[DaveyJJ]

Given that I am not a huge fan on your standard FPS type games (i.e., Halo, and yes, I know that's on the Xbox not PS3, it was simply an example), and given that my first purchase with the PS3 today was Little Big Planet (and a 42" Panasonic plasma TV), I'm looking to the superbly knowledgeable community here to suggest other "top of genre" games for the PS3.

I do plan on getting Rain when it comes out, and IL2 Sturmovik for my flight sim fix, but what other games would people here suggest are the best of the best. Final thought that WW2 tactical is a passion of mine. So, perhaps Battlefield 1943, but what else?

If you could only have five games for the PS3 what would they be?

PS. And is getting an account on PS Home (??) free so I can multiplayer? And how easy is it to lock the kids logins out of online if I wanted?

[Ichigo27]

Heavenly Sword is easy to recommend unless you don't like playing a game with violence. Hands down, Valkyria Chronicles is one of better playstation 3 and Uncharted.

[The Liberator]

Wipeout HD?

Liberator.

[teflon]

Valkyria Chronicles,
Batman:Arkham Asylum,
Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction (for the kids, though its good fun anyway)
Uncharted (2)
Killzone 2

Also recommended are Fat Princess (turn off the gore and it'd be suitable for kids), Wipeout HD, MGS 4, inFamous, and Burnout Paradise.

The good thing is that a lot of the old blockbusters are now on on the platinum range, so they're nice and cheap. Also, I'd recommend heading onto the PSN store and grabbing a bunch of demos to see if games are for you.

As for online, creating a PSN account is free, and all gaming is free too. Its tied to your email address and gives you and online username. From that you can install Home (but you don't have to if you don't want to). All online gaming is actually handled in game, so Home is a bit superfluous to the entire process.

The best way to lock the kids out of online is to have created the password to their PSN accounts yourself (so that they don't know them). Have it set to remember the password (and maybe auto login if you want), and then if you want to block them from online, just get rid of the remember password. They don't know it, they can't login.

There's also a parental lock out, but that applies to all games and is system wide. unfortunately there's no offline account passwords.

[Frost]

I could give my top five, but I doubt my tastes match yours exactly, so instead I'll give my favorites from each genre. Asterisk by the name denotes a PSN game (downloadable from the Playstation Store), which means the game is probably pretty cheap, usually between $5 and $20.

I'll note everything I list I also either have or am going to get, so if you want to play with someone, I'm around.


Action/adventure
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune – I have not shown this game to a single person who didn't end up liking it; only game with that distinction. You could say it has broad appeal. Think Indiana Jones/Romancing the Stone.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Not released till October 13, but I'm pretty certain it'll be at least on par with the first game.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots – Absolutely fan-fricking-tastic story-heavy stealth/espionage action/adventure game. While folks have enjoyed it even without prior knowledge of the series, if you do feel like giving it a go, I'll note that Sony added the original PS1 Metal Gear Solid to the Playstation Store. I highly recommend grabbing that and playing through it first, as the story will make so much more sense, plus MGS1 is just flat out a damn good game even if it's ten years old. I actually recommend playing the entire series if you can, but MGS2 and 3 are much more skippable than MGS1, and if you don't have a PS2 you won't be able to play MGS2 or 3 anyway.
Mercenaries 2 – Open world sandbox game. Think Grand Theft Auto, but in a war zone, where instead of being a street thug you're instead a highly trained international mercenary. Comes with drop in and out coop even. Not without its faults, but I still enjoy the heck out of this game, much more than GTA4.


Strategy
Civilization: Revolution – If you're a Civ fan, this is a great game. Think of it as a much more streamlined, accessible, newbie-friendly version of Civilization IV. It can be played online with friends, too!
Savage Moon* – Normally I have fun with a tower defense game for between 10 and 30 minutes after which I become bored and never play it again. Savage Moon I have spent MANY hours on and still enjoy the hell out of it. Can't recommend this puppy enough. I only bought it because it was a whole $10, but after having played it I'll admit I'd buy it now even if it was $40.


Racing
MotorStorm – One of the most fun offroad racers I've ever played. Enough realism to feel "right" but enough arcadeyness to be hella fun and crazy beyond where something like DiRT can go. Alongside Resistance: Fall of Man was one of the few early PS3 games awesome enough to shoot up over a million sales very quickly despite a small installed base. If you ever played EA's old Road Rash games, I'd say this is a spiritual successor.
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift – Only thing better than MotorStorm is MORE MotorStorm! The sequel was released this Janaury. Bigger, badder, with lots more vehicles, races, modes, and so on.
WipEout HD* – Who knew hyperfast anti-grav racing could be so damn FUN? Wipeout is right up there with the MotorStorms as far as getting the majority of my racing attention. Best of all, it's the content and quality of a $60 disc-based game which makes it an absolute steal at $20 as a PSN title. A word of warning though, it's for people with above average reflexes.
Gran Turismo 5 – Not out yet, but definitely worth getting once it is. THE premiere driving simulator. I'm not the biggest fan of super-realistic driving games, but Gran Turismo has always been a worthy exception. You can get GT5: Prologue right now, but this close to the release of the full game it's probably not worth the cash at this point.


Shooters
You said you don't like standard fare FPS games, so I'll leave out straight up shooters and just mention stuff that stands out.
Battlefield 1943* – If you're at all familiar with the Battlefield games, this is pretty much standard fare. Two teams of players kick the snot out of each other in every manner they can from going head to head with rifles to dogfighting and divebombing with the fighters to rolling on each other with tanks or drive-bys with jeeps and at the beginning of each round a beach assault with landing craft or even calling in bomber raids to carpet bomb sections of the map that get too packed with enemies. Goal of the game is to capture and hold bases around the map and deplete the enemy's reinforcements by both killing them as well as having a greater number of the bases so they automatically lose reinforcements. The side that runs out of men first, loses. It's a departure from old-style Battlefield in that the guns actually (gasp) damage people. The SMGs are still popcorn guns, but the infantry rifles and sniper rifles will put people down with only two or three good hits, which largely eliminates the stupid bunny-hopping sprayfests of yore and brings in more tactical play. Don't know what else to say other than I flipping love this game, plus it's only $15, and you know one of the best Corsair pilots there is via IMG so ace-level air support can always be called in.
Killzone 2 – I'd recommend this game even to folks who don't normally go for shooters. An overall very fun campaign mode, and enough uniqueness in the gameplay that it feels fresh even though the genre has been beaten to death. KZ2's been one of the few FPSes that's kept me coming back for more. Multiplayer is among the best I've seen, but even if you don't care for any multi, the single player game is still a blast. You fight from cover and stick with your squad, so it's a grittier, tenser, more realistic feeling experience than just your usual run-n-gun Rambo-style shooter.
Wolfenstein 3D* – Hehe... a classic! Good way to spend five bucks.
Battlefield: Bad Company – Singleplayer in this game was just a light-hearted blast. Think of Battlefield gameplay with a modern version of Kelly's Heroes as the storyline. The multiplayer isn't very newbie-friendly anymore as everyone has all the maps memorized and all weapons and equipment pretty much mastered, so expect to die a lot if you take it online, and it still suffers from oldschool Battlefield style where it takes a zillion shots to kill people. BF1943's multiplayer is much more fun, IMO. The game's cheap by now though, so I think it's worth it just for some fun single-player.

Flight Simulator
HAWX – This game is much more in the vein of the Ace Combat series than Falcon 4.0, but it's still quite enjoyable and a good way to get a modern fighter fix on a console. The ability to play the whole campaign coop online with up to four people is a great bonus too, as it's a lot of fun to turn on the mics, crank the difficulty all the way up, and then go at it with your human wingman.


Arcade
Super Stardust HD* – Definitely the most fun variation of asteroids I've played yet. If you combined the old school-ish arcade titles of both PSN and Xbox Live, I think Stardust would come up as king.
Crash Commando* – Multiplayer 2D platform action shooter, playable against other players, against bots, or with players against bots. Best way I can sum it up is Contra meets Unreal Tournament.
NovaStrike* – This game got a bad rap as being too hard, but I really didn't find it so. It's a fun take on the top-down fly around a world and blast stuff style.


Survival Horror
Dead Space – Now I know what you're thinking: "Resident Evil/Silent Hill? Ew, no thanks." This game isn't stereotypical survival horror fare, though. Think of the films Aliens and Event Horizon, and imagine a cross between the two, maybe with a dash of Marathon thrown in for good measure. If that sounds like it'd be something interesting to you, then that's about the best description I can give of Dead Space. I enjoyed it tremendously, played it beginning to end five times, and apparently I'm not the only one as EA approved a pair of sequels, there's a live action movie in the works, and more. I will say it's the kind of game that's "just for dad" though. Not quite a family game.


Hack n' Slash
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest – This one got bad reviews, much of them deservedly so, however most of that was also geared toward the multiplayer which is, frankly, bad. It's laggy, underpopulated, and stupidly unbalanced. I'd say it's a diamond in the rough, though. Where the game starts to shine is in single player, which I personally found to be quite enjoyable (though the difficulty increases STEEPLY when you move from casual to heroic and up), and coop, which can be an absolute blast with a good partner. A lot of good button-mashing fun to be had among gigantic LOTR set pieces.

[DaveyJJ]

Fantastic recommendations, thanks all! I've heard of most of these titles so will mostly likely play with the idea of getting some of them.

Is MediaLink the only way to stream content from OSX to the PS3?

PS. One of my cats who likes the smell/taste of soft plastics managed to mangle/chew one of the two controllers I have last night, nibbling the plastic off both the top sticks. Grrrr.

[the Battle Cat]

OMG! I LOVE the smell/taste of soft plastics! Does your cat have a blog?? I'd love to read it.

[teflon]

DaveyJJ, on September 20th 2009, 02:22 PM, said:

Fantastic recommendations, thanks all! I've heard of most of these titles so will mostly likely play with the idea of getting some of them.

Is MediaLink the only way to stream content from OSX to the PS3?

PS. One of my cats who likes the smell/taste of soft plastics managed to mangle/chew one of the two controllers I have last night, nibbling the plastic off both the top sticks. Grrrr.

Frost's list, as ever, is pretty comprehensive, but missed out Batman (nana nana nana nana, nana nana nana nana, BATMAN!) and Valkyria Chronicles, both of which are excellent and have tons of accolades to their names.

Medialink isn't the only way, but it used to be pretty much the only one. There's a newish kid on the block, though, in the form of PS3 media server. Its java based, so cross platform, but it is a bit of a work in progress, I gather. It will transcode your files if need be too, which is pretty good. Give it a shot. If it doesn't work, then you can always try Medialink (30 minute trial, or something).

You obviously need to keep your controllers under lock and key then... I've got an imported white controller which no-one but me is allowed to touch.

[DaveyJJ]

I will be signing up for PSN later this afternoon after I get my "honey-do" list completed. Will post my screen name afterwards. I assume everyone in this thread is also online ... with what names?

[the Battle Cat]

DaveyJJ, on September 20th 2009, 11:12 AM, said:

... with what names?

erm ... I'm, um, CaptFrost. ::cough cough::

[Frost]

the Battle Cat, on September 20th 2009, 02:11 PM, said:

erm ... I'm, um, CaptFrost. ::cough cough::

I'm... hey!

[J'nathus]

I'm Jnathus007... that's right the SPY version. I'm incognito when in the IMG forums. SHHHHHH!!!

[Floxwoop]

I only got my PS3 about two weeks ago so here is my rather short list of must have games (i.e. the games I have bought so far )
- LittleBigPlanet, which you already got so I'll just leave it at that.
- Ratchet and Clank. I LOVE using my trusty Negotiator on heavily armed robotic commandos, negotiating their immediate earthly departure
- Uncharted. It's like an Indiana Jones movie turned into a game. Also, it has the best water I've ever seen in a video game.
- Wipeout HD. Extremely hard and extremely fun high-speed racing.

For streaming I've been using PS3 Media Server. It's free and ugly but it gets the job done.

I'm Floxwoop here and Floxwoop there (yes I have clone, but don't worry, he won't hurt anyone as long as he gets his milk and cookies every day... Oop! I forgot to buy the cookies!).

[DaveyJJ]

All done. DaveyJJ (remarkably!) as a user name.

[teflon]

and Im teflon6678.
Ill add you tomorrow, if you haven't already added me.

Let us know what games you get in the end. Id be up for meeting up with you and Frost for some BF1943 action, show you the ropes.

[Sneaky Snake]

I'm SneakySnakey , since you live so close we can perhaps have a LAN night sometime

My Top 5 Games would be the following:

1. MGS4 - absolutely friggen amazing story, and i played it with no prior knowledge of the series. If you watch the cutscenes you'll get the hang of the story pretty quick
2. Uncharted - its just dang fun and classy
3. Killzone 2 - top notch shooter, with a great online and pretty good campaign
4. For Racing I'd either go Motorstorm and Grand Tourismo, it depends on what your into. I vary on which I like the best.
5. I don't own enough games to make a fifth recommendation

I would recommend Civ: Revolutions, but since your computers are more then capable it would be better just to get Civ IV for mac. I only played through the demo of BF1943, but it was very fun. The demo gives you 1 hour access to the game online, so it will give you a very good idea of what its like.

A note about games for your kids though. A have my sisters in the house and so I have to be pretty careful at what they see. Killzone is pretty graphic (guys heads will blow up in you get em with a headshot with the sniper or shotty), and its also got a decent amount of language. Also dead space is extremely bloody, although a great game from the little I've played. I not usually a fan of horror, but Dead Space is a bit different, i really enjoyed playing it a peoples houses and the demo on my 360 a while back

PS: does my avatar look pretty low res/pixelated to anyone else?

[The Liberator]

teflon, on September 21st 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

...You obviously need to keep your controllers under lock and key then... I've got an imported white controller which no-one but me is allowed to touch.

Why an imported white controller, is it signed or something?

Sneaky Snake, on September 21st 2009, 11:17 AM, said:

...does my avatar look pretty low res/pixelated to anyone else?

Yes, yes it does.

Liberator.

[teflon]

Because I wanted a white controller and Sony haven't released anything but the standard black controller in the US and EU. So I had to buy it off ebay, where it came packaged up in Japanese.

[The Liberator]

Fair enough, I guess. If it looks nice enough, I suppose there would be reason to buy it, unless it was expensive enough.

Edit: You know what? I think I can see what you mean, it does look nice (from the crappy images). A real pearlescent whiteness to it. ::

Liberator.

P.S.

[the Battle Cat]

Sneaky Snake, on September 20th 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

PS: does my avatar look pretty low res/pixelated to anyone else?

The original size of the graphic you submitted as your avatar is 357x408, the permitted maximum size is 64x64. Each person's browser is converting the image on the fly from 357x408 to 64x64 and browsers do a lousy job of reducing an image compared to an image editing program. For best results, use Photoshop or other software to reduce the size of the image to within 64x64 and use that as an avatar. It will look a lot better.

teflon, on September 21st 2009, 01:40 AM, said:

Because I wanted a white controller and Sony haven't released anything but the standard black controller in the US and EU. So I had to buy it off ebay, where it came packaged up in Japanese.

Do you have to squint your eyes to play with it?