This week marks the 10th anniversary of the PlayStation 3’s release in Europe. Sony’s third home console was easily its most controversial, launching with a ridiculous $599 price tag and using proprietary hardware that became notoriously difficult to develop with. It was a rare stumble for the brand. By the end of its life, though, it had raked back PlayStation’s reputation with a line-up of fantastic exclusive games.
It was also on PS3 that Sony started experimenting with what would become PlayStation VR (PSVR). The release of the PlayStation Move position-tracked controllers got groups within the company experimenting with primitive head-mounted displays, forming the foundation for the new headset. PSVR owes PS3 a lot, then, and we know the perfect way to thank it.
Sony is sitting on top of an ocean of games that, with the proper care and optimisation, could make for great PSVR experiences. True, the best VR games are built from the ground up, but that hasn’t stopped amazing pre-existing games like DiRT Rally and Fallout 4 shifting to fit the tech. Below are nine PS3 exclusives we think the company should adapt to bulk out PSVR’s library and give us reasons to revisit some classics.
Sports Champions
Let’s start off with a freebie. Sports Champions may have unsuccessfully tried to emulate the success of Wii Sports for PlayStation Move, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a solid mini-game compilation. Games like sword fighting and archery were some of the most realistic experiences we’d had at the time. Bringing all of the groundwork Sony laid here into VR is a no-brainer.
MotorStorm
We’ve seen a lot of VR racers already, but nothing quite like MotorStorm. Evolution Studios’ mud-soaked driving game was a viciously good fun, propelling players down multi-layered tracks at break neck speeds.
We’re sure that bringing that into VR, with dirt flinging up into our eyes and Monster Trucks threatening to crush us beneath their weight would make for one of the most thrilling games on the platform.
Warhawk
One of Sony’s more forgotten early triumphs with PS3’s multiplayer service was this expansive action game. Warhawk let you commandeer tanks, planes, and buggies as well as fight on foot for some incredible battles that evoked a bit of Halo.
We’d love to revisit that world in VR, jumping into the cockpits of vehicles and making the action bigger and better than ever. We’d also welcome a VR version of its spiritual successor, Starhawk.
Killzone 2
Nearly 10 years on from its release and Killzone 2 is still a visual milestone for gaming, standing up with if not surpassing many of today’s PS4 games. It was also one of the console’s best shooters with meaty, sluggish controls that grounded you in the experience; quite different from the rush of Call of Duty imitators that would soon be releasing in floods (including, sadly, its sequel). Killzone 2 feels like it was practically designed for the new PS Aim controller.
Twisted Metal
The car combat genre might have seen better days, but the last Twisted Metal game on PS3 was at least a respectable swan song. VR is the perfect venue for a glorious return, though, with grindy, gritty action that has you swerving out of the way of machine gun fire and jumping over rooftops. This is one title that basically deserves a VR revival.
Resistance 3
Insomniac’s Resistance series had a hard time on PS3. The brilliantly arcadey original released close to Epic Games’ hugely anticipated Gears of War, and then its sequel leaned a little too far on the side of Call of Duty. Resistance 3, then, was a surprisingly wonderful return to form with a deep campaign that featured plenty of twists and turns. It also supported PlayStation Move, so half of the battle is already done. It would definitely need PS Aim support.
God of War III
God of War might not strike you as a series that easily adapts to VR, but Kratos’ third outing actually played an instrumental roll in bringing about PSVR itself. During early experiments with the tech, Sony quickly hashed together a first-person demo that put players in the body of Kratos, and Shuhei Yoshida loved it. Beyond that, games like Chronos prove third-person action works in VR reasonably well, and no game has toppled the incredible sense of scale shown in the last chapter of this trilogy.
LittleBigPlanet
LittieBigPlanet may not have taken over the world like Sony hoped it would, but it still marked an important milestone in gaming, paving the way for other titles with its user-generated content focus. Bringing it to PSVR could make it the platform’s very own world builder. In fairness, Media Molecule is working on what looks like an evolution of LBP with its latest game, Dreams, which is all but officially confirmed to support VR by this point.
Siren: Blood Curse
In the early PS3 days Sony experimented with the episodic videogame structure with a fairly obscure remake or an already little-known horror game, Siren. Blood Curse was a pretty terrifying, incredibly grimy take on Japanese horror, with a mind-bending plot that had you retread multiple scenarios with different outcomes, featuring some of the most disgusting monsters in games. What’s not to love about bringing that into VR?
