Topic: What PS3 game(s) are you currently playing?

@ralphdibny Thanks for the tag alongside that video up there; never seen it before, but it fits perfectly, almost too perfectly! Captures the atmosphere of MGSV whilst giving a voice to the obvious-yet-obscure gaps in the continuity. Gosh darn it, I need to make me some Metal Gear time!

@ralphdibny as someone who considers one’s self to have an obsessive personality... you’ve just made my level of obsession seem totally inadequate by flashing what can only be described as an obsession-level of over 9000! Well done sir! 🤯

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy still haven’t finished it yet, I only really game on a Wednesday as it’s my day off... but I did get an hour in after work tonight. Reckon I’ll get it done over the weekend (I’ll get up a couple of hours before the missus and log on).

The Boss is great, I find her strangely attractive too considering she is a PS2-era collection of polygons forming muscular femininity. I also really liked The End and The Sorrow. The others are cool too but those three just send my imagination of on multiple tangents during play. As you allude too, they really did nail The Boss and her relationship to Snake, it needed to have gravitas and be epic... and it was pulled off perfectly.

@colonelkilgore I’m not trying to be rude by not replying I just...have nothing to add here as you appear to be in incredibly good hands 😄 All I can say is that the ending of MGS3 is potentially one of the most satisfying in gaming for me. I actually hauled my PS2 to grade school and showed a bunch of different cutscenes (had the saves all planned out) including the ending in film studies. It’s just beautifully done.

I've played a few ps plus games on PS3 this week. My sub runs out in like 18 days or something so while I'll never get around to trying every ps plus game I've claimed, I decided to focus on PS3/Vita games so I can decide if any are worth buying then I can do so when my sub runs out. They could pull the plug on the store at any moment and if I am halfway through a 12 month sub in future then I may lose the opportunity to purchase.

Anyway, I thought I'd write a bit about each game I've played or tried out. I'll put SCE in brackets if it's a Sony published title.

Snakeball (SCE) - this game is Snake (i.e snake on a Nokia) but in 3d. It's from an over the shoulder perspective and you have a full 3D range of movement instead of the two axes that the Nokia version offers. The game is OK, I thought it was going to be a multiplayer game, which it certainly seems like the focus is on but there are a number of single player "Challenge" levels that serve as a campaign. I beat it in about 5 hours (because of one particularly tricky level). Worth a play but not worth a buy. Rating = OK for okay

Toy Home (SCE) - this game looks good and is a tried and tested (micro machines yum yum) concept where you drive around as a toy car in the most liberal definition of the word "race". Unfortunately buttons don't steer your car, motion controls do. I'm sure you've heard me rant about motion being used for anything other than gyro aiming on a traditionally shaped controller but this game truly does have terrible controls. Or maybe I am just terrible at controlling it. Two hands on one controller requires a level of ambidexterity that I just don't have. I much prefer the split pad wand style remotes for motion controlled games. Completed the 8 included tracks in an hour, the rest of the game was thankfully locked behind paid DLC. Rating = A (for ass)

Eat Them! (SCE) - this was probably the best game I played that day, not sure if it was because of the absolute croquettes I had put up with before that though. I actually enjoyed this game which is not something I often say. Normally games are an experience or have a good story/characters rather than just fun for me. This is a kaiju style game where you smash up cities but you have objectives to complete along the way. The progression in the campaign is clear and manageable which is something I like about games. Building monsters to maximise stats for different objectives is serviceable, my man "Jumpspeed" was great for races and my final obliterator "Bad" was great for the final couple of trophies. Even though I 100%ed it and got all the trophies in about 6 hours, I have added it to the "to buy" pile because I genuinely thought it was good. Rating = G for good.

Arkedo Series 01 Jump - mediocre platformer. Would probably take about an hour to complete it's 30 or so levels. I got to level 27 and lost all my lives. Couldn't be bothered to go back. Rating = M for meh.

Arkedo Series 02 Swap - meh, it's a tile swapping game. I played through "castle" mode which serves as the campaign but it unlocked a "challenges" mode afterward which I couldn't be bothered with. Unfortunately I can't add this or Jump to my completed games list because of that. The castle mode has a few screens relating a story of a feline regent going home, if that's your thing. Rating = Y for why did I bother

WRC FIA Rally 5 - or something like that. This game piqued my interest because I'm fascinated with how different gens portrayed real landscapes in racing games. But then I realised it almost looked like a PS2 game which is probably why I was getting my thrills. Having said that, is this a good PS3 game? The answer is no. The frame rate is trash, it's like watching a slideshow. I played through between 1-5 different tracks in each available country (naturally I played all 5 in Britain to see if there were any recognisable landmarks). Also hearing your co driver bark nonsensical information at you in his best impression of a Richard Ayoade voice (without the humour) is pretty grating. Once I'd tried all the cars, I settled on one of two options that had a female co driver for the rest of the tracks because the softer voice was more palatable. Yeah, I don't know about the co driver thing. I don't watch rally driving or any vehicle racing for that matter. In terms of rally games, I am only familiar with the big hitters from back in the day like Sega Rally and V-Rally (did TOCA have rally driving?) so maybe it's a thing, it just could have been implemented better. Rating = WAT? for worth a try?

Rag Doll Kung Fu (SCE but I believe it's available on steam?) - this game was pretty funny. It's like smash Bros but with the old Thunderbird style puppets. It probably leans more into Team America though with its humour and ridiculous puppet movements. It has a "Challenges" mode which serves as a very short campaign (yes! I can add it to my completed games list!) that can be beat in about an hour but would take many more to master. If you do well in this mode you are awarded fists made of metal with increasing value which unlock different customisations for your fighters. Like Snakeball, the multiplayer is probably where this game shines but I don't have any real life friends to play with at the moment so yeah. Rating = WAT! for worth a try!

Zombie Driver HD - I thought this game was going to be one I turned on, tried and turned off. I've actually got into it and I'm 21 levels into its 31 level campaign. I plan to finish it tomorrow and try out the non campaign modes. It's a bit like GTA, GTA: London and GTA2 except you do missions where you run over zombies or shoot them with your car weapons. You also rescue people and drive them places. Obviously it looks a bit more modern than the old GTA games but it's more or less a similar viewpoint. I never really get into retro GTA clones because nothing is as good as the original so I am surprised that I am going the distance with this one. Quite good, probably wouldn't buy it but it's worth at least trying if you claimed it with your sub. Then you can decide to stick it out or bin it off. Rating = STD for surprisingly decent, the T is just for humourous purposes...

@ralphdibny Hurrah, you tried Toy Home and it... it turned out, er... oh. Oh dear. I'm sorry.

Love your ratings, by the way. They should be the new standard.

@RogerRoger cheers for reading through my mini reviews. I can't imagine the interest in such content to be anything more than niche so they had to be firm, fair and funny lol.

I don't know why I bother playing these games to be honest, nobody else cares about them so why do I?! 😅 I guess @colonelkilgore was right about my obsession levels being over 9000! 😂

@ralphdibny 🤣

@ralphdibny Sometimes it's worth sticking your neck out into the unknown, though. There's always the chance of finding a hidden gem, like the G-rated Eat Them! or the STD-rated Zombie Driver HD, or even the WAT!-rated Rag Doll Kung Fu (my word, what are you making me write?!).

At the very least, they've helped you entertain us with your witty observations, so there's always that.

Just finished MGS3, missed one trophy (Fashionista) I’ve looked into it since and think it’s just the Snake Camo after The Boss that I didn’t pick up... just didn’t see it I guess. I have a save just before The Boss though, so I should be able to mop that up quite quickly.

WOW though, I’m blown away! It’s obviously fresh in the mind, so take it for what it’s worth... but right now I’m thinking that was the best video game narrative that I have ever experienced. Phenomenal! Although I haven’t played MGS, MGS2 and MGS4... I know enough to understand (on some level) what a piece of genius prequel storytelling that was. I loved it. Can’t wait to play the rest of the series.

I still rank MGSV above it though. Obviously the narrative was far stronger in 3 and far more ambiguous in V... but I just enjoyed the actual game world and the gameplay mechanics so much in V that it will be hard to beat in my estimation. Still, that is no sleight on 3, V is in my top 3 games of all time.

Funny you say that @colonelkilgore as I recall seeing the render of The Boss from that ghastly Pachinko/Pachislot version of MGS3 Konami made with the Fox Engine for cutscenes and there was just something about the Boss' model that caused me to think she looked nowhere near as good to me as her PS2 model.

... That's probably due to a mix of some rose tinted nostalgia and finding Konami's actions rather gross though more then anything

Well done on beating Snake Eater btw! As the Gameplay King I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed the narrative so much too! 😄

I think (And I'm likely to be a bit wrong as it has been a while) the Metal Gear HD collection version of MGS3 misses out a fair few of the bonuses like the Ape Escape crossover minigame, the extra movies (I think most of them are gag ones?) they made for the Subsistance re-release... I think they even cut out a very weird dream sequence/easter egg you can have in the jail of a gothic hack and slash game?

At the very least seeing as you ended up enjoying MGS 3 so much ya might wanna give those a look on youtube or something?

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy yeah thanks foxy, I’ll deffo have a look into the extra stuff you mentioned that was not included on the HD version. The story is so far up my street that I can’t believe I never got into the series earlier. Obviously there is talk of movies being made based on the games, sadly I think there is probably about 1% chance that they will be done justice.

I just saw in the trophy thread that you missed some of Kerotan frogs...

Oh I feel your pain @colonelkilgore. Don't think I bothered with those myself because it was that motorbike sequence and I knew I wasn't gonna get them.

Good luck with that if you're go through MGS3 again for those.

Didn't they cast Oscar Issac as Solid Snake for that? ... Not that I think a Metal Gear solid film would work at all.

Though I think there was a novelisation of the first Solid game and I think it was well recieved so it has at least been turned into alternate media already...

Just finished that Zombie Driver HD. I actually thought it was really good in the end. Some fairly tough bits in it. I'm not sure if I'm going to go back for the platinum due to lack of time but I am tempted.

So the main game is like a horror themed GTA. I tried out the other two modes, there's a racing mode which plays a lot like Micro Machines with the camera angle and the weapons. It's an actual race though, it doesn't have that on/off the screen point scoring. The final mode is like a survival mode where you just have to drive around and kill zombies for as long as possible, it popped like 3 trophies from my first game of it.

So yeah, the original GTA games and the old Micro Machines games are some of my favourites of all time so I can see why this game appealed to me.

@RogerRoger 😂 well I've entertained you at least so thanks! I'll try and do some more short write ups if I get the time!

@colonelkilgore so glad you enjoyed Snake Eater! Honestly the game has me either in tears or on the verge of tears for the whole thing. From the bond style opening credits with that song to the ladder sequence with the subdued version of that song to the end credits with that song 😂. I have a feeling that song might have a lot to do with it...🤔

I've said before that I love the whole series and while it's hard to choose a favourite per say, they are just all brilliant for different reasons. MGS was the first one I played so it will hold that special place in my heart. It's amazing, the voice acting, the exposition, everything really. Snake Eater too for the reasons you've said. Guns of the Patriots for reasons I won't say until you've played it. Peace Walker because of how in depth it is and the amount there is to do. Phantom Pain for the "moments". Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake because it's such an old game but it has the absolute brilliance of something more modern.

Portable Ops, Peace Walker and the Phantom Pain form a sort of pseudo trilogy in themselves because the gameplay is very similar across the three but different from every other Metal Gear game. I get why fans of Metal Gear may not be as enthused with them because of how different they are and I don't think of them as an evolution, just as a side track. I have often wondered if The Phantom Pain would have been better received if it wasn't a numbered entry and so didn't have the expectation of similar game play to the previous numbered entries.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I managed to get all the kerotans thank god, wasn’t sure I hit them all but the trophy popped 🙏. The only thing I have left is the camo’s, so if my reckoning is correct, I should just have to load up my save prior to The Boss, collect the Snake Camo, finish the game again and I ‘should’ be golden (well platinum 😉).

@ralphdibny thanks bud, it really was a work of art... so stylish, so much pathos, so many loose-ends tied up. I’m gonna be real interested to see how I rank the series once I’ve played through them... well MGS, MGS2, MGS3, MGS4, MGSV, MGS:PW & MGS:R anyway.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy The best random extra content thing is the skateboarding game from MGS2 Substance. Just plain mad.

I'm still working my way through Diablo III. Just got to Act III. I'd forgotten how good it is! I've been meaning to get off it for the last hour, but it's addictive. My character looks like a badass, with his bright pink helmet...

The missus is having a lazy Sunday in Skyrim on the switch, so I’m gonna start Metal Gear Solid... exciting!

@colonelkilgore Snake, Snaaaaake!!!

Did you manage to get a rundown of what happened in MG1&2 in the end?

@ralphdibny I read the wiki’s, they wasn’t massively informative if I’m honest but I think I’ve got the gist. I’m looking forward to playing some more MGS. Think I’m gonna have a long-play on Wednesday, will try and finish it but might have an hour or two left to put in on Thursday and Fri after work.