PS3 Exclusive Game Recommendations for a Prodigal Sony User

I really enjoy the Resistance franchise, and much moreso than Killzone. If you enjoy platformers, there is Ratchet and Clank and the Sly Cooper collection (these would also be great for your nephew). There's also Metal Gear 4, Gran Turismo 5, and Heavy Rain. 

Killzone LOOKS better, but Killzone 2 is a giant, difficult pain in the ass. Resistance is easier to get into, and just more FUN overall. You could easily skip Resistance 1, as it's a PS3 launch title and looks like it. Resistance 2 is a major visual upgrade, and like I said, more fun to play. Plus it's made by Insomniac, who also made Ratchet and Clank. Insomniac, like Naughty Dog, has my undying devotion until the day they fold.

I'd also be lying if I told you they were must plays. Uncharted, Infamous, Ratchet and Clank, and Gran Turismo are the top PS3 franchises in my mind.

Get on God of War first. No questions asked, buy the Collection and 3.

 

Demon's Souls, before you blow the $60 (well, you're in Australia, so $27,000) on Dark Souls. Hard as a motherfuck, but rewarding. And beautiful.

 

Heavy Rain. Might work for you. Might not. But the experiment is worth rewarding. And completely unlike anything else you'll play.

 

Heavenly Sword. Frustratingly short, but damn decent. And PRETTY.

 

3D Dot Game Heroes. It's Playstation Zelda. Like, 8-Bit Zelda. With a sense of humor.

 

The best exclusive shit is on the PSN, though. Wipeout HD. Super Stardust.  Anything thatgamecompany made. The Last Guy. Any number of cheap PS1 classics.

 

Killzone, Resistance, MAG? All generic as shit FPSs. Just like Ratchet and Clank are generic platformers. That said, the Sly Cooper games are a lot of fun. The Collection's probably great.

 

The Prince of Persia HD Collection's been good to me too.

I LOVED God of War 1, but found the others a chore to get through. And I really have no idea why, as I LOVE Greek mythology.

Justin mentioned thatgamecompany...if anything you go out and download the fuck out of Journey right now.

Currency converter says just under $15, not far off from $15 US dollars it is listed on PSN Store.

I highly disagree with Sonys shooters being generic.

There isn't a game out there that does what MAG does. 256 player battles with no lag is impressive. The emphasis on team play and unlock system is as deep as they come, and visually it might not be as gorgeous as crysis on pc but it can compete with the likes of shooters on consoles such as Halo and Call of Duty.

The Resistance franchise is anything but generic. It has an excellent story set in an alternate history where an alien invasion occurs around the world during World War 2. The art direction in each game feels completely different but the atmosphere, character designs and set pieces are top notch. Honestly I feel that the atmosphere and set pieces are the best in the FPS genre. There isn't an FPS I know of that has boss battles as grand as 300 feet tall alien Leviathan or Mother Spinner. Also, being created by Insomniac, the weapon design is the absolute best in any shooter franchise that I can think of. There's weapons that can cause opponents to turn into blobs and attack other enemies, weapons that freeze enemies until they shatter and rocket launchers that lock on to multiple targets at once. Resistance has a great story, and some of the best campaigns in shooter games.

Killzone is a completely different beast altogether. Visually IMO, killzone destroys any shooter available on consoles, including Halo Reach, Battlefield 3, And Crysis 2. The visuals are incredibly detailed and the environments are lush and varied(in killzone 3). Honestly I think Killzone 2 and 3 can compete with any game on the market whether its Forza, or Uncharted or whatever beautiful games are out these days. The weapons feel perfect, they don't feel underpowered (like a lot of CoD weapons do) and they don't feel unbalanced (like in Bf3, or Halo), they're just right. The movement has the perfect weight and finess to it, its not like halo where you feel like youre 300 pounds and in space and its not like call of duty where youre a gymnist on speed. Its hard to describe but it's great. Also the multiplayer in my openion is the best FPS multiplayer in the world. Its class based like Team Fortress or Battlefield, and which class you use plays a big part in winning matches. There's a mode called war zone where objectives change consistently throughout the match, and depending on which class you are you can find these objectives easier or support the team effectively. The story is meh but the campaigns are fun and feature some phenomenal voice work by Hollywood talent such as Brian Cox and Ray Winstone.

I recxomend that you get playstaion plus. It's 50 bucks a year and you get lots of great features and more importantly, free games. Right now you can get infamous 2, ratchet and klank all 4 one, just cause 2, and I believe uncharted 1 and 2 for free if you have playstation plus.

I'll heartily second the Heavenly Sword recommendation. At full price I probably would have been slightly irked at the length, but even if the gameplay is fairly generic it's got a great style, and Andy Serkis kills it as the villain. I'd also strongly recommend the developers follow-up, Enslaved for pretty much the same reasons, though that one's not platform specific. Other than that, I'm partial to the Yakuza series myself, though I mainly use it as a wandering around simulator.

 

Whatever you do though, stay away from Lair. If someone on the street hands you a free copy, you throw it back in their face and you run. YOU RUN. I can put up with a lot in a game, but that might be the worst gaming experience I've had in the past decade. Even with the non-motion controls that game is the rank trash.

Infamous 1 & 2 are in my opinion the best exclusives on the PS3. So I'd recommend you get to playing them immediately.

 

Another game I'd strongly recommend for you is the severely overlooked and underrated Folklore.

 

 

Killzone? Space Marines. Resistance?  WWII, but built/plays like space marines. MAG? Robot Space Marines, now with even LESS story. Also, Resistance has a fantastic backdrop, but it doesn't even TRY utilizing it as much as it should It's a flavorless Half Life 2.  Take graphics and technical cockmeasuring out of the equation, You're left with three entirely uninspired shooters. There's no Prey or Condemned in the PS3's lineup. Screw that system's exclusive FPSs.

 

For the love of Jesus, listen to Splatoon about Lair. I picked it up for three goddamn dollars at a mom-n-pop video store last year, AND REGRETTED SPENDING ALL THREE OF THOSE DOLLARS.

There are tens of thousands of people who feel that MAG is the best console game ever made - you can go over to the official MAG message boards to see what I'm talking about.  There's nothing "generic" about MAG - if FPS games are not your thing that's fine, but there's nothing more or less stupid about military FPS games than there are about fantasy games or sports games.

 

MAG doesn't have a story, it has a "set-up".  If you want a great story, read the bible or watch "Gone with the Wind".  People made their own stories by establishing clans and strategies - MAG was a very popular and successful war simulator involving hundreds of thousands of players for over a year.  MAG was lightyears ahead of it's time and the only reason it died is because the higher-ups at Zipper shoved all their time and money into Socom 4 to make a COD clone instead of focusing on MAG DLC or MAG 2.  If you look at the numbers, MAG sold twice as much as Homefront, which is getting a sequel.  MAG was the future of gaming, which is why Sony and CCP are dumping millions into DUST 514 and why, if it ever happens, Battlefront 3 will likely be a MAG clone.

 

MAGs problem is that it was the opposite of generic - it was too innovative and ahead of it's time and it became impossible for Zipper and Sony to manage.

A few interesting multiplayer gameplay mechanics and insane numbers of simultaneous players employed to a bland pablum of warmed over concepts/atmosphere/character design. Nothing about the play was good enough to maintain interest.  It's a tech demo more than it is a game.

You guys..jeez. Where's the love?

 

Anyway. I hated Mag but you're here to talk exclusives so if you can get it cheap, why not? The backdrop for Resistance is kind of cool and number 1 and 3 both have a "weapon wheel" so you get the pleasure of carrying a thousand pounds worth of weaponry and it really does make them more fun than 2..which went with the lame ass Halo two weapons only setup.

 

Ratchet and Clank will blow your nephews mind. My daughters both love them and they're not really "gamer" girls. The series is made by Insomniac, who also did Resistance, so it's like the crazy weapons from Resistance cranked up to 11. And though it didn't get any really amazing reviews Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One has four player co op and it's a lot of fun with your kids..or in your case nephew to tool around in a Ratchet and Clank "lite" environment.

 

The whole Uncharted series is great. Pretty solid mechanics though guys take a few more shots than reality would like to argue. AND it might be one of the only franchises that won't be bashed to shit on the boards for it's portrayal of women...I said might.

 

Demon's Souls is one of my favorite games of all time. Don't think the hype is light though, it isn't what I would call a casual game so much as being water boarded and thanking From Software for the pleasure.

 

I love the Metal Gear series to death but 4 is the epitome of, "Wow this game is great..I'm sneaking around and it looks really cool..AH! Giant robot thing that moos like a cow!..oh okay this guy is talking to me *ten minutes later*..Man I have to pee...*go to pee*...*come back still talking*..Hmm, this guy is kind of a dick..I'm hungry..*go make a pizza only to comeback and they're still talking*."

 

The God of War collection and the Sly Cooper collection are no brainers. They're both a lot of fun and Kratos, from God of War, is the poster child for rage quits. Not in the sense that the game is too hard but he just rage quits on life in general. All bro.

 

Your nephew might dig Katamari Forever too. It's /very/ japanese but pretty funny and definitely kid friendly.

 

3d Dot Game Heroes is great. Buy it.

 

Socom is boring to me but you might dig it, I kind of doubt it though.

 

Modnation Racers is another game your nephew might be into if he likes racing.

 

Gran Turismo, meh. not my thing but they all look really, really pretty.

 

Heavy Rain is more of a "movie" than a game but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's got a slow burn feel to it. "JAAAAASON!"

 

Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are obvious buys. I like Shadow more, but they're both great.

 

Feel free to tell me how dumb my choices are or how you hate them, etc. That'll really help Rain figure out what he'll enjoy.

Forgot that Katamari Forever was PS3  exclusive. It's the most fun game in the series since the PS2 titles. Go for this.

MAG's problem was that it came out at the wrong time. It came out aganst fucking Mass Effect 2, and no gamer is going to pick MAG over that. And they released it too early. A few months after launch, Zipper released a huge update that was dubbed "MAG 2.0" that refined the gameplay added free maps, brushed up the textures and fixed a lot of the bugs and matchmaking problems. They should have waited, but they didn't.

Unfortunately, now pretty much all games are released before they're finished and the early buyers are beta testers.  "We'll patch it later" has become the new "We'll fix it in post".  Skyrim is a pretty good example, as is MAG.  MAG wasn't really "broken" though, some of the guns were OP, so instead of giving those guns more recoil they made ALL guns less accurate ... it's not a huge surprise that Zipper was shuttered a couple months ago.  CCP has worked out a deal where they won't have to have patches for DUST pre-approved by Sony, so the game can be patched as needed, which CCP has explicitly stated that MS would not let them do.  That's why you're going to continue to have better exclusives on the PS3, even though the coding architecture is more difficult for developers.  Unfortunately, the early word on DUST is that it's not that fun, and I'm not wild about the "night at the arcade" pay-model either.

 

That's fine that you consider MAG a tech demo, in as much as the Wright Brothers flight as Kitty Hawk was a tech demo

You're in for such a treat.

Yeah, they're a lot of fun.

Good times are to be had with Part 1. Prepare to have your mind blown by how spectacular Uncharted 2 is.

I'm not sure how much I can and cannot say about DUST, but I was in the closed beta over the past weekend. All I'll say is that some people are going to love it. I will not be one of the them.

Yeah, I lasted about ten minutes in the DUST beta.  I'll give it another shot once it's out of beta.  I have my eye on CS:GO

Wait!  Did you finish Uncharted???

Fillion IS Drake!

 

10 years later...

Yeah, Uncharted, Infamous, God of Wars, RATCHETs (HD collection for the PS2 out this year, that'll be badass), Ico and Shadow HD collection, Resistance 3 is pretty good.  Heavy Rain I don't think is good, but I think it's worth playing, if that makes sense.  Resident Evil 5, if you can get a buddy.  Valkyrie Chronicles still looks amazing and is a damn cool turn based RPG, if you can get over the Japaness.  The best (unless you have a PC) version of Burnout Paradise is on Playstation and you can download the whole damn thing off PSN, so you can always have that awesome game ready at all times.  Same for Red Dead Redemption, if you didn't get the chance to experience this fantastic game, yet.  Oh, and Little Big Planet 2!

 

On the download front, Journey, Flower, Siren (creepy-ass horror game, in the Silent Hill style), all PixelJunk games, Joe Danger. 

 

And get Playstation Plus.  Free games and discounts, all the damn time.  It's worth it, much more than Gold.