Tag Archives: PS3

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Rise and fall of the Twisted Metal series

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Ah yes, Twisted Metal — the video game series that asked the all-important question:

“What if Mario Kart had a midlife crisis, bought a flamethrower, and started listening to Nine Inch Nails?”

🚗💥 What is Twisted Metal?

Imagine a demolition derby, except every car has rockets, machine guns, and deep emotional trauma. It’s vehicular combat meets psychological horror meets…a 14-year-old’s sketchbook full of fire and skulls. You don’t just race to win — you blow up an ice cream truck driven by a flaming clown while dodging missiles fired from a haunted hearse.
So… Tuesday in the ’90s, basically.

🧠 The Premise (yes, there’s lore)

Twisted Metal revolves around a tournament run by Calypso, a mysterious cryptkeeper-meets-used-car-salesman who grants one wish to the last vehicle standing. Sounds cool, right? Plot twist: he’s a genie with a legal team. Your wish always comes true, but in the most ironic, monkey’s-paw way possible.

You ask for eternal life? He buries you alive.
You wish to be famous? Boom — you’re wanted in every country.
You ask for peace on Earth? Everyone else dies.

Classic Calypso!

🎮 The Gameplay

Pick a car, get a weapon, and start wrecking people. Your opponents include:

  • A killer clown named Sweet Tooth, driving a flaming ice cream truck (soothing!).

  • Mr. Grimm, a literal death biker with a scythe and no chill.

  • Axel, a man fused between two giant wheels because apparently walking was too mainstream.

  • And other emotionally unavailable vehicles with serious firepower and even deeper issues.

Levels take place in beloved landmarks like Paris, LA, and the apocalypse. The controls are tight, the explosions satisfying, and the soundtrack pure early-2000s rage.

📉 What happened to it?

Like a rock band that peaked at Ozzfest 2001, Twisted Metal had its glory days on the PS1 and PS2, then sort of… spun out. There was a reboot on PS3, and now there’s a Peacock TV show, which somehow exists and stars Anthony Mackieand Will Arnett as a clown. It’s both baffling and completely on-brand.

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The Rise and Fall of the SSX game series. 😢

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The SSX series is what happens when someone says, “What if we made snowboarding… but completely unhinged?” and then followed through with maximum chaos. Short for Snowboard Supercross, SSX first launched in 2000 and instantly turned the slopes into a gravity-defying playground. Forget realistic snowboarding — in SSX, you could launch yourself 300 feet into the air, pull off a triple backflip while grabbing your board with one pinky, and still have time to wink at the camera before landing perfectly. The game didn’t care about physics; it cared about style.

Every SSX game had the same core philosophy: snowboard like you have a death wish, rack up points, and look cool doing it. The characters were all basically extreme sports superheroes — like Mac, the lovable goofball who treated snowboarding like a rock concert, or Elise, who probably did double backflips just to grab a sandwich. The courses were pure chaos, ranging from death-defying mountain peaks to neon-lit night runs, and the soundtrack? Absolute fire. (Jurassic 5 while shredding a glacier? Yes, please.) By the time SSX Tricky came out, the series had achieved cult status, teaching players that if you’re not pulling off a mid-air worm while flying over a bottomless ravine, are you even snowboarding?

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Most Expensive PS3 Games In Our Collection | Gaming Off The Grid

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The PlayStation 3 — Sony’s futuristic black monolith of gaming — crash-landed in living rooms in 2006, looking like a sleek, alien artifact designed to summon extraterrestrial life. Weighing roughly the same as a small dog and radiating enough heat to cook a Hot Pocket, the PS3 was a technological marvel of its time. It boasted a Blu-ray player (a huge flex in 2006), stunning HD graphics, and a controller that, while wireless, still clung to its ancestors with the same button layout from the PS1. And let’s not forget the iconic startup sound — a celestial chime that made you feel like you were about to embark on an interstellar journey, when really, you were just booting up LittleBigPlanet.

However, the PS3 wasn’t without its quirks. The launch model came with a price tag so high ($599!) that it felt like Sony was daring you to buy it. Early adopters also faced the infamous “Yellow Light of Death,” which was basically the console’s way of politely imploding. And the online service? Free — but also held together with duct tape and hope. Yet despite its rough start, the PS3 blossomed into a legendary console, delivering classics like Uncharted 2, The Last of Us, and Metal Gear Solid 4. It was a machine that, in its own charmingly complicated way, helped redefine gaming and laid the groundwork for the powerhouse that Sony would become. Plus, it made a pretty decent space heater in the winter.

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Ranking All 15 Ratchet & Clank Games – Full Series Ranked and Reviewed!

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Ratchet & Clank is what happens when you take a sci-fi buddy comedy, inject it with cartoon chaos, and arm a fuzzy alien mechanic with the most absurd weapons imaginable. The series follows Ratchet, a Lombax (basically a space cat with a knack for fixing things), and Clank, his tiny, sophisticated robot pal who occasionally turns into a helicopter. Together, they travel across the galaxy, saving planets from megalomaniacal villains who have an alarming fondness for doomsday devices. But the real star of the show? The weapons. Where else can you turn enemies into sheep, pixelate them into 8-bit, or launch an army of killer disco balls that force bad guys to dance before their inevitable doom?

Beyond the explosions and intergalactic mayhem, the series shines with its razor-sharp humor, ridiculous characters, and a story that somehow balances heart with complete nonsense. You’ve got a muscle-bound superhero with the IQ of a toaster (looking at you, Captain Qwark), an evil mastermind who sounds like he’s always two minutes away from a stress-induced meltdown, and a never-ending parade of wacky aliens who act like they just walked out of a sitcom. Whether you’re blasting through the classic PS2 adventures or marveling at the Pixar-level visuals of Rift Apart, Ratchet & Clankproves that saving the universe is way more fun when you have a wisecracking sidekick, a wrench the size of a canoe, and a gun that literally shoots tornadoes.

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Bringing Alpha Protocol back from the dead (GOG Behind the Scenes Documentary)

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Alpha Protocol is an action role-playing game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Sega. Released in 2010, the game follows the story of Michael Thorton, a highly skilled secret agent working for a clandestine organization known as Alpha Protocol. Set in a contemporary world of espionage, conspiracy, and political intrigue, the game offers players a dynamic narrative experience driven by choices and consequences.

Players assume the role of Thorton as he navigates through various missions across the globe, from bustling cities to remote locations, to uncover a global conspiracy threatening world stability. The game features a robust dialogue system that allows players to shape Thorton’s personality and relationships with other characters through their choices and actions. These choices have significant repercussions, influencing the game’s narrative direction, alliances, and outcomes.

In terms of gameplay, Alpha Protocol combines elements of stealth, combat, and role-playing. Players can approach missions using stealthy tactics, utilizing gadgets and espionage skills to evade enemies and accomplish objectives covertly, or engage in intense gunfights and hand-to-hand combat when stealth fails. The game features a deep progression system, allowing players to customize Thorton’s skills, abilities, and equipment to suit their preferred playstyle.

Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, Alpha Protocol has garnered a cult following for its ambitious narrative design, branching storyline, and player agency. Its emphasis on player choice and consequence, along with its dynamic dialogue system, set it apart as a unique and memorable entry in the action RPG genre, offering players a captivating journey through the shadowy world of international espionage.

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PlayStation Home PS3 Is Back Online in 2022: Here’s How

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7 years after its initial closure, PlayStation Home on PS3 has been (partially) restored! The Destination Home team has been working for years to get a working online client up and running, and they’ve recently launched a closed beta which I had the chance to checkout. So join me in a crazy nostalgia trip as we explore Central Plaza, play some bowling, and play some games! I also had the chance to speak with one of the lead content developers for their valuable insight on what it took to get where they are today, and what’s coming in the future. Buckle up everyone, it’s time to go HOME. Very obviously the pun was intended there.

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The PS3 games I STILL play all the time!

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These PS3 games are still great after all these years! Which ones do you still go back and play on the PlayStation 3 all these years later? Which ones did I miss?

Games Shown:
Folklore
Tornado Outbreak
Resistance 2
Killzone 2
Puppeteer
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
NFS: The Run
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
3D Dot Game Heroes

Game Collection, Recent Pickups

WE’RE BACK! (Yes, really!) – Game Pickups: 30 Titles including PS1, PS4, PS5, NES, Switch & MORE!)

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It’s about damn time I did a pickups video with my buddy Reggie! Can you believe it’s been over a year?!
Games Shown:
XenoCrisis (Vita)
Demon Tier+ (Vita)
Monstrum (PS4)
Demon’s Souls (PS5)
Midnight Run (PS1)
Returnal (PS5)
Resident Evil 3 (PS4)
Resident Evil 8 Village (PS5)
Rainbow Islands / Bubble Bobble 2 (NES)
Sega Astro City Mini
Super Blood Hockey (Switch)
No Straight Roads (Switch)
Remothered Broken Porcelain (Switch/PS4)
Sisters Royale (PS4)
Kandagawa Jet Girls (PS4)
Abzu (Switch)
Dungeons & Dragons: Mystara Eiyuu Senki (PS3)
Inmost (Switch)
Dolphin Blue (Dreamcast)
Dreams (PS4)
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World (Switch/PS4)
Hades (Switch)
The Coma: Double Cut (Switch)
Shakedown Hawaii (Wii / WiiU)
La-Mulana 1&2 (PS4)
Vasara Collection (Switch)
Fate/unlimited codes (PS2)
Carpet Shark (NES)
The King of Fighters EX: Neoblood (GBA)
GBAConsolizer (Metal Jesus edition)
F.E.A.R. 3: Collector’s Edition (PS3)