Count yourself fortunate if you have a PlayStation 3. You're in for a good time.
Sony's home console hasn't enjoyed the same kind of sales dominance as the Xbox 360 or the Wii during its life cycle, but it's home to great exclusive titles generated by what's arguably the best development studio network among the big three console manufacturers.
Want a solid PS3 game library? Start with these titles below.
Update 06/17/13: One Naughty Dog game leaves and another enters. It’s only been out a few days but there’s a nearly unanimous sentiment The Last of Us is one of the most well-executed games of the PS3’s life cycle. There’s only room for a dozen games on a Bests list and this time TLOU elbows out its Naughty Dog labelmate Uncharted 2. Different games with different goals, yes, but The Last of Us is just more accomplished overall.
Update 11/14/12: The update here is that there is no update. Kotaku's editorial team talked back and forth about very good recent releases—Papo & Yo, Need for Speed: Most Wanted and The Unfinished Swan, along with others—but ultimately decided that none of these titles would unseat the current PS3 Bests list. We're still going to factor in games like Call of Duty: Black Ops II and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale for Sony' s home console but need more time to see if these game really belong on a list of The Bests.
Assassin's Creed II
For the second trip down Desmond Miles' DNA helix, Ubisoft Montreal introduced Ezio Auditore and gave players more options for mayhem in the urban centers of the Italian Renaissance. You can hire courtesans to distract guards or use mercenaries to do the dirty work for you. The swordplay showed increased flexibility and depth, too, with more weapons and tactics than before. Underneath it all, the game's virtual Italy sported a more varied, vibrant population than any other free-roaming game so far.
A Good Match for: Fans of serialized fiction. With a conspiracy fetish tying everything all together, the Assassin's Creed games represent a journey through history and iteration, where you get to see how things were in the real world and where ideas are going in game design. Do follow through and continue Ezio's story in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed Revelations.
Not for Those Who Want: A harmonious whole. The framing story of Assassin's Creed is the franchise's biggest problem. The present-day world that ordinary dude Desmond Miles walks through just isn't as lushly imagined as those that his hooded predecessors prowled. The pieces of the game don't sync up in terms of appeal and you might start getting involuntarily annoyed when you start to hear Desmond actor Nolan North's voice again.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
Also available on Xbox 360 and PC.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The game that started Call of Duty on the road to becoming record-breaking phenomenon took players by surprise when Activision first unveiled it in 2007. Infinity Ward's recipe for high-speed action changed perceptions of what a contemporary shooter could feel like and fostered a new generation of rabid competitors as a result.
A Good Match for: Fans of taut military thrillers. Later installments of Modern Warfare never reached the heights of COD 4's surprising events and Modern Warfare's narrative—while still very popcorn—seems more focused than the games that followed.
Not for Those Who Want: Robust online multiplayer. The COD community tends to migrate to each new entry in the series, so you may not find a huge population playing this four-year-old game.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop
Also available on Xbox 360 and PC.
Demon's Souls
In an era when even the biggest, most bad-ass games hint and handhold you to death, From Software developed an unlikely hit by making a hostile, figure-it-yourself RPG where other players could pop into your game and make you miserable.
A Good Match for: Masochists. You can almost hear the developer's gleeful snickers at how helpless they render you. But when you crack the rules—especially if it's via the message left by a poor sod (some other real PS3 player) who died before you—and craft a winning strategy to take down a big bad, the satisfaction's like nothing else in video games at the moment.
Not for Those Who Want: To feel powerful. You know that thing where, about two-thirds of the way through a game, you feel like you can kick anything's ass? Don't go looking for that in Demon's Souls, where you feel like the runt of the video game hero litter the entire game.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
Heavy Rain
Quantic Dream's cinematic experiment evolves the adventure genre, starting off with an everyday reality that gets warped through an eerie lens. Depending on how you progress, the thriller's story and point-of-view bifurcates into divergent tangents, pointing out a provocative new path for an entire genre.
A Good Match for: Indie film buffs. Heavy Rain's gameplay is a kind of active watching—the opposite of mindless button-mashing—that should prove inviting to cineastes curious about gaming.
Not for Those Who Want: Combat. You'll do lots of unique quick-time events to get through Heavy Rain's chapters but cravers of intense action won't find what they want here.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
Journey
How do you top the beautiful, poetic experience that was ThatGameCompany's Flower? Easy, just make a game that strips away everything annoying of maddening modern online gameplay and set it inside a lush gameworld that looks like a living painting. The travels that you undertake in Journey culminate in an incredibly touching moment. It's not just one of the best PS3 games. It's one of the best games ever, period.
A Good Match for: Shy people. Just like Flower before it, Journey is a wordless experience. The limited set of gestures you use to communicate means you won't have to worry about embarrassing yourself by saying something awkward.
Not for Those Who Want: Conversation. If you spent a big chunk of time sand-surfing with another person, you'll probably want to learn a bit more about him or her. Journey never lets you do that, though, and that enforced silence makes up much of its impact.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: The PlayStation Store
LittleBigPlanet 2
Video games often glorify a player's reflexes but LittleBigPlanet 2 stands apart by energizing an individual's creativity, too. Media Molecule's hit PS3 exclusive bundles a whimsical first-rate platformer with the world-building toolset to make games just like it. The sequel includes the ability to make more different types of games and to share them socially with other player/creators.
A Good Match for: Artsy craftsy types/Lego fanatics. If you like building stuff that can take on a life of its own, no console game presents as lively a tableau as LittleBigPlanet 2. With miniature avatar-bots with assignable attitudes to a huge palette of visual treatments and textures, crafting a level in LBP2 feels like making a living, playable microcosm of your own.
Not for Those Who Want: Sharp precision platforming. Like its burlap protagonist Sackboy, LittleBigPlanet 2's physics are warm and fuzzy. Its floaty jumps will prove maddening to anyone craving the ice-cold precision of, say, a Super Mario game.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
NBA 2K12
What do you do for an encore after bringing a virtual Michael Jordan back to video games after a decades-long absence? Well, 2K Sports assembled dozens of the greatest b-ball teams throughout hoops history, let players rehash rivalries and traveled back in time to tight-shorts yesteryear. If NBA 2K11 was a love letter to one player, then 2K12 is an ode to the whole sport.
A Good Match for: Atlanta Hawks fans. New York Knick Fans. Minnesota Timberwolves fans. If you're unlucky enough to live in a city that's only had fleeting flashes of b-ball star power, the "NBA's Greatest" mode will let you bask in those glory days and forget how, erm, challenged your hometown team currently is.
Not for Those Who Want: Online pick-and-rolls. Since its launch last year, it's been a rocky road for people wanting to play NBA 2K12 against each other online. Constant dropped connections and crippling lag have actual competitive match-ups against other humans the stuff of dreams.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
PixelJunk Sidescroller
The latest in Q-Games' wonderfully stylish offerings pays homage to memorize-the-sequence shoot-em-ups of the 80s and 90s, and add modern twists that provide even more challenge. Check out PixelJunk Eden, PixelJunk Shooter and PixelJunk Monsters for more Q-takes on tried-and-true genres. They're all brilliant. Really.
A Good Match for: Galaga fans. Defender fans. Sinistar fans. If you ever stuck a quarter into an arcade stand-up machine to fly a spaceship, this game will bring back old joys and introduce you to new ones like co-operative blasting.
Not for Those Who Want: Super-vibrant colors. Sidescroller's commitment to mimicking the vector graphics and scan lines of old gives it a more muted look than other games.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: The PlayStation Store
Portal 2
Call it the Superman 2 or Empire Strikes Back of video games. Valve's follow-up to a classic improves on the humor, characterization and puzzle-solving of its predecessor to deliver a tight, focused experience full of poignancy and humor.
A Good Match for: Comedy lovers. The voicework alone—performed in stellar fashion by Stephen Merchant and Ellen McLain—will make you laugh out loud but the brain-teasing puzzles and embedded gags keep the chuckles coming even when everything else in the game goes quiet.
Not for Those Who Want: Mediocrity. People who argue with Portal 2's greatness are like folks complaining that diamonds came from dirt. Their argument is invalid.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
Also available on Xbox 360 and PC.
Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time
Arguably the best outing in Insomniac's buddy adventure franchise, A Crack in Time still offers the prankish cool of the dev studio's witty weapons but also throws in mind-bending time-manipulation platforming to blaze all paths in an all-new way.
A Good Match for: Star Trek fans. Sure, the Lombax-and-robot duo violate the Prime Directive all over the place but A Crack in Time's action should satisfy anyone who liked watching Kirk get into a scuffle as well as pleasing those who prefer Spock's cool Vulcan logic. This one is also probably the best game on our list for kids.
Not for Those Who Want: Busywork. Some of the interstitial space stuff—battles with enemy fleets, blasting asteroids into smithereens—just feels like filler, no matter how good it looks.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
Shadow of the Colossus
Universally praised as a must-play experience, this towering achievement originally debuted on the PS2. But 2011 saw a hi-def re-release that's brought has made Shadow of the Colossus playable on that console's predecessors. Lonely desperate battles against giant creatures stand out as some of the most moving and hypnotic experiences ever to be had in gaming.
A Good Match for: Die-hard Romantics. Love's the reason that Colossus's hero battles the game's iconic creatures. The Colossi themselves embody a mix of platforming, combat and puzzling and you'll grow to have a love/hate relationship with each one of them, too. Plus you get SoTC's spiritual prequel Ico, too, for double the love.
Not for Those Who Want: Gadgets. Dev studio Team Ico's oeuvre puts a high emphasis on minimalism, meaning that you're never going to get a magic satchel full of upgradeable tchotkes.
Here's how it looks in action.
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
The Last of Us
Naughty Dog's violent, heartfelt, and emotionally exhausting epic The Last of Us is the studio's crowning achievement, and easily one of the most impressive games on the PlayStation 3. Its story of survival in a post-apocalyptic world may be built on a foundation of zombie-movie clichés, but the tale of the embittered smuggler Joel and his relationship with a young girl named Ellie is so full of heart and wrought with such subtlety that any concerns about overfamiliarity fade away. Better still, in addition to its beautiful art, gorgeous soundtrack and eye-popping cutscenes, the game itself is quite well-made. It's an often terrifying, exhilarating mixture of stealth, action and horror that plays out over sprawling levels and is unafraid to make the player feel disoriented and disempowered.
A Good Match For: People who like their games intense—The Last of Us is relentless, and the intensity of its narrative is matched by its discombobulating, often panic-inducing combat. This game is also great for those who like cinematic, movie-like games, and it's a good game to show off to your friends, roommates, or significant other. It's the rare game that looks so good that it's fun to watch as well as play.
Not For Those Who Want: A game that's fun or lighthearted. The Last of Us is a ceaselessly grim, often emotionally wrenching experience. Very bad things happen to good people, and it never gets easier to watch. Its closest literary analogue is Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and in terms of grimness, The Last of Us matches and sometimes exceeds McCarthy's often horrifying novel. Combat, too, is exceptionally violent, so this game is not for the squeamish.
Here’s what it looks like in action
Purchase from: Amazon | Wal-Mart | Best Buy | GameStop
NOTE: This list will be updated if and when we discover better games. We will only ever list 12 games, at the most.
