Looking for a good game for yourself or someone else this holiday season? We’ve got you covered. It was a strong year for the PS3, but we were still able to point out the best of the best for you.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception: Like many action games today, Uncharted is all about giving you the illusion that you’re in control, and boy, is it good at it. Even though we could see the strings every time, seeing Drake do something rad like slam a guy into a bar and smash a beer bottle over his head feels cool just knowing that we had some small part in it. Even though all we did was hit a button when the game told us to. (Full review)
LittleBigPlanet 2: There’s already a ton of impressive, expertly-made user-made stages in the game, and they’re likely to never stop coming. With such a healthy community supporting the game’s level creator, this is the game for people who love user-generated content, want something to play for a long time, or just want to have a good time with a couple of friends. (Full review)
Portal 2: As you may have expected, Portal 2 is all about the puzzles, and it delivers on all fronts. Just like the first game, you are slowly reintroduced to the portal gun through tests that start out simple but get more difficult as you progress. And just when you’ve mastered one type of puzzle, a new element is slowly introduced to make things even more challenging. The puzzles are excellently-designed, as are the many levels you traverse, and the difficulty is balanced perfectly. You are never once lost or confused, and the game eases you into each new scenario rather well. (Full review)
Atelier Totori: Atelier Totori is a somewhat different kind of Japanese RPG. While most RPG protagonists are roaming the world trying to prevent its destruction, Totori is roaming the countryside simply looking for her mother. While others are plotting the downfall of the government, Totori is licensed by the government to explore the world. (Full review)
L.A. Noire: You play as Cole Phelps, a war hero and fledgling cop who’s trying to make the streets of 1940s Los Angeles safer for the people. Cole starts out as a beat cop, but by the end of the tutorial phase is promoted to traffic detective. The goal of the game is to rise through the ranks until you reach the top desk, Arson. Rarely will you concentrate on the goal though, because the gameplay is so enticing and draws you in so much. (Full review)
de Blob 2: After saving the Raydians from the INKT Corporation, Blob takes a vacation to Prisma City with his new friend Pinky. In what we’re sure is a coincidence, Comrade Black and his company made it there first, and has started to take over the populace. So… we get a sequel to de Blob. In all seriousness, the story has never mattered in this series. It’s about getting paint and slamming things and restoring color to buildings, all to an upbeat, fun soundtrack. And de Blob 2 has those things. (Full review)
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations: Ubisoft pulled off an amazing feat. They created a game with a great concept but flawed execution, took notes about what people did and didn’t like and then came back to us with Assassin’s Creed II, a game loved by just about everybody. WithBrotherhood, they added the ability manage a whole team of assassins and a more rewarding combat system. It should be no surprise that Revelations is a game full of incremental improvements over its predecessor, and when you’re following up a game as good as Brotherhood, you don’t need a monumental jump in quality. It is enough to revisit Ezio and Altaïr as the overarching story moves forward. (Full review)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: As you regain consciousness, you find yourself tied up in the back of a wagon traveling down a mountain trail. Looking around, you see other prisoners, bound and talking about a civil war. Upon reaching your destination of Helgen, each of you are declared traitors to the Empire and sentenced to death by beheading. As you approach the chopping block, a loud roar pierces the air. Just as you are about to be killed, a dragon appears and begins destroying the town. This is Skyrim, and only you can save it. (Full review)
Top Spin 4: Top Spin 4 is a lot of fun. Top Spin 3 swung a bit too much toward unforgiving sim, and Top Spin 4 comes back with a much better compromise between sim controls and arcade controls. The physics are handled well, the create-a-player interface is top notch, and both the offline and online play are streamlined and fun. (Full review)
Batman: Arkham City: You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better action game than Batman: Arkham City. Everything comes together so perfectly and the new open world lends itself well to the Batman universe. It’s essentially more of the same, but it’s expanded upon and improved in a ton of little ways that makes the overall package even more appealing than Arkham Asylum was. You don’t need to be a Batman fan to enjoy one of the finest action games of this console generation. (Full review)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Set 25 years before the events of the original, Human Revolution follows Adam Jensen, a security officer working for a corporation that specializes in augmentations. After a horrific attack on the company, Jensen is nearly killed but brought back to life thanks to some augmentation implants, making him just a little more than human. Jensen is out to discover who led the attack and what the ultimate purpose was behind it, leading to many interesting twists and turns along the way. (Full review)
Rayman Origins: It’s hard to talk about Rayman Origins without mentioning its gorgeous art design. Everything from the design of the enemies, the environments, the animations, and even Rayman and his friends themselves all look incredible. This is one of the most visually striking 2D games you will ever see, and simply watching videos of it does not do it justice, you need to see it in HD to believe it. Combine that with the soundtrack, which features some songs that will be stuck in your head for days. It’s just a charming package all around. (Full review)
Driver: San Francisco: If you’re a petrol-head, then you’ll be pleased with the selection and treatment of the cars in Driver San Francisco. Multiplayer is well-represented as well. Vanilla racing works well because the great driving mechanics are carried over from single player, but the experience you’ll remember are game modes like Tag, with drivers shifting from car to car all the while. Driver is finally a game that you need to buy because it has stopped trying to be Grand Theft Auto and started being Driver – which, it turns out, is a very fun game. (Full review)
Chime Super Deluxe: The original Chime was a huge success for developer Zoe Mode, successfully blending together a music and puzzle game not unlike Q? Entertainment’s Lumines series.Chime Super Deluxe is an updated version of the original that adds six new songs and a multiplayer component, making it the best version of Chime to date. (Full review)
Stacking: Double Fine Productions are well-known for their offbeat, quirky humor. Their latest offering, Stacking, is a departure from the typical adventure genre, with Russian stacking matryoshka dolls serving as the inspiration and basis for everything in the game. One controls Charlie Blackmore, the youngest son in a family of chimney sweeps, as he uses his ability to stack into larger dolls to save his family from an evil baron. (Full review)
Rochard: Brought to us by the folks over at Recoil Games, Rochard is an interesting physics-based puzzle-platformer with a lot going for it. You take on the role of John Rochard, a portly space miner, and the events that take place after his discovery of a rare type of ore. It doesn’t get much more complicated than that. Rochard’s plot really just plays second fiddle to where the game truly shines, which is its excellent puzzle design. (Full review)
Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes HD: Clash of Heroes reminds me a lot of Othello’s tagline: “A minute to learn… A lifetime to master.” Clash of Heroes is deceptively simple, but the strategies possible when it comes to linking attacks (arranging to have several attacks fire off on the same turn which imparts a bonus on each of them), fusing attacks together (creating two attack formations of the same color in the same column, combining strength and firing at the earlier time), and strategically removing units from the field make for a great experience in both single player and multiplayer. (Full review)
Dungeon Defenders: We like tower defense games, but the formula is getting a bit stale these days. We also like multiplayer action-RPGs, but they’re all blurring into each other lately because nothing stands out. Why not mix the two, then? Developer Trendy Entertainment did just that with Dungeon Defenders, a hybrid game that, despite some peculiar elements, cures the ills of both genres. (Full review)
Cubixx HD: Are you ready? Split-screen multiplayer. Okay, we may have forgotten a few words in there, so let’s try again: seven-player split-screen co-opmultiplayer. Cubixx tiles three screens across the top half and four across the bottom, and despite most using only an eighth of your TV, it works out to be enough to see what’s going on. You can play the entire arcade mode together, and each number of players has its own leaderboard. Seven players and six sides of a cube? It’s crazy, frantic and exactly as fun as you’d hope. (Full review)
Outland: Outland may not do anything new, but it combines elements from great games to great effect, creates a challenging campaign, and looks great while it does it. Outland is challenging without feeling cheap, artistic without feeling pretentious, and fun without being expensive. (Full review)
NBA Jam: On Fire Edition: It’s simple, really: last year’s Jam was a great game, and this year’s iteration takes out the weak parts, works on the strong ones and hits a price point that largely negates the complaints you could have. If you don’t like Jam, we’d guess that you may not have fun, but we’d also guess that you no longer have the capacity to experience joy and live in a world of perpetual sorrow. (Full review)
