PlayStation 3

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ratsoalbion
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PlayStation 3

Post by ratsoalbion »

Our next single format special will focus on PS3.

Please share your memories of and reflections upon Sony's seventh gen machine for potential inclusion in the show.
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Kal_Luke
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Kal_Luke »

I’d had an Xbox 360 20GB for a few years but it continued to betray me with its poor QA, red rings and disc reading issues.
I got a PS3 slim with my first contract phone and it was like a whole new generation with its functionality. It had decent sized hard drive for installing and downloading games, a blu-ray player and built-in WiFi. Compared to my early Xbox 360 I felt like I was living in the future with this console from the same generation.
Like I’ve heard from Jay in the past, I was really turned off by Xbox and I didn’t use a console for quite a while but the PS3 was there to catch me and give me some fantastic exclusives such as The Uncharted series, MGS4 and Demon’s Souls.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by ThirdDrawing »

I was one of those early adopters of the PS3 - and I still have my 60 gb beast.
Yes, it had a bad group of launch titles, but my first purchases (Uncharted 1, Folklore and Ninja Gaiden Sigma kept me satisfied.
The thing that I loved about the PS3 is that while the 360 had its big budget shooters, the PS3 still clung to its eccentric Japanese roots despite a lot of Japanese games moving to the DS.

3-D Dot Game Heroes, Afrika, Puppeteer, Rain (aka Lost in the Rain), Tokyo Jungle....all games that would never have been released on the 360.

Best of all - REGION FREE. What an amazing step in the right direction for games and it allowed me to play all kinds of imports from Asia and Europe that I never would have been able to play otherwise such as Captain Morgaine and the Golden Turtle, Echochrome II, EX Troopers (The Lost Planet spinoff) and Initial D Extreme Stage while also allowing me to pick up physical editions of games like the Monkey Island Collection (I can already hear purists booing me for playing these on a console), Ratchet & Clank Quest for Booty, Siren and Way of the Samurai 4.

All in all, I still look back fondly on the PS3 years. It ended up having a widely varied library that I think gives it an advantage over the 360. Yes, removing the PS2 backwards compatibility was crummy, but at least you were able to play PS1 games. Overall, it was a worthwhile system with a bad beginning that had a better library than it is given credit for.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by HaloFandango »

As a fan of the Xbox and Xbox 360 generation, it took my college friends (who are still aligned with the mighty Playstation), to get me to buy a PS3. Once I did, I was constantly playing my PS3 until I went to university. I initially bought the 80GB Fat model, then the Slim and now the BBQ Grill version (with the blu-ray drive you slide open).

The XMB was so easy to navigate and playing online was free! The controller was really nice to use, except personally I could never get used to the triggers that were slanted downwards. The store was easy enough to navigate around, but having to scroll down your purchased games list EVERYTIME you wanted to find a particular game, was a tad vexing.

Blu-ray playback out of the box was a nice extra and I think this was mainly required to fit the countless hours of cutscenes from MGS4 onto one disc. Still, it was a nice extra and one of the cheapest blu-ray players around at the time.

The first game I picked up for it was LittleBigPlanet and that was a lovely introduction to the console, with its colourful graphics and friendly characters. Then countless hours of Warhawk, Street Fighter 4 and Bionic Commando (the remake with Spencer's wife as his arm) with my mates. Lair was also a game I enjoyed (even with the janky SixAxis flight controls).

All in all, a fantastic console and one I still boot up to play PS3 exclusives on to this day.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Jobobonobo »

Of all of Sony’s home consoles this is the one that I have the least experience with. My old flatmate had a PS3 that I would play on occasionally and then a friend of mine gave me his one when he got himself a new PS4. I do remember quite vividly when I finally had to update to a HD TV as the old boxy CRT TV had an unreliable connection and so the reception kept cutting off as I was playing which would end up with me having to fiddle with the connection until the screen came back on. Seeing as the first game I ever played on the PS3 was Portal 2, having the screen turn into static during the opening story made the experience unplayable so I went to CEX the next day and got myself a nice, affordable HD TV. Now I could finally experience Portal 2 in all its wonder and glory! While I was already exposed to HD consoles thanks to friends and flatmates, it was nice to dive into HD gaming with my own PS3 and catch up with everyone else albeit pretty late.

But my job at the time meant that I had little free time and when I was home, even playing the PS3 seemed like extra work. The few days off I had I was either doing something with friends or getting little errands sorted out. So the PS3 was comparatively neglected. I would even buy games that I meant to try out but would never even start them. I say all this to give you the context that I am very unfamiliar with the PS3 and its game library and that it no doubt colours my view on this console.

Basically, I found the PS3 to be a step down from the previous Playstation consoles. Of course, it was far more powerful but there was little on the console that appealed to me. The 7th gen is honestly one of my least favourite gaming generations because on the one hand, you had this motion control craze which led to a lot more misses than hits. But on the other hand, despite games entering the exciting new era of HD graphics, the dominant colour palette was brown and grey with grim, military shooters and zombie games having a near omnipotence on the scene. Going into game shops and finding shelves of angry men with guns staring back at you made me think that the era of experimentation that the previous two gens displayed was well and truly over and now only the safest and blandest content will be produced. Thankfully, I was wrong on that point as indie gaming and the best stuff on the Wii were also in this generation and made me see that videogames were still worth sticking around for. But the PS3 was disappointing on multiple fronts for me. It did not have the strengths of the other consoles such as the large indie library and mandatory demos for said titles of the Xbox 360 and the eclectic, quirky lineup of the Wii. But the PS3 did have the worst elements of its competitors such as the deluge of brown and grey angry man games and pointless motion control which was rarely implemented well (does anyone like the SixAxis?). Again, this was just from my limited time with the machine. If I had time to check out the Ratchet and Clank series or Yakuza games and other stuff that I was sure to enjoy, I would probably have fonder memories of it but that was not the case for me. I certainly had memorable experiences on the PS3 such as Little Big Planet, Portal 2, 3D Dot Game Heroes and Rayman Legends. As well as being good games they also had something which I felt was so lacking in most titles of this era, a distinctive art style which might have drawn me to check them out in the first place.

In conclusion, the PS3 was a letdown to me as it felt like it was merely responding to what its competition was doing and not setting the foundations of the gaming landscape like its insanely influential predecessors did. Sony might have been getting a bit too big for its britches and definitely got off on the wrong foot with their high price tag and giant enemy crab memes. However, I think they certainly learnt from their mistakes as the PS4 is a giant improvement on the PS3 in every shape possible to me. Perhaps the PS3 had to stumble to make the PS4 soar.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by SludgeWizard »

I never had a PS3, but one of my good friends a few blocks down the road did, and because of that I decided to go with a 360 that gen.

Not because of the game library necessarily, or because in a pinch I could play on my friend's console if needed, but because of my memories of that PS3 constantly updating itself. It seemed like every single time we turned that PS3 on, we had to wait 20 minutes while it updated, and then probably 10-15 minutes for the game to update. My friend didn't turn on his console too too often, but he played at least once a week.
My friends with 360s did not have this problem.

I know that this is not entirely fair of me, and I'm sure the updates weren't as long or numerous as I remember them being, but it was enough for me to go to Microsoft with my one-console-a-generation money. All the Nathan Drakes and Gods of War in the world couldn't make up for a 35 minute boot up time.
(plus I much prefer the 360 controller)
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by stvnorman »

My son was born the day after PS3 launched, and I did the responsible thing and stayed away, but not long after, my birthday came along and to my total shock, my wife had done the business, and my Mum came good with Resistance: Fall of Man too. I really had no idea it was coming, and I’ll never forget seeing that logo as I tore off the wrapping paper!

Like with PS4, I sold a lot of my games once I’d played them to fund more, so there’s probably lots I’ve forgotten I played, but I’ll never forget the wonderful times with Batman Arkham Asylum, Red Dead Redemption and Skyrim especially. I have been rebuilding my collection recently, usually with a real sense of satisfaction that I once sold this game for ten times what I’m buying it back for again now. Motorstorm for less than the price of its postage is priceless!
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Quiet Paul
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Quiet Paul »

For me, this was the worst iteration of the PlayStation. Not bad by any means just not as good as any others in my opinion.

When I got my PS3 it was to play MGS4 and that was pretty much it. Absolutely loved that game! However, I got very lucky with the 360 and never owned one which “red ringed”; I made good friends on that and enjoyed achievement collecting so, that was my go to place.

I did play the odd game. I remember buying the Uncharted games for about a fiver each out of CeX and still, to do this day, haven’t finished them. I didn’t like the look of most other exclusives at the time and anything I could play on my 360 and get achievements for - I’d just play them on that.

I do remember getting my first Blu-ray Film though which I think was Prometheus and thinking “I don’t get it?”. Now that’s all advanced and BR is my choice of disc based movie watching! However that’s diminished big time since I can watch pretty much any film via paid streaming service these days (or other methods, I’m sure. ;) ).

I never bought another ps3 after that so still have my original slim model I bought to play MGS4. I did use it to play a good few PS1 games but otherwise, the PS3 has by far the smallest collection of games that I own, out of all the others. The stand-outs being the amazing MGS4 and the very decent Demon’s Souls.

3WR: Expensive blu-ray player
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Truk_Kurt »

The PS3 is my favourite console which I think may surprise some but I think it was the first console with which I got majorly in to gaming. I'm not sure why I decided to go for PS3 over 360 other than that the previous console I owned was the PS2 so just thought the transition would be easier with the controller and Halo and Gears weren't really games which appealed to me at the time. The only PS exclusive I remember loving on PS2 was Gran Turismo and so I knew the PS3 would be the only place to play the next GT, even if I did have to wait a while.

I saved up some money from my first Saturday job and was delighted to be able to buy my own console for the first time in my life rather than get them as Christmas presents. I got the 60gb model but remember being initally disappointed with the games available at launch, I hated the launch FIFA (mainly because it was the season Derby were the worst team in Premier League history) and whatever else I had at the time I didn't enjoy much, I'll always remember buying Resident Evil 4 and playing that for the first time via backwards compatibility instead. It wasn't until the Christmas a few months after purchasing the console that my love for the PS3 started with The Orange Box, it supposed to be a horrible port but mine seemed to run ok and Half Life 2 and Portal became my top 2 games of all time and still are after playing them that Christmas. I then went on to play COD4 after that and never looked back. A lot of my top 20 games were played on PS3 so even if the 360 was the better console, I will always love the PS3 for the memories it gave me.
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Seph
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Seph »

I pretty much stop playing games when I started university in 2005, at least to the point that I rarely bought any for those three years. The release of PS3 seemed like a perfect way to get back into it as I'd had the previous consoles and I picked one up just after I handed in my final assignment. It came bundled with GTA4; which is a decent enough game, but in retrospect it's definitely one of the most overrated releases in history (Oscar-worthy script, my arse!).

My reintroduction to gaming almost fell apart immediately, as within an hour of taking it out the box the console stopped working. I returned it to Game, where I had to wait a while for them to accept it was faulty and I was given a replacement. All well and good...until five months later the same problem happened again. Sony were able to solve the issue and get a new one sent out to me, but it left me wondering if I should bother with this gaming lark at all any more. Thankfully this one worked perfectly...up until it entered limbo years later (as I was actually playing Limbo) and I bought a second-hand one off eBay that still works today.

When I started up the console for the first time, it was incredible to see how far things had stepped forward. I was impressed with its built-in hard drive, online gaming out of the box, region free games and wireless controllers. The Blu-ray drive was also an incredible addition for people like me who still collect physical media and enjoy watching films in the best quality available.

As for the games, they were mostly fine. Gaming had become so homogenous at this time that if you weren't a fan browny grim army man shooters you were mostly out of luck. Even MGS4 – which, along with God of War 3, is basically why I got a PS3 – couldn't escape this curse as the colour palate felt drained of any life.

This generation saw the introduction of several franchises, such as the Souls games, inFAMOUS, Batman Arkham, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, LittleBigPlant, The Last of Us and Uncharted; all of which changed gaming in their own ways. Some of these are admittedly shooters, but they added more to the genre than macho army men spouting nonsense.

There's also a slew of overlooked games I think deserve to be mentioned, namely NieR, Rayman Origins, Catherine, Dragon's Crown, Valkyria Chronicles, Sleeping Dogs, Tokyo Jungle, Spec Ops: The Line (the “acceptable” face of army shooters) and Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time.

While the PS3 had a lot of great games and it did get me back into gaming, I still rank it is a lower mid-tier console. The original monolith design was ugly, the early line-up was poor, the PSN was really clunky, the six-axis controller was incredibly misguided, consoles seemed to brick or break down easily, and it was overpriced on launch. As I mentioned earlier, this generation gaming will not be remembered fondly in history for its reliance on boring shooters and “real world”, brown-grey aesthetics. Sure, those still exist, but the subsequent generation definitely had more variety in looks and presentation.

Things improved towards the end of the PS3's life and Sony seemed like they had learned from their mistakes to give them momentum for the incredible PS4 launch, so maybe this was a necessary stumble for the incredible work to come.

Three word review: A rough patch.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Alex79 »

My girlfriend at the time bought me a PS3 for my 30th birthday. I hadn't been expecting it, but had wanted one for a while, and was really excited when I unwrapped it. I bit my lip as she explained that there had been two packages available, one with Little Big Planet and "a load of old games" (the Sega Megadrive Collection) and the one she'd chosen for me, which came with the Godfather game. But never mind, I'd got a PS3, woohoo!

The first thing I did was connect to the PSN store and download a bunch of old PS1 games, and ordered myself the first Uncharted from Amazon. I was blown away by the game, and it quickly became one of my favorite series as I bought most the other games almost as soon as they came out.

When PS+ was first introduced I wasn't too interested, but when they added the 'instant game collection' it became too much of a good offer to ignore. Every month I downloaded everything on offer and gave it a good try. It was almost like being taken back to the days of demo discs, where you'd try games you'd never normally have played.

So many great games played on the system over the years; Dark Souls, Max Payne 3, Uncharted, Infamous, God of War 3 as well as all the PS2 remasters of God of War 1 and 2, Ico, Shadow of the Collossus etc. I played on my PS3 well in to the life span of the PS4, but unfortunately one day it stopped reading discs. My sister kindly donated her PS3 slim, and that too eventually stopped reading discs!

I have a lot of good memories of this console, maybe even more so than my 360, and I think it's a shame future PS consoles weren't more backwards compatible, as there are an awful lot of games I'd like to go back to but haven't got the means.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by Mr Ixolite »

The PS3 marked the final step of the evolution into my current gamer form. It marked the peak of how much graphical fidelity I needed from my games, and with the addition of wireless controllers and downloadable games, what functionality I wanted from them.

I kept up with some stalwart franchises – God of War, Ratchet and Clank, and surprisingly Megaman,– mostly out of habit, but much like with the PS2 I was rewarded for branching out. The PS3 was my introduction to FPS’s through Bioshock and the Portal games, and I fell in love with the action-brawler adventures of Bayonetta and Batman.

But it is in the digital innards of my PS3, in the “downloads” folder, that the true impact of the PS3 on me can be found. Shovel Knight showed me that with some fresh eyes and modern sensibilities, templates as old as a 2D platformer could feel wholly fresh again. Flower and Journey showed me gaming experiences I didn’t know were possible, and moved me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. These games are still some of all-time favorites, and opened a whole new world for me in form of the indie scene. They made me more willing to experiment and try out a smaller, novel games on a lark, and even if few titles would reach the heights of the aforementioned trio, this has still yielded most of my best gaming memories in recent years. What the indie games could accomplish with committed art directions also helped me opt out of the graphical console arms race, and I wouldn’t buy a new console until the switch a decade later.

My current gaming diet thus involves a few retro favorites, a big helping of indies, and the very occasional AAA game provided it is lean, and hopefully level-based in its design, and this was all crystallized through the PS3.
So while I may bemoan the lack of backwards compatibility on the occasions when I drag out and plug in my 3rd replacement PS2, I still have my original PS3 hooked up to my TV to this day as a perpetual Netflix-access device, and occasional gaming console. And with a young daughter showing interest in her fathers collection of colorful platformers, the old girl seems poised for a renaissance.
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Re: Our next Console Special podcast recording (27.6.21) - PlayStation 3

Post by chase210 »

Right after listening to the podcast, my PS3 (500gb super slim) broke. Also the original model is gorgeous!
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by registradus »

I've just moved countries and had to leave my Xbox One X and gaming PC behind. I now have access to a PS3 (for the first time). This special was very helpful. I think I will pick up Puppeteer and Wipeout. maybe Metal Gear Solid 4 and Last of Us.
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by ratsoalbion »

A nice library to catch up with to be sure.
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by Truk_Kurt »

registradus wrote: September 29th, 2021, 7:22 pm I've just moved countries and had to leave my Xbox One X and gaming PC behind. I now have access to a PS3 (for the first time). This special was very helpful. I think I will pick up Puppeteer and Wipeout. maybe Metal Gear Solid 4 and Last of Us.
Be warned, Puppeteer is incredibly rare and expensive unfortunately. I still haven't managed to find a copy.
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by registradus »

Truk_Kurt wrote: September 30th, 2021, 10:21 am
registradus wrote: September 29th, 2021, 7:22 pm I've just moved countries and had to leave my Xbox One X and gaming PC behind. I now have access to a PS3 (for the first time). This special was very helpful. I think I will pick up Puppeteer and Wipeout. maybe Metal Gear Solid 4 and Last of Us.
Be warned, Puppeteer is incredibly rare and expensive unfortunately. I still haven't managed to find a copy.
oh I thought I could still get it through PSN?
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Truk_Kurt
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by Truk_Kurt »

oh apologies, yeah. I thought you meant physical
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by chase210 »

Goodness 3D Dot Game Heroes isn’t cheap. I knew it was going up, but it seems to have settled at £60-£100 and isn’t going down.
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Re: PlayStation 3

Post by ThirdDrawing »

Truk_Kurt wrote: September 30th, 2021, 10:21 am
registradus wrote: September 29th, 2021, 7:22 pm I've just moved countries and had to leave my Xbox One X and gaming PC behind. I now have access to a PS3 (for the first time). This special was very helpful. I think I will pick up Puppeteer and Wipeout. maybe Metal Gear Solid 4 and Last of Us.
Be warned, Puppeteer is incredibly rare and expensive unfortunately. I still haven't managed to find a copy.
I'm glad I'm one of the five people that picked this up when it was released.
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