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ATM: PS3 game recommendations

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Shhhh, while they’re all talking about Beatles or Prog or some such….

I just picked up a cheap as chips PS3, primarily for my boy to play the Lego games his mates are all playing. I already had my old PS2, with the Star Wars Legos and he loves that. So he’s happy as larry running around various different Lego worlds, acting out Batman or Star Wars or the Avengers.

Unfortunately the old game loving me has woken up a little bit. Hmmm, I thought, this console is on it’s way out, but there are 100s of games I’ve never even considered. And they’ll be cheap as chips too.

So recommendations please. Anything at all to be honest, but if you can mix it up a little, ie best FPS, best RPG, best racer, etc etc. I like games with big worlds, be they past present or future or fantasy environments, like a good FPS for quick sessions (ooer missus), and am definitely going to buy the Arkham series. Anything with spaceships might go down a treat too.

Also, any other recommendations for family friendly PS3 beyond the Legos. After all I can’t just be buying games for me, when I bought the console for the boy….

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Comments

  1. Wise man! My son hoodwinked me into buying a PS4 for his birthday.

    Games are all costly and there are not so many that are appropriate.

    He’s playing the very wonderful and very inappropriate GTA (the latest version). Not at all surprised it is so popular. An enormous open world to explore.

    Am looking for a cheap ps3. The games for that are now going for a song, as you say.

  2. Admittedly, I haven’t played all of these, but I do work with a lot of games people and, y’know, they talk.

    Uncharted 2 (Action/Adventure) – the best in the series. Basically a bit like being in an interactive Indiana Jones movie. Very good.

    The Last of Us (Action/Adventure) – by common consent the best game on PS3.

    Red Dead Redemption (Sandbox) – Grand Theft Auto with cowboys.

    Borderlands 2 (FPS) – shooter with a sense of humour. Lots of fun, insane weaponry everywhere.

    Bioshock (FPS) – excellent shooter with a really strong visual style and storyline.

    However, if I were going to buy two games and two games only for the PS3, they would be as follows:

    The Orange Box (FPS) – can be picked up for about £20, and contains Portal, Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. That’s a fantastic puzzle game, one of the all time great FPS games and just about the best online FPS I’ve ever played. The best value you’ll find anywhere, hours of play.

    Dark Souls II (RPG) – I haven’t actually played this, but I’m currently playing Bloodborne, its successor (and possibly the best video game I’ve ever played), on PS4 and I gather they are very similar. Absolutely hard as nails, so expect to get your arse handed to you at times, but some of the best game design I’ve ever seen and a massive game world you can totally sink into.

  3. SKYRIM is a huge open world RPG that was probably my favourite game of the last console generation. You can get lost in it – my final game save was 250 hours+. Very highly recommended if you’re in any way inclined to that sort of thing.
    If you prefer an SF RPG which may scratch your spaceship itch, the Mass Effect trilogy is excellent. I might prefer that to Skyrim actually.

    Bingo is right about the Orange Box, but if you’re new, or new back, to games I’d steer clear of Dark Souls 2 for the time being. It is absolutely bastard difficult.

    • You’re probably right about Dark Souls, but I do think the From games offer a kind of retro thrill, in that they’re a throwback to the days when games would kick your backside up and down the block. Should be familiar to anyone who played in the 80s/early 90s, before all the hand-holding began.

      Have you played Bloodborne at all? I need someone to enthuse about this game with.

      • I haven’t played Bloodborne yet. I’ve only had a PS4 for a month or two, but everyone tells me it’s the one to get, so,it’s on the list. Playing Witcher 3 at the moment, which is a very good RPG that falls just short of being properly top notch thanks to a nasty little thread of sexism that keeps unspooling throughout it. When it’s not trying to show you every female character’s tits, it’s great.

        Looking forward to the Uncharted anthology soon (had a 360 last gen so missed them all) and then Fallout in November promises to be right up my street, practically knocking on my front door in fact.

        • Aha – I was thinking of doing Witcher next.

          Let me know what you think of Bloodborne once you get round to it. I’d had a four year lay off from triple A console games because of having little kids, but I picked up a PS4 earlier this year, decided to dive back in at the deep end and was absolutely knocked sideways by this title. It feels a little like someone’s taken Ocarina of Time, mixed it with HP Lovecraft and then overlayed half a dozen genius game mechanics over the top. Nothing else I’ve played has come close – the level design alone is crazy good.

          The one I’m looking forward to now is Star Wars Battlefront. I had some hands on time with it last week and it’s all looking and feeling extremely good.

  4. skyrim is good but it can take over your life.

    Far Cry 3 is good. All the uncharteds, really. Another nod, from me, for Red Dead Redemption.

    The Resident Evil ones (5 & 6, I think) are good, but not very much like the earlier ones, but still easy to dip in and out of.

  6. I’ll second Red Dead Redemption. It’s really quite spectacular. I haven’t played games for years, but I’ve got half a mind to dig by my PS3 out and play it right now (I just play Football Manager these days. Far too much Football Manager).

    I also liked LA Noire. It’s a bit like Grand Theft Auto except it’s set in 1940s Los Angeles and you are a detective.

    I noticed Skyrim was mentioned. It’s a really well put together setting, really brilliant. The gameplay was a bit too much inclined towards collecting items of jewellery that other characters accidentally left in caves but it didn’t really matter because the setting is so great.

    Fallout 3 was good too. It’s like Skyrim’s post-apocalyptic cousin.

  7. The Last of Us, The Last of Us, The Last of Us!!!!! A really wonderful experience with an ending that stayed with me for ages.

    The best game since Spindizzy on the Amstrad CPC and Sensible Soccer on the Amiga.

  8. Red Dead Redemption is fantastic. Possibly the best game ever on PS3. See if you can get the zombie version too.

    All of the uncharted games are great. Online used to be fantastic fun but I don’t know what that will be like these days.

    GTA V is excellent too.

    The last of us is great as well.

    One I always liked playing is Just Cause 2. Another open world game but tremendous fun.

  9. I love my PS3, the Mrs bought me one when I turned 40. I’d had the previous two version so was well pleased for me:

    FIFA15 – still a great game, currently in Manager mode, just got Stevenage promoted to the Premiership.
    Don Bradman Cricket – if cricket is your game you’ll love this one. Not so cheap altho you can now buy 2nd hand on amazon and ebay and well worth it. The best cricket game I’ve played.
    London 2012 – Olympics, cheap 2nd hand and good fun.
    Topspin 4 – very good tennis game, again dirt cheap.

    Some of these choices are now quite old and may have better updated versions but if sport is your game you wont go far wrong with these four if you can find cheap.

    I would like a PS4 for the better version of FIFA but still way too expensive and game prices are shocking. PS3 for me is still very much the way to go.

  12. Red Dead Redemption is simply the best game ever made.

    I’ve yet to see a game since, either on the 3rd gen or next gen consoles, that matches its scope, gameplay, graphical art or downright coolness and you can pick it up for under a fiver in your local CEX or Game shop.

    Buy this game!

    Also GTA very good, the Silent Hill 2 redux is also worth an investment. The boy enjoys the Call of Duty games but can’t see the attraction in those personally.

  13. Another vote for Uncharted.

    GTA of course.

    Of the footy sims the purist’s choice is Pro Evolution. It doesn’t have the Premiership licences – fine for me I don’t follow the Prem – but in terms of gameplay (after a few lost years of madness) it outstrips FIFA easily.

    I have still to get past the first few scenes of The Last Of Us for various reaaons but any game which can deliver an unexpected twist in the first one has got to be worth revisiting.

  14. I’ve been playing games since I was a teenager hanging out in arcades. Being into games as an adult is no different to….let me see…Being into The Beatles if you liked them as a youngster.

  15. No one ever mentions the next verse of that bit from Corinthians: “When I became a man I put aside childish things. And then, lo, I had a lot less fun in my life. I even thought about taking up golf for a bit, but ended up cutting out the middleman and went straight to Dignitas”.

    • Many of the best things in life are childish. Why limit yourself?

      I’ve always loathed that bit in Corinthians. Always seems to come up at weddings. Just imagine marrying someone under the conceit that the pair of you would “put aside childish things”. Big handclap there.

      • Tell you what else in a similar vein I hate? That poem that starts “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple”. FFS if you want to wear purple wear it now, woman! Don’t be afraid of differing from the herd! Don’t console yourself with stories that you know will never happen! Don’t give up on something you want to do for fear of being found wanting socially! Don’t sacrifice your ambitions to the chattering crones down the shops! Don’t defer your dreams to some putative old age never never land! Live! Wear purple!

        • Right, I’m going to cut to the chase here. I’ve heard some toe curling wedding readings down the years: the “lovely dinosaur” poem, lyrics from hair metal tunes, etc. But there’s one offering which towers above the crapitude of the rest. A poem so bad my wife had to put my hand over my mouth to stop me laughing out loud/shouting in protest. Here it is… The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (real name.

          It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

          It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

          It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

          I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

          I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

          It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

          I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

          I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

          It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

          It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

          It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

          I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

          • Knowing my luck, someone will now pop up declaring that this is their favourite poem, and they had it at their wedding, so I’ll cover myself in the traditional fashion: OOAA.

          • Unsurprisingly given that she is a white woman from Ontario, Oriah Mountain Dreamer turns out to be not her real name (or rather it depends on your definition of what a “real name” is…)

            Oriah has a long and unusual history with her name. In 1984, at thirty years of age, after the onset of severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she had a dream where several elderly women- those she calls Grandmothers in the dream- told her to change her given name to Oriah as part of the process of healing. Nervous about doing something others might see as strange, but desperate to be well, she took the name Oriah and has been called this (by everyone but her mother) since that time. Twenty years later, while doing a book tour, on three successive nights, in three different cities, she was told by people at the bookstores she was visiting that Oriah means light of God in Hebrew, and that it is an ancient Jewish custom to change a patient’s name when doing a healing, to invite new and healing energies.

            A year after taking the name Oriah, still seeking healing, she went to a shamanic teacher who gave her the medicine name “Mountain Dreamer.” The shaman told her that a medicine name tells someone what gifts they have to offer the world in their lifetime and that Mountain Dreamer meant “one who likes to find and push the edge.”

            Because she first shared the prose-poem “The Invitation” (in 1994) with those who had come to participate in ceremony with her, the poem and her subsequent books first appeared under the name Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This led to all kinds of interesting misunderstandings (Eg.-people assumed she was an elderly or deceased Native American man.) Interviewers often begin conversations with, “Now that’s not a real name, is it?” Oriah, while deeply honouring the spiritual tradition from which she has received her name, understands that in our modern culture such a name is bound to prompt reactions. She even admits to sometimes sharing the prejudice of thinking that people using names like Mountain Dreamer might be a little flaky! So, she good naturedly explains, when asked, that Oriah Mountain Dreamer is indeed a “real” name, although not her birth name, and reflects on the fact that in our culture what is considered “most real” is that which indicates familial association (inheritance rights, marital status and/or patrilineage) while some other cultures would consider a spiritual name more “real.”

      • There’s nothing childish about some of the games mentioned here.

        Jagger (or any other similar singers) prancing about, singing the same songs he did when he was a teenager, now that’s childish.

  16. Another vote for The orange box – half-life 2 is a quite brilliant game. Others not mentioned so far:

    Metal gear Solid 4 – the home of sneak em up, and epic (as in hours) cut scenes. The detailing is unparalleled.

    Destiny – it’s probably quite cheap now on PS3 and you should play to see what all the fuss is about. big big worlds, and daughter has let loot acquisitions and multiplayer take over her life.

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