I will be the first person to admit that I don’t really have a clue about what’s new in gaming. You lovely people post so many excellent reviews for games I’ve barely heard of, and I’m often left scratching my head after reading, wondering how I’ve gotten to be so out of touch. Well, that’s all about to change (maybe only a little?) because I got a text from a friend that works at one of the local thrift shops a few days ago with news of a modern console: a Playstation 3 *thunderous applause*! At $20 with no cords, controllers or games, the price seemed decent. There were a few there to choose from, so we opted to go for the one that seemed backwards compatible – it was the heaviest by far, and also had the telltale 4 USB ports on the front rather than 2, which was a cost reduction revision made in later models of the system.
Because we had an excess of Playstation 2 connectors hanging around, we were able to get the machine running without much issue. When we plugged the console in, much to our dismay we discovered that all of the text was in Japanese. With a snowball’s chance in hell of deciphering Japanese and no controllers to navigate the menus, we decided on a backdoor route and plugged in a USB keyboard and mouse which worked wonderfully. After consulting the internet for some hints on where to find the language settings and successfully changing it to English, we were in business. Tommy, the previous owner of this PS3 hadn’t bothered to delete his content from the machine before donating it. We were privy to a number of treats in the form of his photos and videos (don’t worry, we didn’t go through them, but we can’t delete them yet!), and a bunch of music. We wanted to test the machine to see if it would overheat at all, but since the PS3 won’t accept regular MP3s from a USB stick, we had to use some of the music stored on the machine. We picked the first song in the list and had the torturous experience pleasure of listening to a song called “S on my Chest” by DJ Khaled, featuring Lil Wayne and Birdman. This experience brought our testing to a grinding halt. In case there was dust or sand in the disc drive, I didn’t want to put any of my discs into the machine without it being cleaned first. To continue our quest of gettin this thing going, my boyfriend went about one of his favourite hobbies: taking machines apart, cleaning them, and putting them back together. Below is a photo of all the machine’s guts.
The machine was absolutely disgusting. Every interior surface, even parts shielded by exterior pieces, were covered in a yellowish-brown sandy dust. Here are some photos of the awfulness.
After cleaning everything carefully and thoroughly, new thermal paste was applied to the CPUs and the machine was reassembled with a few screws left over. To test the machine, I watched the first third of season 12 of King of the Hill. The machine did not overheat or set on fire, though the fan did kick in quite often! We drilled a hole the width of the fan (about 5 inches) in the bottom of the chassis to allow for more air exchange and circulation to keep things a bit cooler.
We also tried both PS and PS2 games to validate our hunch about the backwards compatibility, and sure enough it plays both generations of games! From what I understand, later PS3 models were only backwards compatible with PS games, so we definitely lucked out. Another cool thing we discovered was that it is the 80GB model. Most early PS3s were only 40GB or smaller, so it was a happy accident that we picked up one of the best and roomiest versions of this console.
For anyone wondering why I haven’t taken the plunge into newer Sony consoles earlier than now, it was purely a boycott on my part. As someone who stands firmly on principle and good customer service values, to have a new console using the same type of media as the previous generations and not have backwards compatibility was unacceptable to me. Since I never buy consoles new, by the time I was interested in buying a PS3, the backwards compatibility was no more so I decided to never buy one new. However, at a price of $20 and a little love and elbow grease, we are now the proud owners of the machine I’ve always wanted. Maybe I’ll even invest in my first blu-ray and just go completely topsy-turvy.
The question of the day is this: what are your PS3 recommendations? I only own Little Big Planet so far, but I’ve heard that there are many excellent RPGs and other types of games available for the system. I’ll be pouring back through many of your previous reviews with a new perspective for some ideas as well.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions and for reading! I hope you’re all enjoying this wonderful long weekend if you’ve got one at your disposal! Happy Family Day to my fellow Canadians (and belated to anyone overseas). Happy President’s Day to those of you in the US! If you’re celebrating a holiday that I don’t know about today, happy holidays to you as well 🙂
-GG
hungrygoriya 
Congrats on the backwards-compatible find!
As to games… Dragon Age: Origins!!!!! haha Seriously, though, the Dragon Age series is fabulous, as is Mass Effect, if you’re into those types of games. I’m also quite fond of Journey and Flower.I also really enjoyed Infamous (if you like comic book-like games) and both Folklore and Remember Me have very interesting game mechanics! If you like Tolkein fantasy, Shadow of Mordor is also excellent in terms of controls and mechanics, and has an interesting story…
Or, erm… if you tell me a genre I could probably give better recommendations, rather than just spewing all the games I like on the PS3 at you haha
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Ohhhh the Mass Effect games are some I haven’t played, ever. I have always wanted to play them! I might have to dig those ones out. Infamous is something someone has recommended to me too, so you’re the second person to mention that one! I haven’t heard of Journey and Flower before, nor have I heard of Folklore, Remember Me or Shadow of Mordor either! So many games!
The only game genres I’m not fond of are first person shooters and fighting games. I like platformers, action adventure games, RPGs, and any variants of those genres more or less. I’m pretty easy when it comes to games! Thank you very much for the suggestions (and any others you send my way!)
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Yeah there are some great games out there! If I come across any more that rock my gamer socks I’ll let you know 🙂
I’m actually posting a let’s play of Mass Effect on YouTube, so once you’re playing it for yourself, you should definitely check it out (I don’t want to spoil it for you if that’s not your thing!).
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I will for sure! I will subscribe to your channel and check it out once I’ve been into it myself! I hear it’s too good to spoil.
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I 100% agree with that. Hope you enjoy it 🙂
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I hate that the new generation of consoles aren’t backwards compatible. It makes me extra grumpy, because they want to you purchase “new” games through their network often when you already own them. The PS3 is a definite good find even though you had to do a clean up job (blech again! The second system you’ve found that was gunky D:). I think the one sitting in our living room has laser problems, which makes me cranky, too lol. I have an original PS2, have left it on all night (I was doing a “wait” quest in a game) numerous times, and it shows no time of dying anytime soon. It won’t play all DVDs probably due to newer DVDs not being compatible, but that’s what DVD players and my computer are for lol. I sound like a crotchety elder shaking my fist screaming “Kids these days!” but I really feel like consoles were better made back in the day. There are NES’s that still work perfectly! I think all the fancy components wear out more easily.
I don’t even know what to recommend! PSN does have flash sales quite often where they’ll have excellent games for $5 and under, and I’ve picked up quite a few gems that way. The site separates them by system, too, so it’s easy to browse. Best of luck with your new and “newer” purchase 🙂
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I will join you in your crotchety fist-shaking at new things… I agree entirely! The Atari I posted about recently turned on on the first try, and it was filthy to high heaven! I’ve never had a console bite the dust on my watch, but I can only imagine the frustration. I much prefer cartridge media over disc media. Discs don’t last!
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No they do not. I think the lifespan of a disk even if well cared for is maybe a decade. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want to play some of my older games, and THAT’S how they get you *grumble* They know people want to preserve their old disk games, so they’ll over digital copies.
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Current gen gaming has so many annoying features (such as DLC, Day One Patches, Shoehorned multiplayer modes, etc.), that you are probably better off focusing on those glorious retro games. That’s a sweet deal on the PS3 though. The previous owner certainly had an “interesting” taste in music, and that song would totally not make me cringe at all… 🙂
I have LittleBigPlanet but never got very far in it. I’ll have to give it another try someday. My favourite PS3 games are: Infamous, Assassin’s Creed II, AC Brotherhood, AC Revelations, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption, and Uncharted. Oh and of course the Final Fantasy XIII Trilogy. I’m hesitant to recommend that to you though since my opinion is very biased, and most other gamers seem to hate it, haha.
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*takes notes* … I really appreciate all your suggestions! Thank you! I love the Final Fantasy series, so it’s entirely likely I will pick up XIII and give it a spin sometime. I’ve already ordered a copy of Metroid as a result of your influence…
I can’t wait to have my first onset of rage with DLC conundrums. I remember playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out on mobile and hated the idea of microtransactions. It gives me the willies! I don’t mind paying for a game, but putting advantages behind a paywall gives me a new sort of rage I didn’t know I had!
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No problem! 🙂 I forgot to mention the Last of Us too. That game had me crying like a baby within the first 20 mins, lol. It’s quite an emotional tale. I hope you do enjoy FFXIII if you ever give it a try. Excellent! It seems I’m contributing to other backlogs now… *evil laugh*
The good thing about getting into the PS3 now is that many of those DLC filled games should have “Complete Editions” for cheap, that come with all the DLC packs. I remember playing Tapped Out! I usually hate those freemium paywall games, but The Simpsons charm won me over. I think I had a level 55 Springfield before I finally quit, haha.
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You are a bad backlog influence, but I don’t mind!
Considering I cried at the HD trailer for FFIX, I think I will be in trouble with the Last of Us! I’m such a wiener.
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Well the PS3, and Xbox 360 are barely current anymore, but there are still a wealth of great titles you can find in the stores for a few scant dollars. A lot of the multiplatform games were slightly better on the 360 since it used the PowerPC tech of the older Macs. It made porting engines used on PC easier, (And now it’s even easier as the PS4/XB1 are basically low rent X86 (The same architecture modern computers all use) AMD PC’s that you can’t upgrade.) as the PS3 used a custom CPU called the Cell. Which was impressive at the time, but the best titles were made specifically with it in mind.
So the best games (at least from a performance standpoint) are going to be made by Sony, or a game made either specifically for the PS3, or the PS3 first. There were a fair number of those. You have the Uncharted games, The Last Of Us, Twisted Metal, Little Big Planet, and of course Gran Turismo among others. On the multiplatform end there is a lot of stuff. All of the AAA Blockbuster stuff hit the PS3. Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto IV, (I wouldn’t buy GTAV, Rockstar is moving the support to the re-releases on PC/PS4/XB1) Saints Row 2,3,4 Sleeping Dogs, Yakuza IV, are all great open world gang story games. Even if Sleeping Dogs has you playing a cop in Hong Kong. I wouldn’t get the Bethesda RPGs on it only because they ran better elsewhere, and other platforms got more content in some cases. But feel free to go for the Square RPGs that jump out to you. There were also a TON of JRPGs that made their way to the console. Stuff like Ni No Kuni, and the Persona series.
If you’ve set up a PSN account, the store is still up, and there are a lot of great digital releases you can get. You can also setup a Japanese account on it, and get digital Japanese games on it too. The late Justin Carmical did a great set of videos on YouTube if you’re interested in doing that.
Some games I would pick up would be Capcom/Arc Systemworks/Namco/WB fighters. There were a lot of pretty good ones on the system. I’d also pick up the Platinum games releases. Bayonetta suffers from some slowdown, but its still worth a try (Unless you have a Wii U, then get the re-release with Bayonetta 2). Vanquish is really good too. I also enjoyed Sega’s Binary Domain which was super fun, even if it had it’s share of shortcomings. Capcom’s Bionic Commando reboot was also a lot of fun. A shame the developer GRIN is no more. These are more third person action games, which might be out of your comfort zone. But they can be had fairly cheap these days. So they aren’t a big risk. You might also want to check out the Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn game. Koei actually made a ton of Dynasty Warriors spin offs involving other IPs.
Some other stuff? Well if you don’t already have a Steam account, Portal, and Portal 2, are two must play games that made their way to consoles. They ooze story in an action puzzle game. I’d also grab Mirror’s Edge which was a pretty good action parkour game, that had an interesting story. Not a lot of shooting/fighting involved, it centered mainly on escape. One game you simply MUST splurge on though is Alice: Madness Returns. Audiences were divided on it, but honestly, aside from one level that drags on a bit long. It’s a really good game. You play Alice Liddell from the Wonderland stories, and it’s a sequel to a landmark PC game. In that game you were in a catatonic state in an asylum after your loved ones died in a fire. You were driven into it via survivor’s guilt, and in order to get out of the catatonic state, you have to go back to Wonderland, and restore it to its former glory. It’s really cool because it creatively turns things into a psychological thriller. The sequel is just as creative, and in my opinion one of the most underrated games to come out five years ago. It’s not cheap to find on disc, but if you’re not opposed to a digital download you can get it for $20, and it comes with a port of the first game.
Anyway that’s my long winded reply. Enjoy your PS3! Just don’t forget to clone the hard disk for the sad day it wears out. Unlike a PC, the PS3 games may not be redownloadable in a few years when Sony decides it isn’t worth supporting the PS3 store anymore.
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Wow man, thanks so much for all your suggestions! I will definitely look into all of these things. Alice: Madness Returns really does sound like something that’s up my alley, along with JRPGs and many of the other games you mentioned here. I really appreciate you taking the time to be so thorough! :)!
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Good find there, well done you. I can’t believe how much gunk gets into those machines! I’ve only ever dismantled and Xbox 360 when I got the red ring of death and even then it wasn’t even close to the state that PS3 was in.
In terms of games, there are sooooo many good ones from the last gen. Far too many to mention. But I PS3 exclusive that my wife and I really enjoyed playing through together was the rather unusual Heavy Rain.
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Thanks 🙂 I will add Heavy Rain to my growing list of recommendations! I’m happy to hear that your Xbox 360 was nowhere near the state of this monster. This was one of the grossest cleanups we’ve had to do to date, and I’m hoping that it was the very worst.
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Birdman is a great superhero and I will not stand for you besmirching his music 🙂 Congrats on getting the console at a bargain price. Some games I would recommend are :-
Mass Effect 2
Valkyria Chronicles
Valiant Hearts
Tomb Raider
South Park: The Stick of Truth
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I wonder if Birdman just did a few heys and hos throughout the track… I don’t really know the individual artists well at all, but I’ll take your word on his superhero status!
Thank you for the suggestions! I’ve heard excellent things about The Stick of Truth, as well as the Mass Effect series. I’ll certainly look into the others as well 🙂
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I would admit almost the same. If it weren’t for a few games massively advertised, the 2DS my girlfriend gave me and news on Nintendo Switch, my gaming experience should have stopped 15 or more years ago. Don’t you feel like an odd sensation to own something that is old for most of people but you consider modern and of which you don’t know anything about? For me it was like this when I got my first second hand (but more realistic third or fourth hand) PS2…:)
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Isn’t it funny how that happens? I feel like I fell down a hole and a lot of stuff has been happening in the world around me ever since I fell down there. It’s like people in movies that get catapulted forward in time and don’t know anything about the modern world… something like Back to the Future! I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way!
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No you’re definitely not the only one!
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So awesome! Both that you have a PS3 and also everything you did with it! I’m still constantly amazed. I’d love to share some recommendations.
Catherine – Not an RPG, but actually a block puzzle tower-climbing game combined with a morality life dating sim. It’s a really interesting game that goes deep into what it means to be in a relationship.
Steins;Gate – It’s a visual novel about time travel and everything that comes with it. An anime and sequel game was made about this game, and I love it so much. I don’t remember what your history with visual novels is, so be aware that most of the game is reading and making decisions.
Journey – The game is a unique experience that you may have heard of. There’s no talking, and the entire “tale” is told through beautifully animated sequences. It’s pretty short, but worth it. It was the first game I played. If you get the collector’s edition, it comes with two extra beautiful games, Flower and fl0w.
Ni no Kuni – I haven’t actually played this yet, but I own it. It’s a Ghibli-animated RPG, and a sequel is already being made for it. Wish I could tell you more, but I’ve heard so many great things about it at least.
J-Stars Victory VS. – You’d have to be familiar with anime to like this one, but it’s a really cool fighting game that pits anime characters from different series against each other. For example, Dragon Ball Z’s Goku can face Naruto in an epic battle. It utilizes 3D co-operative fighting as opposed to 2D, but it still works.
And of course, Final Fantasy X/X2 collection, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5, and Final Fantasy XIII series are all excellent picks on the Square Enix RPG front!
Hope you enjoy your PS3! 😀
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Thank you very much for a thorough (and very interesting!) list of games to be on the lookout for! Journey is one that I’ve been looking into, and it seems so different from other games. I will definitely grab that one at some point and keep my eyes out for the collector’s edition!
Catherine sounds intriguing as well as Steins;Gate. I have never actually played a visual novel game, so perhaps it’s about time I do! It sounds interesting. The closest thing I know like that is Snatcher for Sega CD, and I’m not even sure if it qualifies as one.
Ni no Kuni is on my list. Are the Kingdom Hearts games new ones, or remakes of the PS2 games? I loved the original and own the second, so I should definitely play through those at some point in the near future!
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Awesome! They’re all different, so feel free to go for what interests you! I’ve heard of Snatcher, and I think that’s more like a point-and-click. Visual novels are not as interactive, which sounds uninteresting, but it works out if the story is well-thought out. My favorite visual novel, by the way, is the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series.
Catherine is really intriguing, and I wasn’t sure if I would like it at first. It’s kind of a like a romantic drama meets Q*Bert, which says something about it.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 are all remakes of the various Kingdom Hearts games, including Chain of Memories and Birth by Sleep. The 2.5 one has the second one and Birth By Sleep, so that might be a nice choice if you wanted to play through a nicer HD version of the second one. I just actually picked up II.8 a few weeks ago (I know, silly numbering) and it has the 3DS game, Dream Drop Distance, so that’s definitely something to look at if you refurbish an old PS4 down the line! 😉
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Awesome! Thanks for clarifying for me. It’s nice to ask another human rather than Mr. Google for everything. I appreciate it 🙂
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Of course! Let me know if you have any other questions. I know most of my list sways on the Japanese games side, but that’s precisely why I picked up a PS3 and later PS4!
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This is so cool, great find and work on restoration! I definitely have got to recommend infamous, I don’t believe I ever got to play the second one, but the first infamous game was so good I really enjoyed it back in the day. I had this exact model PS3 and let my friend try to fix it when the disc reader stopped working, lets just say it didn’t go as planned lol. I looooved that the console was backwards compatible just by putting in any disc and playing, I’ve wondered ever since then why every system can’t be like that. None of the BC I’ve seen since then has been quite as good.
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Thank you 🙂 I will definitely look into Infamous. It seems to be pretty well-loved!
I’m sorry that your attempt to fix your PS3 didn’t go as planned. I can imagine fixing the disc reader is super complicated, but I’m glad that you had such wonderful times with your PS3 while it was still up and running. I’m honestly in love with the backwards compatibility aspect of the PS3 and would have never upgraded if it hadn’t been the backwards compatible model. Backwards compatibility is an absolute must for me, especially since the form of the media between consoles is all the same. There’s no excuse to not have things be backwards compatible! When I got my PS2, I skipped the PS1 altogether and have never looked back. It has been fantastic! I’m glad to give my PS2 a little rest and start using this new, beastly machine!
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Yeah I had that version and when I saw that the new ones did not have backwards compatible functionality I was like why would I upgrade? Also I didn’t play it on PS3, but Assassin’s Creed Black Flag was amazing. The whole pirate take on the series was my favorite one that I have played.
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I know, right? My faithful PS2 saw me through many good times, and if not for the compelling price on this new one with the promise of backwards compatibility, I’d still have my heels dug in on “new generation” gaming opportunities!
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, you say? I will check it out! I haven’t played any Assassin’s Creed games, but I’ve seen reviews of the original ages ago… and I love pirates! Sounds like a good match for me. Thanks for the recommendation 😀
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