The PlayStation 3 is one of the most interesting and unique consoles ever. Released at the dawn of the new digital gaming age while also boasting CELL architecture that’s made porting its games extremely difficult, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there are plenty of bangers still stranded on Sony’s third home console.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Despite Hideo Kojima’s insistence on maybe having a nice sleep for once, fan demand kept him coming back to Metal Gear for more.
That demand spurred Kojima on to make Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots — with the end result being an emotional masterpiece and the finale of Solid Snake’s story. With his impending mortality hanging over him, Snake embarks on one last mission: to kill Liquid who is currently possessing Revolver Ocelot, sort of (it’s a long story).
Though Metal Gear Solid 4 retains the series’s iconic stealth gameplay, it introduced a few new twists of its own, such as a Psyc he meter that measures Snake’s psychological state and influences things like aiming accuracy. As a pretty massive MGS fan, MGS 4’s gameplay is brilliant — I just wish there was a bit more of it.
Metal Gear Solid 4 remains the last main entry still stuck to just one platform. Though it’s still a visual stunner today, its performance leaves a lot to be desired, with a frame rate that lurches all over the place. It might be a bit difficult to go back to if you’ve come to expect 60fps as standard.
However, some earlier parts of the series were recently bundled for modern platforms as the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1. A second volume has since been confirmed by Konami, and although its games have yet to be revealed, it’s a safe guess that Metal Gear Solid 4 will be included, finally cut free from the strings of its PS3 prison.
Puppeteer
Before it was sadly shuttered and merged into Team Asobi in 2021, Japan Studio helped bring to life an absolutely massive amount of games, many of which, like Shadow of the Colossus, pushed creativity to its limits and proved what exactly gaming was capable of as a medium. But not all of their whippers got the mainstream success they deserved.
In 2013’s Puppeter, the malevolent Moon Bear King kidnaps children from Earth, placing their souls into puppets. Protagonist Kutaro is particularly unfortunate, as his new puppet head is decapitated by the Moon Bear King, setting the stage for Puppeteer’s unique hook.
Throughout the game, Kutaro uses a variety of different heads to replace his own, and each when equipped has different abilities. All heads, however, also double as a health system for Kutaro. He’ll drop his head when hit, forcing the player to either go pick it up before it disappears, or switch to another head in their arsenal; losing all three heads means losing a life and being booted back to the last checkpoint.
Puppeteer is a gorgeously animated, tongue-in-cheek game game that still holds up well, and deserves some kind of re-release, seeing as it’s still trapped on the PS3. Though Astro Bot went a long way in shaking things up in 2024, a remaster of Puppeteer could help Sony go in a more platformer friendly direction that Astro Bot hopefully reignited. It’s better than being infamous for cancelling silly projects.
inFAMOUS 1 and 2 (and the vampire one)
Sucker Punch are known these days for the stunning open-world samurai simulator Ghost of Tsushima, and all eyes are on its upcoming successor Ghost of Yōtei. But like Sony’s other studios, Sucker Punch has its roots in less grounded and more fantastical games. You’re telling me this guy isn’t currently stealing my woman? Get real!
Nearly four years after their work on Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Sucker Punch would pivot to the open-world genre with inFAMOUS. Set in the fictional Empire City, inFAMOUS stars Cole MacGrath, an everyday bike courier who is caught in an explosion that destroys a big chunk of the city, and leaves Cole himself with new electricity-based superpowers.
One of inFAMOUS’s claims to fame is the Karma system. Throughout the story and while exploring the open-world, Cole has the opportunity to make good or evil decisions that influence his alignment. Beyond affecting key moments in the story, Cole’s alignment also influences how civilians react to him, as well as what abilities he has at his disposal.
inFAMOUS did well, boasting an 85 Metacritic score and spawning a direct sequel. inFAMOUS 2 picks up where the first game left off, wrapping up Cole’s story and giving him new fire and ice powers in the process. There was also a kinda odd vampire expansion called Festival of Blood that nobody remembers. We’ve got a few inFamous bits in our PS3 facts vid, if you wanna learn more. Though the series saw two more entries with inFAMOUS: Second Son and First Light on PS4, the IP has unfortunately been pretty much dead in the years since.
Yakuza: Dead Souls
The early 2010s were a bit of a troubled time for Japanese-developed games, with publishers like Capcom and Sega attempting to reinvent their IPs by catering to western sensibilities. Yakuza: Dead Souls was one such endeavor, with its devs attempting to blend the Yakuza series’s goofy yet hard-hitting crime drama storytelling with a zombie apocalypse, of all things.
This non-canon side story sees Kamurocho caught up in a zombie outbreak, with Kazuma Kiryu and the gang all left to fend for themselves while getting to the bottom of what caused the outbreak.
Dead Souls swaps out the franchise’s trademark beat ‘em up combat for third-person gunplay that is, by all accounts, rather clunky. Fortunately, unlike other series’ attempts to reinvent themselves as overly dark and edgy, Dead Souls still retains the humor and quirkiness that defines the Yakuza franchise.
The fact remains, however, that while Yakuza 3, 4, and 5 have received remasters to make all of the mainline games available on modern platforms, Dead Souls is still stuck on PS3, with Sega likely being none too interested in reviving what some consider a blemish on an otherwise stellar crime drama franchise. But I dunno, I love my 6 and 7 out of 10 games a lot, and sometimes even 3 out of 10s.
3D Dot Game Heroes
Now here’s a real cult classic. Conceptualized as a way for developer Silicon Studio to show off its middleware, 3D Dot Game Heroes was developed in a blistering 10 months, arriving on Japanese store shelves in late 2009 and the west in early 2010. As a parody and love letter to classic games, 3D Dot Game Heroes sports a voxel-based art style that evokes games like Dragon Quest, while its gameplay draws heavily from the original Legend of Zelda, starring a silent protagonist that must explore an overworld and delve into dungeons to save the kingdom of Dotnia.
Though its gameplay most resembles Zelda, 3D Dot Game Heroes does have its own twist on the concept: your hero’s sword is huge, and will only get bigger as you upgrade it at the blacksmith. When combined with the throwback visuals, it makes for a very satisfying experience when you cleave your way through enemies, watching them explode into tons of tiny voxels.
There are tons of neat little shout-outs and references to other games, too, befitting this game’s nature as a love letter to the classics. For instance, there are over 100 unique loading screens, all of which pay homage to game box arts, ranging from Final Fantasy to Dragon Quest and Mega Man.
In the years since, Silicon Studio has developed Square Enix’s Bravely Default and Bravely Second, and 3D Dot Game Heroes has been mostly forgotten, with no sequel or remaster in sight, despite our resistance.
Resistance Trilogy
Insomniac Games has had an incredible run, having made a name for themselves with Spyro and Ratchet & Clank. They also did Fuse. Though they’re now mainly known for their take on Spider-Man, one Insomniac series that’s been forgotten is Resistance.
A PS3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man is a first-person shooter set in 1951. Europe has fallen to a mysterious alien race known as the Chimera that reproduces by infecting humans. The human…resistance [he said the line.mp4] are woefully unprepared for what they encounter, and protagonist Nathan Hale is the only survivor, discovering that the infection has given him superhuman abilities…but not without a catch.
The trilogy follows humanity’s efforts to repel the Chimera invasion, and by the time of Resistance 3, the tone shifted towards a post-apocalyptic feel and something else that was different that I won’t spoil here. Though the multiplayer servers have long since been shut down, the Resistance games are all still solid single-player shooters. That second game in particular really tickled my pickle.
It’s a shame, then, that neither Sony nor Insomniac have expressed any interest in returning to the mainline trilogy. Weird one, considering all the games sold millions and trying to find some variety in Sony’s current output is like trying to get through a jungle without a map.
Tokyo Jungle
Most survival games these days have you playing as a human who needs to drink water apparently every 5 minutes, or an employed person hopelessly trying to compete with jobless deviants in multiplayer games like Rust and Ark.
Not so in Tokyo Jungle, a post-apocalyptic game where humanity has gone extinct, and the animals left behind must fend for themselves. You’ll take control of dozens of species, each of which features different mechanics depending on if it’s a carnivore or herbivore. Survival means consuming prey or avoiding predators, and even forming packs to roam the streets of Tokyo with.
Further setting Tokyo Jungle apart from other survival games is a breeding and generational mechanic. Your animal won’t live forever, after all, and so finding mates and producing offspring forms a critical part of keeping your pack alive. Offspring even inherit a stat boost from their parents — helpful for when you wanna begin the next generation of pretty fly white pomeranians .
Developer Crispy’s faced a notable amount of resistance in getting the game greenlit and released, with Sony Computer Entertainment America believing it was too quirky for western players. They only relented after the game’s success in Japan, and even then, the western release was initially digital only, with a physical release only coming about a year later in a PSN compilation disc. And, well, can you believe what happened to the price of that compilation?
Tokyo Jungle remains one of the PS3’s most unique, creative, and most vitally for us, plain weird games. And you can’t spell weird without:
Drakengard 3
If there’s one thing that visionary lunatic Yoko Taro has become known for, it’s absolutely bonkers storytelling, often involving multiple playthroughs that gradually reveal more details about the plot that makes everything somehow even more depressing.
Drakengard 3 in particular is a special brand of insanity, starring an antihero named Zero, who seeks to kill her “sisters” to protect the world. It only gets weirder as you progress and bear witness to surreal black comedy which contrasts with the bleak story.
Drakengard 3 is primarily an action RPG, with some rail shooter segments. Yep, that’s pretty Yoko Taro. But it unfortunately suffers from technical issues like a poor frame rate, even if the combat is regarded as an improvement over Drakengard 1 and 2, and I love me some Drakengard, but that is not hard to do.
Given the success of Nier Automata and Nier Replicant’s remaster, the Drakengard trilogy deserves the same treatment. Its gameplay is its clunkiest aspect, and if reworked and polished, it could give these games, especially Drakengard 3, a new lease on life as a way to hold over audiences until Yoko Taro’s next wild ride is finally revealed and released. What makes this being stuck on PS3 that little bit funnier is that this is one of a handful of PS3 games that got those updated PS4 styled cases. Why did they do that? You kill me sometimes, Sony.
Killzone 2 and 3
When it first debuted on PS2, Killzone was a pretty dang good, if overhyped sci-fi shooter that fell short of true greatness. Guerilla Games, however, came out swinging with Killzone 2, a sequel that refined and polished everything to a sheen. Maybe not as much of a sheen as that E3 trailer, but hey. They were only completely lying.
Killzone 2 picks up after the events of the first game. Two years after the invasion of Vekta, the Vektans invade Helghan in return, hoping to arrest the Helghast emperor.
While Killzone 2’s narrative isn’t exactly high art, it excels in gameplay, bringing a fast-paced and action-packed campaign, as well as a robust multiplayer mode. Killzone 2 uniquely bundles modes up into a single match, having players transition from mode to mode on the fly.
The success of Killzone 2 led to a third mainline entry being released in 2011. Though Killzone 3 likewise won’t stun anyone with its storytelling, it manages to build on its predecessors’ accomplishments, while adding new mechanics, like jetpacks and the cinematic Operations mode.
Sadly, Guerilla has seemingly moved on from the Killzone franchise forever. While Killzone: Shadow Fall released as a PS4 launch title, the studio would shift focus and go on to create the stunning open-world Horizon games. We still think a remaster of the three mainline games would go down a storm though.
MotorStorm Trilogy
While Gran Turismo occupies Sony’s big budget racing sim space, MotorStorm, released in 2007, takes things off-road, featuring terrain and impressive physics to create a real spectacle. Motorstorm also boasts a variety of vehicle types, ranging from bikes and ATVs to heavy-duty big rigs, not those ones. MotorStorm even has a boost mechanic not too dissimilar to F-Zero, where boosting too much can really mess up your race so you have to balance risk and reward.
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, released the following year, left behind the desert setting of Monument Valley for a tropical backdrop. Along with new mechanics like fire and water physics (which affect your vehicle’s boost temperature), the ability to ram opponents, and a new vehicle class in the form of monster trucks, Pacific Rift addresses the first game’s lack of content and modes, with more tracks and the addition of 4-player split screen.
MotorStorm: Apocalypse would shake up the setting again, this time taking the races to a devastated city in the aftermath of natural disasters. Apocalypse also features dynamic disasters that can alter the track as the race progresses, alongside enemy factions. It was all a bit messy, but pretty fun.
Sadly, Evolution Studios wouldn’t develop much else outside of Driveclub, my beloved, for the PS4 before shutting down in 2016. MotorStorm has been dormant since then, but it hasn’t been forgotten, with unofficial servers for the first game resurrecting its online multiplayer.
READ NEXT: PS3 Games That Aged Beautifully
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