Count yourself fortunate if you have a PlayStation 3. You're in for a good time.
Sony's home console hasn't enjoyed the same kind of sales dominance as the Xbox 360 or the Wii during its life cycle, but it's home to great exclusive titles generated by what's arguably the best development studio network among the big three console manufacturers.
Want a solid PS3 game library? Start with these titles below.
#1 Assassin's Creed II
For the second trip down Desmond Miles' DNA helix, Ubisoft Montreal introduced Ezio Auditore and gave players more options for mayhem in the urban centers of the Italian Renaissance. You can hire courtesans to distract guards or use mercenaries to do the dirty work for you. The swordplay showed increased flexibility and depth, too, with more weapons and tactics than before. Underneath it all, the game's virtual Italy sported a more varied, vibrant population than any other free-roaming game so far.
A Good Match for: Fans of serialized fiction. With a conspiracy fetish tying everything all together, the Assassin's Creed games represent a journey through history and iteration, where you get to see how things were in the real world and where ideas are going in game design. Do follow through and continue Ezio's story in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed Revelations.
Not for Those Who Want: A harmonious whole. The framing story of Assassin's Creed is the franchise's biggest problem. The present-day world that ordinary dude Desmond Miles walks through just isn't as lushly imagined as those that his hooded predecessors prowled. The pieces of the game don't sync up in terms of appeal and you might start getting involuntarily annoyed when you start to hear Desmond actor Nolan North's voice again.
#2 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The game that started Call of Duty on the road to becoming record-breaking phenomenon took players by surprise when Activision first unveiled it in 2007. Infinity Ward's recipe for high-speed action changed perceptions of what a contemporary shooter could feel like and fostered a new generation of rabid competitors as a result.
A Good Match for: Fans of taut military thrillers. Later installments of Modern Warfare never reached the heights of COD 4's surprising events and Modern Warfare's narrative—while still very popcorn—seems more focused than the games that followed.
Not for Those Who Want: Robust online multiplayer. The COD community tends to migrate to each new entry in the series, so you may not find a huge population playing this four-year-old game.
#3 Demon's Souls
In an era when even the biggest, most bad-ass games hint and handhold you to death, From Software developed an unlikely hit by making a hostile, figure-it-yourself RPG where other players could pop into your game and make you miserable.
A Good Match for: Masochists. You can almost hear the developer's gleeful snickers at how helpless they render you. But when you crack the rules—especially if it's via the message left by a poor sod (some other real PS3 player) who died before you—and craft a winning strategy to take down a big bad, the satisfaction's like nothing else in video games at the moment.
Not for Those Who Want: To feel powerful. You know that thing where, about two-thirds of the way through a game, you feel like you can kick anything's ass? Don't go looking for that in Demon's Souls, where you feel like the runt of the video game hero litter the entire game.
#4 Heavy Rain
Quantic Dream's cinematic experiment evolves the adventure genre, starting off with an everyday reality that gets warped through an eerie lens. Depending on how you progress, the thriller's story and point-of-view bifurcates into divergent tangents, pointing out a provocative new path for an entire genre.
A Good Match for: Indie film buffs. Heavy Rain's gameplay is a kind of active watching—the opposite of mindless button-mashing—that should prove inviting to cineastes curious about gaming.
Not for Those Who Want: Combat. You'll do lots of unique quick-time events to get through Heavy Rain's chapters but cravers of intense action won't find what they want here.
#5 Journey
How do you top the beautiful, poetic experience that was ThatGameCompany's Flower? Easy, just make a game that strips away everything annoying of maddening modern online gameplay and set it inside a lush gameworld that looks like a living painting. The travels that you undertake in Journey culminate in an incredibly touching moment. It's not just one of the best PS3 games. It's one of the best games ever, period.
A Good Match for: Shy people. Just like Flower before it, Journey is a wordless experience. The limited set of gestures you use to communicate means you won't have to worry about embarrassing yourself by saying something awkward.
Not for Those Who Want: Conversation. If you spent a big chunk of time sand-surfing with another person, you'll probably want to learn a bit more about him or her. Journey never lets you do that, though, and that enforced silence makes up much of its impact.
#6 LittleBigPlanet 2
Video games often glorify a player's reflexes but LittleBigPlanet 2 stands apart by energizing an individual's creativity, too. Media Molecule's hit PS3 exclusive bundles a whimsical first-rate platformer with the world-building toolset to make games just like it. The sequel includes the ability to make more different types of games and to share them socially with other player/creators.
A Good Match for: Artsy craftsy types/Lego fanatics. If you like building stuff that can take on a life of its own, no console game presents as lively a tableau as LittleBigPlanet 2. With miniature avatar-bots with assignable attitudes to a huge palette of visual treatments and textures, crafting a level in LBP2 feels like making a living, playable microcosm of your own.
Not for Those Who Want: Sharp precision platforming. Like its burlap protagonist Sackboy, LittleBigPlanet 2's physics are warm and fuzzy. Its floaty jumps will prove maddening to anyone craving the ice-cold precision of, say, a Super Mario game.
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