about fun. Dead Souls is not considered a great game, but it’s a game that I enjoyed a lot.
Throughout the story, you play as a wide selection of dudes. The series’s main character Kiryu, Mad Dog Majima, Finance Good Guy Akiyama and somehow not dead Ryuji Goda. The story progresses through each character’s chapter much like in Yakuza 4, and then at the end, they all get together. If you’re familiar with Yakuza, you’ll be thinking, “Does Kiryu suplex a zombie in this? I have to know!” Unfortunately, the combat isn’t focused on melee combat. Instead, you rock a variety of deadly ranged weapons.
Mission after mission, you reach new areas of Yakuza mainstay city Kamourochou and unfortunately for you, the military has erected comically huge barriers to contain the outbreak. It’s a short game, but it doesn’t outlast its welcome. For anyone interested in playing an oddity, this one is well worth a look.
2. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots – Sean
“Evil is Powerful. But Courage Is Solid”
Metal Gear Solid 4 had the unenviable task of wrapping up the sprawling, decades-spanning narrative that Hideo Kojima and co had been crafting since the 80s. By the time this game rolled around back in 2008, fans knew what to expect: biting anti-war commentary, people with silly names prancing about delivering grandiose speeches, an insane level of detail and really long cutscenes. It’s that last point which has given Metal Gear Solid 4 its most prominent feature of notoriety, for better or for worse, since it has some really, really, really long stretches of cutscenes.
As a fan of the franchise, I was fine with setting the controller down, getting comfy and watching Snake reacting with mild confusion and grunts to massive exposition dumps, but I can’t deny that there’s a significant imbalance in the gameplay/story ratio within this game. Are MGS4’s cutscenes far too long and numerous, disrupting genuinely good gameplay sequences? Yes. Does MGS4 make some truly baffling pants-on-head story decisions that may put it at odds with previously established canon? Maybe. Do I love MGS4 regardless? You betcha.
3. Burnout Paradise – Riley
“Speed isn’t everything, someone else said. Well they were wrong of course” – DJ Atomika
Burnout Paradise took the formula that made the series special and applied it to an open world, with fantastic results. Paradise City has long, sprawling mountain routes, curved roads and a bustling city to spread carnage through. There are eight landmarks you’ll be racing through on each corner of the map, and how you get there is up to you. As you explore and learn the map, you’ll find and make your own shortcuts to get ahead in races.
Taking this fantastic formula for races, keeping modes like Road Rage, Crashing and Stunt Run allows for a diverse set of tasks to complete. The open world also allowed for time trials on individual roads you could dynamically compete with friends on, too. There are also hundreds of collectables spread out all over the map in the form of billboards and gates. See a nice car driving recklessly around the city? Take it down, and it’s yours. This gameplay formula cemented itself as an instant classic, and it’s truly a shame that the Burnout franchise died here.
4. Yakuza 4 – Dave
If you said “Kool and the Gang” in a borderline offensive Japanese accent, it wouldn’t sound that different to “Kiryu and the Gang”
Yakuza 4 is the first game in the series to feature an ensemble cast of playable characters. Surprisingly, each of them manages to be both distinct from and equal to the series mainstay Kazuma Kiryu in terms of personality, with their own motivations, fighting styles, and criminal occupations. Akiyama is a charismatic finance bro, Saejima is a herculean convict on the lam, and Tanimura is a cop.
It’s a Yakuza game, so you pretty much know what to expect. A beat’em up with RPG elements, a compelling crime-drama narrative, interspersed with long stretches where you wander around the Tokyo district of Kamurochou, completing sidequests involving the various wacky cartoon characters who make up its populace. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll scratch your head, you’ll play minigames. 4 is not as good an entry point as 0, but it’s easier to play on the PS3 (unless you speak Japanese, in which case you’d miss out on the sensational localisation!).
5. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time – Riley
“The name’s Sly. Sly Cooper. And I’m a thief, from a whole line of thieves.”
The long-awaited sequel to the legendary Sly Cooper trilogy hit the PS3 quite late into the generation. It took the formula established in Band of Thieves and expanded on it with more mission variety, deviously hidden clue bottles and more expansive hub worlds. Taking the time travel theme, you travel through different ages, with each era containing a different Cooper family member. Each character has their own gimmick, around which the missions and hub world are built.
If you’re new to Sly Cooper, it was the third in the trinity of mascot platformers on the PS2, and managed to survive into the PS3 era (RIP Jak and Daxter). It takes a stealthy approach to platforming, by sneaking, stealing and solving puzzles to traverse the world rather than the usual fast-paced running and jumping you’d expect. Not that Sly is slow, once you master the mechanics, you can beautifully glide from area to area, taking out guards and collecting loot. If you missed this entry, then please check it out. It continues the established story beautifully, and Sanzaru did an amazing job picking up Sly’s legacy.
6. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – Azza
Jack the Ripper returns as an edgy, white-haired anime character with mechanical components.
If you look at the title of this game and think “it’s a Metal Gear game” and then dismiss it, you, sir/ma’am, are judging a book by its cover. As this game is more like Ninja Gaiden than a stealth game.
If you like swords that can cut entire buildings in half, and you have a serial-killer-like happiness when you see blood fly. Then you’ve found your new favourite game, and I am happy for you!
You play as a cybernetic Raiden who was present in Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4. He is now a soldier for hire and has found that the art of swordplay is much more fun than stealthing around. Which I agree with, the game lets you know that this is an action game very quickly, as in the first level, he slices an entire metal gear in half!
The gameplay is fast and fluid, with a great challenge at higher difficulties requiring precise timings and combos to win. You Devil May Cry refugees will fit in here perfectly. Fast combos and clever use of switching between your primary and secondary weapons are key for survival, as the CPU can whoop you quickly if you aren’t careful. The boss fights can be very tough for the inexperienced, especially the ones at the end of the game, where precision cuts and fast movement are required.
The story is kind of grim, as there are parts of the story that are pretty morbid, with child soldiers being the point of discussion. But as long as you can stomach the mature themes, this game is a must-play.
7. Guitar Hero: World Tour – Riley
Ode to plastic music instruments!
The seventh generation of consoles was rife with gimmicks, and the Guitar Hero phase was smack bang in the middle of this. This one makes the list for having a little something more than the competition, whilst maintaining the series identity. This was the game to introduce the band concept from Rock Band into the Guitar Hero franchise, allowing vocals and drum gameplay. It also features guest characters that would show up to perform in your band, from Hayley Williams to Ozzy Osbourne. The story mode is a fun romp too, and the fact that you can customise every detail of your band is an excellent feature. You can spend literal hours making your perfect guitar.
The soundtrack carries these games, and personally, I think this one is the most diverse and exciting to this point. Sure, it doesn’t have Dragonforce, but it makes up for it with bands like Oasis, Bullet for my Valentine, The Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, and so much more. This is a solid entry to grab if you’re looking for that Guitar Hero nostalgia.
8. Nier – Kane
The spin-off to end all spin-offs
Knowing that Nier is based on an optional ending of the original Drakengard, where the main character gets teleported to a modern-day Tokyo and fights a god-like being in the city, sets the tone for this side series perfectly.
Opening in the months after the fight, things seem to have deteriorated significantly. Yona and Nier are starving on the streets of a deserted Tokyo. After making their way into a wrecked supermarket to look for medicine and food, they are attacked by mysterious, shadowy creatures, and you get your first taste of the fast-paced action combat. After clearing the fight, we have a 5000-year time skip.
Society seems to have regressed to medieval times. Nier and Yona (not explained yet how they’re here after 5000 years) live in a small house on the outskirts of a village, with Nier doing odd jobs to support them. Yona is deathly sick, and Nier sets off trying to find a way to save her, in the process starting a journey that will affect the whole world.
The story unfolds slowly while taking you through setpiece moments of action, regularly genre-swapping into different styles of gameplay, including a bullet hell shooter and, at one point, a text-based adventure. If you want to play something that will consistently surprise you throughout, this is one to play.
9. Resistance 3 – Sean
“You are the Resistance”
Resistance: Fall of Man was an early PS3 title that took Insomniac’s penchant for wacky weapon variety and plonked it into a muddy brown World War 2 shooter. Though the lore and world-building were interesting, the protagonist was a bit of a boring chap who didn’t really add much. He was a grunt, and of course, the Chimera were the true stars. Still, it had its charm with the aforementioned weapon variety allowing you to mess around with some truly fun guns.
The sequel pushed the franchise ahead, eschewing the ‘just use whatever you want at any time bro’ approach of the first game in favour of the ‘you have two guns, drop the one you don’t want’ style of gameplay of its contemporaries. Though I wouldn’t call it bad, it was definitely lacking something. The online was really fun though.
By the time of the third entry, things had changed. The old protagonist had been put on a boat in favour of one of your squaddies from Resistance 2, the plot was dialled back into a more personal story, the weapon wheel was back with even more fun new guns to play with, and everything just felt… better. It’s a shame this franchise seems to have fallen by the wayside in the years since. For what it’s worth, this is the best of the series.
10. Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time – Riley
“And remember, the universe has a wonderful sense of humour. The trick is, learning how to take a joke.”
Ratchet and Clank is a timeless series, starting as a satire of consumerism, before becoming a fantasy epic. The future trilogy on the PS3 is where this change really cemented itself, as the games became less about the parody aspect and more about Ratchet’s origin and dimensional space travel. A Crack in Time is the third game in the trilogy, so I would recommend playing them in order if you can. However, if you were to only play one, then this game is a masterful display of what makes the franchise great.
The story is gripping, with a central mystery and time travel as a plot device and a game mechanic. This results in rich storytelling and setups that pay off immediately through layers of added context. The planet variety, while small for the franchise, is expansive and features unique biomes and set pieces that set each planet apart. The weapons here are some of the best in the series, and are even customisable with gadgets that can change the element of weapons, the way they shoot and even how they function. You can even change the colour if you’re so inclined.
Super Mario Galaxy, with guns?
The traversal between planets is set in a small section of space, with enemies to shoot, side quests to complete, and smaller moons to explore, ala Mario Galaxy. What I love the most about this game, though, are the time logic Clank puzzles: they test your problem-solving skills by having you record paths to take to open doors, slow down time and create platforms with good timing and level-headed thinking. They really make you feel smart when you complete them. The only game to come close to this would be Rift Apart, but even that lacks some of the complexity.
Ratchet & Clank is Insomniac’s greatest accomplishment, in my opinion, and the PS3 games set a standard for the franchise that is still the blueprint to the franchise to this day. Without the polish and execution of the future trilogy, Rift Apart likely wouldn’t exist, and I’m happy that one of the Sony 3D platforming mascots is still thriving to this day.
Post Comment