PS3: The Good

The controversy ripples from my list of best/worst/etc of PS3 games are still reverberating around the world, so I'll give some background to my reasoning. First off, the best of the PS3.

Most of his family may have been killed, but Ezio wins in the end! Yes, Assassin's Creed II is the best game on PS3, narrowly beating out The Last of Us. Why? I think the story and characters in AC2 are excellent (especially the merging of fact and fiction, which wasn't as good in any other AC game as it was here). The locations in the game are magnificent, the missions varied and the scope pretty huge. It's also a hell of a lot of fun to play, a massive leap forward from the messy first game in the series but not as simple as the later games. It actually took a bit of skill. I've placed The Last of Us behind as even though the story is at least on a par, and the characterisation almost certainly better (amongst the central characters at least), the gameplay is not quite as good and is slightly more repetitive. I don't need to tell anyone how great the Last of Us is, I think people who have played it and the world's media have done just that ever since it was released. AC Brotherhood comes a close third. It refines the gameplay slightly from AC2 but the story's not quite as strong. Still awesome though.

The new Tomb Raider game was a very pleasant surprise (multiplayer aside) as was Borderlands 2, one of the few good games I've got via the fairly underwhelming PS Plus subscription service. Batman I'd played before on the Wii U and is almost as good on the PS3 and BioShock 2 is my favourite of the three games in that series (controversial I know) as I think it has the best story and handles the best.

As for multiplayer, I've gone for AC3 at number one as the Wolfpack co-op mode is about as good as online play gets (and yes I have played it on Wii U as well). AC4 is lower as even though it's just about as good, it's much easier to complete Wolfpack. Even with players on the team running around like idiots not playing properly you can still get get through to the end, which won't happen in AC3. Also in AC4 there's no new game modes, just the same as in AC3. Still great though.

The Last of Us has to settle for second place again. The mp is as much about stealth and teamwork as it is about shooting, setting it apart from most shooters. A lack of game modes was it's only real weakness (there's only three), but its teamwork dynamic is what keeps it fresh. Lone wolfs won't last long due to a lack of ammo available in the game (it's not like CoD or Battlefield where you can do your own thing and prosper if you're good enough) and the fact that downed players can be revived; even if a lone wolf takes down one opposition player or even two, most teams (of four) tend to stick together meaning the other players will take out the lone wolf then revive their own teammate(s). Also, the multiplayer fits in really well with the game world established in the campaign, another great feature. The fact that how you do in games affects your virtual clan is also a nice feature. For example, doing better in games gets you more points which converts to resources to keep your clan healthy and even grow. It's an interesting take on mp, different than the usual kdr stats and also discourages players from quitting if they're not doing very well. I have to add though that since the second lot of dlc maps was released a few months ago (which also included new guns and loadout options for all players as well), the game did seem to get glitchier and laggier. It may have been fixed since then I don't know, I've not been online since before the World Cup. Also, there's no option for playing in games with no parties in the the two dlc lobbies, which might not sound like too big of a deal but it often means that you end up playing against teams of four very high level players playing together and games are often very one sided as a result. These are minor complaints though for a truly great game.

Black Ops is still the best Call of Duty game, and is relatively unaffected by hackers (compared to the other CoD games at least). Black Ops II shakes things up a bit with its futuristic angle and is almost as good (and has even fewer hackers), though suffers from having a few more mediocre maps. Battlefield 4 has the best multiplayer in the series and mostly good maps (but some fairly erratic graphics), though the single player is broken and crap.

Tiger Woods 14 has excellent online play, loads of daily and weekly tournaments and all sorts of direct competitive play options. GTA V online can be pretty great at times but suffers because of bad matchmaking. Whatever sort of game you are playing there are rarely more than four players placed together which can get pretty depressing after a while (especially for games of up to 16 players) for such an ambitious online experience.

Interestingly, only one of the best PS3 games is a PS3 exclusive: The Last of Us. The rest are multi-platforms. If I'd done a similar list for Xbox 360, would it be the same? Or would exclusives like Halo, Gears of War, Alan Wake etc make the list? As I've never owned a Xbox 360 I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that it would contain more than one exclusive on there, even if only in multiplayer.