Sony celebrates by naming a dozen developers favorite PS3 games.
On November 17th, 2006, you could buy a PlayStation 3 in North America for a cool $599. Sure, having a Blu-Ray player for that amount of money in addition to a gaming system wasn’t terrible, but you could say the chips were stacked against Sony’s new console. The pricepoint ended up dropping, and several great exclusive titles have brought accolades to make the PS3 one of the most successful videogame consoles ever. To commemorate the five year anniversary, Sony asked several prominent game developers to list their favorite PS3 games and the diversity of their responses might surprise you.
On the top of the list were several mentions of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series but many were split on which game to include. David Jaffe (God of War, Twisted Metal) wrote that he prefers UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune “Yes, I dig #1 more than #2” while Cliff Blezinski from Epic Games also went with the original over Among Thieves.
As far as “art house” games, Flower and Heavy Rain get many mentions. “There are days where I still see flashes of Flower in my minds eye, and whenever I think of videogames, this one pops up in my head,” said Jonathan Mak from Queasy Games. “Maybe it’s simply because it’s so damned beautiful.”
Steve Papoutsis, head of Visceral Games, loved what Heavy Rain meant for the medium. “It proved you could create a story that both pulled you in and made you care about the outcome and characters,” he said. “I tell all my friends to give it a try, really, really enjoyed it.”
God of War III, Infamous, and LittleBigPlanet get mentioned several developers, but there were just as many outliers. “Joe Danger – I love this game,” said BioShock creator Ken Levine. “It’s like Excitebike, but I’m playing it in a nice house rather than the crappy studio apartment I had in 1989.”
Evan Wells, co-President of Naughty Dog went even more retro with Pac-Man Championship Edition DX “Who knew a concept three decades old could be reinvented in such a fresh and addictive way?” he asked.
The PlayStation 3 has had its share of dark patches as well. The aforementioned high price didn’t exactly move tons of units to start with, and controversies like the removal of the “Other OS” option and this year’s hacking of the PlayStation Network mar the console’s five years of existence. But when gaming history looks back at the PlayStation 3, hopefully the positives in these standout titles outweigh any negatives.
Source: PlayStation Blog
