Announcement - Escapes From Reality has moved!

This is the last blog post I'm going to write here on BlogSpot. Escapes From Reality has moved to its new digs over at Wordpress!

This site makes everything ugly as hell - the new place is easier to edit (making for faster posting) and better looking to boot. Come check it out at...

http://escapesfromreality.wordpress.com/ (link)

- John out

The President of Portables

I hope you've got a little time, as this post is extremely, extremely long. :-)

Back in the day, I really, really, really LOVED my PS2. Compared to Xbox and (especially) Gamecube, there was just so much more to play over on Sony's sinister-looking but still lovable black box. When I say this, I'm not just talking about big ticket blockbusters like Final Fantasy X, but quirky, "lower budget" but still totally awesome games like Steambot Chronicles, Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland, Shadow Hearts: Covenant and Atelier Iris. The PS2's huge install base allowed it to get away with releasing games targeted to very specific niches of gamers - no matter how hardcore, weird or out there your game's concept was, you'd still have a good chance of finding an audience because the user base was so enormous.


Logically, it follows that this is the reason why I love my DS so much -- because of it's similarly gigantic install base, it's pretty much become the inheritor of the PS2's depth of game genres, and has mutated from its ultra-casual beginnings (with gimmicky touch games like Feel The Magic and Warioware Touched! highlighted at launch) to its significantly more hardcore present. While I love the PSP as well - I'm not a hater, I also own one, after all - a lot of the big releases seem to be scaled-down versions of existing console titles, with avantgarde stuff like School of Heroes, Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman!, and Half-Minute Hero few and far between. I usually break the PSP out occasionally when big titles I've been looking forward to come out (Final Fantasy Dissidia, etc.) but mostly the DS wins out when it comes to my portable gaming needs.

Baguio City! Full of beautiful trees, fresh air, and PEOPLE WHO STEAL MOTHERFUCKING NINTENDO DS's FROM OTHER PEOPLE. No, I'm not bitter anymore.

In fact, I love my DS so much that when some sorry asshole stole my first DS Lite (glossy black) on a trip to Baguio, I immediately bought another DS (two-tone blue/black) without thinking. I haven't regretted it since. :-D And when you think about it, why wouldn't I? I mean, just look at that library! Yeah, I realize that there's a lot of shovelware out there (Dora the Explorer! WTF) but as I mentioned, the user base of the system is big enough to accomodate users of all stripes, which means a wide variety of games for everybody.

To prove my assertion that, contrary to popular belief, the DS is a hardcore gaming wonderland, I've written a breakdown of what the little console that could has got to show per genre. (Part of me is writing this feature to build on IGN's execrable 25 best DS games of all time list, which is just full of poor choices and exclusions.) Please note however that I only included my personal favorites on this list, excluding games that I don't like very much even though they may be popular (ahem *Final Fantasy Tactics A2* ahem *Blue Dragon*). And sometimes I just forget, so sue me! Don't take this as a comprehensive listing by any means.

So, without further ado...

TAKE THIS!

JRPG

Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Rune Factory 1 & 2
Nostalgia
Etrian Odyssey 1 & 2 (part 1 pictured)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles 1 & 2

Do you like experience points and leveling up? Do you like grinding away in the name of self-improvement, interspersed with chunks of story exposition?

Then welcome to portable nirvana, as it seems that all the PS2 developers left out in the cold after PS3/360 development became too expensive decided to start DS projects of their own. Squeenix in particular is very active on DS - it's crazy how many games they've released on this thing, and how surprisingly good a lot of the games are. This is the main reason why I'm not as angry at Squeenix as a lot of core Sony gamers -- they haven't stopped producing good shit, they're just not producing it for the PS3 (yet), focusing more on DS and PSP development.

Jesus, just look at that lineup - that's a truly sterling collection of titles, a veritable murderer's row of quality RPG gaming. I don't have the patience to go over all of them, but I'll do my best to provide highlights. Atelier Annie is weird but supremely enjoyable (part management sim, part RPG). FFIV is an incredible remake of one of my favorite series entries (both graphically and script-wise), while FFIII, despite being a rather odd entry in the FF canon (a job system, while in place, is extremely simplified, and the difficulty spikes can be very arbitrary) is still worth your time. Being a big Harvest Moon fan, I got hopelessly addicted to the Rune Factory games (offering a strange but totally awesome mix of dungeon crawling and... farming), playing them for days on end. The Etrian Odyssey series is a welcome throwback to the Wizardry-like style of hardcore dungeon crawling, and includes one of my favorite job system implementations in any RPG ever - EO is, simply put, hardcore as hell, and the first game is in my personal top ten games on any console (handheld or otherwise). Jesus, this section is getting way too long. Next!


Adventure

Take this, MOTHERFUCKERS! *points finger accusingly*

Hotel Dusk: Room 103
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (three game series) - pictured: Ace Attorney 1
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Professor Layton (two game series, at least in English)

Adventure gaming (in the old-school PC gamer sense, meaning text adventures or point-and-click King's Quest style games) has always been one of my favorite genres. I'm not a PC gamer anymore, but that shit is part of my childhood, and I'll always love that stuff. Which is why I'm ecstatic about the genre's renaissance on the DS - the point and click gameplay is a perfect fit for the touchscreen, and the slow paced, thoughtful gameplay is the perfect way to wind down after a long day at work. Professor Layton in particular is a revelation - the puzzles in the game were simply fantastic, and it's quickly become one of my favorite series developed by my beloved Level-5.

Plus, I'll always love the DS for giving us Phoenix Wright, one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.

Strategy or SRPG

Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
Disgaea
Luminous Arc 1 & 2
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor (pictured) Age of Empires (This version is a turn-based game, not an RTS)
Fire Emblem

There's almost too much of this genre on the DS - apart from the sterling titles listed above, there's a huge amount of other titles available which may or not be to your taste: Knights in the Nightmare (a little too complicated for my liking), Rondo of Swords (the battle system isn't my type), Prince of Persia (I can't wrap my head around the idea of mixing card game concepts in a turn based strategy game), FFXII: Revenant Wings (I dislike real-time strategy) the list goes on and on. Without any hyperbole whatsoever, if you played through every Strategy/SRPG available on the DS (assuming, of course, that you have a job or that you attend school, and that you played these games exclusively) it'd probably take you considerably more than a year to finish everything.

Fighting


Bleach (series, pictured)

OK, there's really not much to see here. Considering the system's hardware limitations, it's not really the ideal platform for fighting games in general. The Bleach series (developed by Treasure) however, is an excellent representative. To any of you who played Yu Yu Hakusho on the Mega Drive, this is the spiritual successor to that game - filled with 2D fighting craziness up the wazoo, with graphics superior to Guardian Heroes on the Saturn, Bleach is the best portable fighting series I've ever played.

Puzzle/Casual

Planet Puzzle League! Picture is of the DS held in book mode.

Peggle DS
Bookworm
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
CrossworDS
Picross DS
Planet Puzzle League (pictured)

The NDS (together with PSN and the venerable Yahoo! Games) was truly instrumental in opening my eyes to casual gaming's possibilities. Although I remain hardcore, I'm no longer against games for a more mainstream audience like I used to be - I accepted the fact that for our industry to grow, we have to convert as many people as possible into gamers, even if that gamer is actually just your mom playing Text Twist again. Anyway, on to the games: CrossworDS and Picross DS are priceless when you just want to kill a few quick minutes (say, at the doctor's office or while on the way home). Puzzle Quest is another personal favorite of mine, and so is Planet Puzzle League, being the most complete (feature-wise) and easiest-to-control version of Tetris Attack in existence (my ex once borrowed my DS for damn near a month because she couldn't stop playing it. Tellingly, she eventually bought a DS of her own.).

Rhythm/Music

Elite Beat Agents (pictured)
Rhythm Heaven
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! 1 & 2 (the japanese versions of EBA, which are totally different games with different music/stages)

I'm sure there's some stuff I'm forgetting here, but fuck it, I wanna publish this post now.

And personally, even if Elite Beat Agents was the only rhythm game out on the NDS, it would still be one of the best portable music games ever.

Platformer


New Super Mario Bros. DS
Super Mario 64 DS
The Legend of Starfy
Super Princess Peach
CastleVania (the three part MetroidVania series - Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia - Ecclesia pictured)
Rockman ZX
Kirby: Canvas Curse

It's a Nintendo system. Para namang magpapatalo yung mga yun pag dating sa platformer.
Yes, they delivered in spades, with scads of 2D run-and-jump action presented for our old-school enjoyment. Best in class here would have to be the CastleVania trilogy (the finest example of which was Order of Ecclesia, which combined MetroidVania exploration with a delightfully high level of difficulty) and the Mega Man ZX series (which successfully combined RPG elements with the classic Mega Man X hardcore gameplay). New Super Mario Bros. DS, despite being a bit overrated, is still a quality example of 2.5D gaming done right.

Sports


What sports games?

If this is what you're looking for, PSP is definitely the way to go.

Action/Adventure


Metroid Prime: Hunters (pictured)
Moon
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

This is the second of two areas in which I feel the DS lags behind the PSP. Action games on the DS are plentiful, but very few of them are actually any good. Notable exceptions Metroid Prime Hunters and Moon are both very thoughtful, slower-paced adventures that require a bit more time to play than your usual actioner. GTA: Chinatown Wars is also simple, lightweight fun, and the drug-dealing minigame can be seriously addictive.

Anlupeeeet!

As Phoenix would say, the evidence speaks for itself. The future outlook is pretty good, with Okamiden (w00000t!), Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Pokemon SoulSilver/HeartGold and Dragon Quest IX: Defenders of the Starry Sky all on the horizon. For once, that mighty mass of muscle, Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aime, wasn't lying - on at least one of Nintendo's consoles. support for the hardcore gamer is still alive and well. I love that dinky little piece of plastic!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play Clash of Heroes again.

Impressions: Star Ocean: The Last Hope International

As happens quite often with my game purchases, SO4 was a last minute thing. I didn't even plan on buying this game at all. Star Ocean 4 joined my collection as the last minute RPG substitution for White Knight Chronicles, which I decided to just borrow after the swath of middling reviews. (PinoyPS peeps seem to like WKC quite a bit though, and if I end up liking the game I'll purchase my own copy.) You might imagine my concern then, as when I began playing through SO4 my opinion of the game rollercoastered wildly, both for the better and for the worse. (To make things even more panicky for me, I bought the game at launch, for a launch price. *nervous*)

Here's a quick summary of how my first few hours went:

00 hrs, 15 mins

Boot the game up. I patiently wait through the long install, and watch the simultaneously intriguing and boring CG intro. Game starts, non-CG talking scene begins. Script looks pedestrian, and English voice acting is abysmal.

John is sad.


00 hrs, 25 mins

Note: Obviously not an image from the tutorial. Mahirap maghanap ng litrato!

I then get shooped directly into the combat tutorial. I play it, and many happy/nostalgic memories of playing through Star Ocean: Till The End of Time return (Fayt LINEGOD - manliest name EVAR!!1!!!). This combat system fucking kicks ass!

John is happy!

00 hrs, 40 mins

Not the best camera ever.

Then the walking around part begins. Why is this camera stuck behind my guy? What the hell happened to the old overhead view? This is where I begin to get worried again. I walk out of the ship and things get even worse - the blast doors open into a huge MMO style map that wasn't really my cup of tea.

Jesus Christ! What the fuck did I just buy? Did I just make a huuuuge mistake by giving up the game I wanted all along (WKC) to get THIS in return?

John is extremely worried...

02 hrs, 30 mins

Lymle lights up another poor fucker with an earth-shattering kabloom. Again, obviously a shot from much later in the game.

Thankfully, the Php 2,700.00 sized hole in my wallet encouraged me to soldier on. After a couple of hours, I fully understood the intricacies of the combat system (including the skills required to build the Bonus Board), and I've gotten used to the distinctly un-RPG-like camera positioning. Combat is fun, if a little simplistic so far. Battle Trophy system works the same as in Star Ocean 3, except now every character has a unique set. Speaking of Trophies, WTF is up with that Trophy list? Looks extremely hard to Platinum. I do some internet research on this topic and it seems that getting 100% Achievements/Trophies takes literally hundreds of hours. Fuck that, looks like I'm not getting the plat for this one eh?

John is hopeful.

14 hrs, 24 mins


Addiction has set in. The Skill Point and Invention systems opened up, bringing back yet ANOTHER flood of Star Ocean 3 memories. The Private Actions are also back, and are as interesting as ever - this has the unfortunate effect of turning SO4 into a FAQ game (i.e. a game in which you have to keep a FAQ up on a laptop or equivalent device while playing so you don't miss anything important) but I don't really mind. Yeah, the camera is still pretty crap, and the story has been pretty predictable so far, but then Star Ocean's never been about story. Like most Tri-Ace RPG's it's all about the gameplay with this one - I'm not ready to give any ratings or reviews for this as it's far too early, but I can definitely say that Star Ocean 4 is doing a very good job of scratching that niggling JRPG itch that I've had for months now.

And there's something oddly comforting about seeing the Square Enix logo again on a PlayStation console. Feels good.

John is contented.

22 hours 32 minutes

Shi jian bu zao le, wo gai gao ci le.
But I'll see you again.

John has no time to play Star Ocean thanks to his goddamn STRAMA paper. Any remaining free time for gaming is eaten whole by games which require less time investment. (Heavy Rain! Darksiders! Dante's Inferno! Bayonetta! Ratchet and Clank Future 2! Yes, I have the gaming equivalent of ADHD.) Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XIII lurks inside the neighborhood Datablitz, with Yakuza 3 coming over on the next plane from Europe. Their evil plan, of course, is to ensure that it's quite some time before I dig Star Ocean out of the game closet for another go-round. Natabunan na si loko.

But that time will come again, The Last Hope, mark my words.

One day, when these new-fangled hot releases get old, I'll dig out the keys to the rusty old starship, ask Reimi if she wants to roll out, and sail through these star oceans again. JRPG love!

Breaking Benjamins

Sorry for being so late with the new posts, people. I've been seriously seriously busy dealing with work, school and life in general, as well as a lack of material to write about due to the lack of new releases. Happily, the gaming industry is just now revving up for the Q1 blitz, so at least now I've got a whole crapload of material to write about. :-) Eight new posts today, I've been saving 'em up!

Moving on, I've built up a much more stable PS3 financial plan for this Q1 2010 to prevent the horredous financial ruin Q4 2009 brought on me. This is what wanting too many games and having too little money to buy them all has driven me to do.

Now observe my masterful cash-saving skillz!

Bayonetta is absolutely delicious!
And her game's great, too!

* I'm just borrowing Bayonetta and White Knight Chronicles from friends (rox_ira and eiziah, respectively) in order to cut down on my cash outlay. (I got gun-shy from actually BUYING WKC when the metric ton of mediocre-to-bad reviews rolled in, but I still want to play it pretty badly.)

OK, so graphically, it looks like ass.
I still want to play it.
Play it for FREE, that is.

Cost: Zero.

He's not a God of War.
HE IS WAR!

* I got Darksiders for free in a trade with another pal (it arrived this week). DARKSIDAHS, at last! (Impressions to follow, I'm in like the first non-tutorial area and it's been very solid so far.)

Cost: Zero. Woohoo!

That demo was absolutely fantastic!
I'm on the hype train for this one, fortunately I can just BORROW it.
Money saved!

* I'm also working out a "hiraman" arrangement with another friend for Heavy Rain (that demo was SO KILLER) in which I buy Star Ocean TLH International and lend it to him, and he lends me HR after the fact. It doesn't really matter to me if I don't get to play SO4 immediately, as Platinuming that game takes longer than reading The Bible and War and Peace combined, so I don't mind lending it out for the meantime.

"I'ma hit this guy with a huge nova, 'kay?"

Update: I'm also playing through Star Ocean concurrently along with Darksiders. Impressions to follow as well, game started off a little iffy but quickly grew on me. Adik! Consider though: I have played that game for 12 hours and I have two trophies.

TWO. FREAKING. TROPHIES. What the FUUUUUUCK, ang haba.

Cost: I paid 2,700.00 for a copy of Star Ocean: The Last Hope International (R1).










* Yet another friend is getting Bioshock 2 as a Valentine's Day gift (HI, RAFFY!) so that's another game crossed off the list. Back to Rapture, baby!

It's been way too long.

Cost: Zero.


* Lastly, I have no choice but to spend on brand new copies of Yakuza 3 and Final Fantasy XIII in March (especially Yakuza 3, as supplies of that game will likely be very limited) but I also have a side deal in place to lend out Yakuza 3 for God of War III when I'm done with it.

Damn, ang lapit na! Check out this video right here (link) if you need some help getting hyped.


Cost: Approximately 5.5K for copies of FFXIII and Yakuza 3. Huhuhuhu. :-(










So all in all, for a total of Php 8,000.00 I get to Trophy my way through Star Ocean 4 plus all but two of the games on my DO WANT list (link) , with the notable exceptions being Gran Turismo 5 (which got delayed to Q2) and Dante's Inferno. Hmmm, anyone want to make a hiraman arrangement for Dante's Inferno: Dead Edition?

Isaac Clarke returns!

I want me some Dead Edition!

CMON! Help a (semi)broke brotha out! :-D

Retrospective: Assassin's Creed 2

It's no secret around these parts that I loved Assassin's Creed 2 (I even included it on my personal best games of 2009 list). Although I first played through it dali-dali style on the Xbox 360 (budgetary constraints prevented me from buying the PS3 version back in November) I followed through on my promise to play through it at a leisurely pace on my PS3 (for the Trophies and to get the "full experience"). And my opinion remains unchanged - AC2 is an absolutely fantastic game, well worth the second-hand price you'd likely pay for it today.

But how did this occur? How did a game that is so similar in spirit to it's predecessor (which was a TERRIBLE game, and one I consider to be the 2nd crappiest title in my entire library, just behind Viking: Battle for Asgard) become so beloved in my eyes? I'll try to explain.


1. Infinitely better level design, and a much more interesting environment to play around in.


Assassin's Creed 1 was handicapped by its stringent focus on recreating the architecture of ancient Jerusalem - the buildings felt very astringent and the design left little room for you to play around in. The "mood" of the city was also very somber, and the monochrome colors chosen for the world in general made it feel very dead. AC2's version of Italy is full of color and life - the beautiful water in Venice that makes you want to take a dip yourself, the variety of people just walking around on the street, the expansive outdoor environments that impress without the horrible frame rate drops. Italy's architecture also lends itself to better platforming: the little chimneys, ropes and steel trellisses dotting the rooftops allow for a much better flow to Ezio's movements as he's running around the city killing fools.

2. AC2 has a far superior storyline.

AC1 had an interesting concept, but that's all it was -- A CONCEPT. Yes, there were two worlds in which you "existed" as a player, but Desmond's real world adventures were so devoid of gameplay or even interesting dialogue that you just sort of forced yourself to slog through it. In Acre, meanwhile, Altair just crossed these randomly assigned guys off his "People to Kill" checklist without it really meaning anything -- you don't know these people, and you have no other motivation to see them go, so in the end you didn't care.


In AC2, the people Ezio knocks off are part of an overarching storyline in which you are emotionally invested - this makes it feel a lot less robotic and forced than the first game. The adventures in the real world were also a lot more interestingly written, with much more complex characterization than the first game. I found myself wanting to find out what happened in both worlds, which is a substantial achievement seeing as I've played so many action-adventure games that I can smell a hack plot from a mile away.

Lastly, another facet of AC2 that I think greatly improves the experience is the far superior lightness of tone. AC1 was overly serious and one-note, and the crappiness of the writing only reinforced this. AC2 strikes a much better balance between suspense/intrigue (Abstergo conflict in the real world, political maneuverings in the Italian, Animus world) and comedy (Ezio is a much more lighthearted and likeable character than Altair, and the way he plays off everybody else puts the occasional grin on your face).

And... hey, it's-a me, Mario! :-)

3. Much greater variety of things to do.

Assassin's Creed 2 is an obsessive-compulsive gamer's dream. There's simply so much more stuff to find and accomplish - feathers to grab, Subject 16 puzzles/videos to watch/solve, Monteriggioni buildings to upgrade, weapon and armor sets to collect, tombs to explore, treasure chests to find -- the list goes on and on. It also cannot be understated how much the simple addition of currency added to the game - not only did it allow you to pay for other methods to achieve your goals (walking through town using courtesans for cover/protection, or paying a group of bandits to cause a perfectly-timed distraction) it also gave you a reward for everything you do: accomplishing sidequests no longer felt arbitrary because you were always rewarded for your efforts with a little spending money to waste on whatever you wanted.


In addition, quests of the same type now felt much more unique and less repetitive - Assassination and Delivery missions in particular gave you a very wide swath of objectives and methods in which to accomplish them. Story missions also offered plenty of variety - instead of always sneaking around looking for your shot at the glowing yellow target, Ubisoft gives you frontal assaults, carriage-driving missions, city raids, the whole nine yards. When you DO get down to actually killing people, AC2 continues to pile on the improvements - there are a million ways to off a guy in this game.

Guns hidden in your sleeve?
Aerial stabs in the face?
Throwing knives?
Pushing the poor sap off a roof?
Hired mercenaries?
Frontal assaults?
Poison?
Dragging dudes into a stack of hay then ventilating 'em?
Using the good old Nathan Drake "There's a guy above you!" method?

"THERE'S A GUY ABOVE YOU, THERE'S A GUY ABOVE YOU!"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The list goes on.

It also helped a lot that the sidequests were now completely optional. The first game handled sidequests in a very ham-handed manner: not only were they boring, offering little difference from instance to instance, the game forced you to play them in order to advance the story missions. AC2 shares no such conceit - you could totally ignore the side missions if you chose, at the expense of having a lot less money to work with.

While Assassin's Creed 2 didn't fix ALL of the first game's problems (the control is still a little finicky at times, and minor FPS problems continue to rear their ugly head) it's still absolutely remarkable how Ubisoft Montreal managed to fix so many of the original game's issues in so short a time. Absolutely outstanding work!

I never thought I'd ever say this about an Assassin's Creed game, but... sequel please!

Desmond taking on Japan would have been a much better idea for AC3.
Don't you think?

(Update: It turns out AC3 is already in development. Unfortunately it seems that they decided to continue Ezio's adventure for some strange reason - it makes sense from a story perspective, but not from a gameplay one (Italy was getting a bit long in the tooth by the end of the game)... ah, well, in Ubisoft we trust.

Case File: The Mystique of the PS3 Exclusive

I find that I read the following dialogue (or a paraphrasing of the same) way too often on the PinoyPS boards:

Noob: Hi, you l33t haxxor motherfuckers! I'm new to this PS3 thing, what games should I get?

Lovable PPS member: Oh, that's easy, pal. Just get all the PS3 exclusives, except for (insert exceptionally bad title here, usually Lair/Haze or something else to that effect)

HAZE! Being used to scare small children into behaving since 2008.
"Sige ka, kung ayaw mong tumahimik... ibibili kita ng HAZE!!!!"
"Wag po, wag po!"

I have nothing against this view - some of the people who dispense this advice are my friends/trading partners, after all, and are people whose opinions I highly respect - but is this really a 100% solid buying recommendation to make? Simply snap up the PS3 exclusives (EXCEPT LAIR AND HAZE!) and you're good to go?

Let's take a look at six of the usual suspects (taking into consideration how much you can get them for nowadays), and some non-exclusive alternatives you can get for the same price or less.

(Please note that a lot of these games are actually quite GOOD -- some of them I even included in my 2009 top ten. What I'm trying to show here is that there may be superior alternatives for the same amount of money.)

Killzone 2

At what price, graphics? Killzone 2 is an absolute visual monster, eating most PS3 games alive (with a few notable exceptions, like the pushing-dangerously-close-to-photographic Uncharted 2: Among Thieves), but gameplay-wise I can't honestly say that this is better that either of the Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty games. True, it's still a GREAT game, and this might be a good choice for a new PS3 owner who wants to show off some current-gen power (especially if they have an HDTV) but in terms of how it plays it's no contest - the aiming mechanic is less user-friendly and the multiplayer isn't anywhere near as good. It doesn't help that the best part of Modern Warfare is easily the multiplayer component (which is something you can't get on a modded Xbox 360 due to the XBL permabans for modding) - if you haven't played either, you have to keep things like these in mind when making a decision.

Heavenly Sword

This hasn't aged well, at all.

Ninja Theory's somewhat controversial exclusive PS3 actioner has long had the PS3 audience pretty much divided. Some people love it because of its delightful art direction and intense, Lord of the Rings-level epicness. Some people hate it because of its incredibly brief length and God of War-cloned hack-and-slash gameplay. I'm personally on the side of the people who hate it, but I can understand where the people who love it are coming from. Here's the beef, though: mostly due to the fact that not too many people actually BOUGHT it (partly because of its notorious shortness, and partly because the PS3 install base was so small back then) there arent too many copies in circulation... which of course means that HS' resale value has held up remarkably well over time. The question is, are you buying the game for collection purposes or for pure enjoyment? If you fall into the latter category, you could arguably just add a couple hundred bucks and get a brand new copy of Dante's Inferno.

InFamous

I wish this was as exciting as it looks.

HEY! Don't give me that raised eyebrow!

Yeah, I know that I've been hard on inFamous in the past. I still have a great deal of respect for Sucker Punch, and I'm (pretty) confident that they'll fix things up in inFamous 2 (which has reportedly been in development for quite some time). Going back to the first game, though, I know I wasn't alone in my indictment of the title - while the story was pretty entertaining and the wide-open, no-loading city remains a remarkable technical achievement, more than a few people took issue with the constant repetition of the side missions you had to do in between major jobs. For a "new" PS3 gamer who's just beginning to build their library, it could be argued that fellow open-world genre titles Red Faction: Guerilla or Saints Row 2 probably give more variety and gameplay bang for the buck, with the added benefit of costing even less than a 2H copy of inFamous.

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift

There's no question that Pacific Rift is a great, great game - fun in multiplayer AND single player, with more replay value than you can shake a stick at. However, it's misleading to say that this is a game you can recommend to just anybody, as the title by its very nature is a niche product - the overwhelming majority of people who play racing games prefer track/road racers like Forza and Need For Speed, and the market for "extreme" racing, with the high jumps and environmental hazards is comparatively small. Unless you're already a fan of said subgenre, a much better "general" recommendation for a first time PS3 user is EA's exemplary Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box. A ridiculous amount of stuff to do, plenty of variety, and the best sense of speed ever demonstrated in a racing game, all at a bargain price (you can get a non-Ultimate Box version of Burnout Paradise for almost nothing, as it's positively ancient).

Folklore

Looks trippy? It is, and pleasingly so.
It's also a terrible, terrible game.

I don't think I've ever seen a game go from "eagerly anticipated" to "get out of my sight" so fast in my life. As some of you may know, I traded away my first copy of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction for a copy of this game (I was new to the PPSX trading scene at the time), and the tears of blood I cried after the fact will remain in my memory forever. While there are definitely positive aspects to Folklore (the concept is solid, collecting monsters can be somewhat fun, and the graphic style is nice in a trippy, I'm-so-high-right-now kind of way), the laundry list of negatives is overwhelming: the story is all over the map and very difficult to understand, the translation was obviously rushed, the camera AND the control are clunky, and the role-playing elements are so light/non-existent that it's embarassing to even call it an RPG (despite the classification on the back of the box clearly saying "RPG"). To a new guy looking for some level-up action, I would honestly recommend any other PS3 RPG over this (even the bad/mediocre ones, like Cross Edge and Eternal Sonata) because all of them have substantially greater RPG elements than this substantially flawed PS3 exclusive.

Now THAT'S a PS3 exclusive.

All that said, it IS true that a pretty good amount of PS3 exclusives are truly worth giving unqualified recommendations (Metal Gear Solid 4, both Uncharted games, LittleBigPlanet, and to people who can understand SRPG's, Valkyria Chronicles) so there's still a fair amount of merit to picking up exclusives. I'm just saying that new members of our current-gen Sony community shouldn't just blindly whip out their wallets when the term comes around...

Unless of course, you have a jacked, non-RROD 360 that you can use to play said non-Sony locked titles for cheap. (ahem)

If so, go right ahead and snap up those exclusives! Only on PlayStation, indeed!