Video game development during the PlayStation 3 era was among the most creative and exciting periods ever. Over the years, open-world video games have never failed to captivate players with their breathtaking graphics and engaging gameplay.
The amount of combat in these games and the mystery a player may experience in an open-world game due to the freedom offered are remarkable. From the comfort of their couch, gamers can satisfy their wanderlust by traveling through mysterious landscapes.
Popular games among gamers include Red Dead Redemption and Batman: Arkham Asylum. The sad thing is that some games have fallen by the wayside over time, while others never earned the credit and acclaim they deserved to begin with.
But despite the unfavorable reviews they received when they were first published years ago, a few titles have amassed a devoted following over time. Here are eleven games that are astonishingly underappreciated yet do not merit this treatment, listed in no particular order.
SPIDER-MAN WEB OF SHADOWS (2008)
In an open-world Manhattan, Spider-Man Web of Shadows is a third-person action-adventure game with a strong combat emphasis. As the symbiote invasion begins, Spider-Man is in Manhattan looking for Mary Jane Watson. The user controls Spider-Man, who can web swing, web zip, climb walls, and use his “spider-sense” to find and grasp onto enemies.
A “web strike” feature in the game enables Spider-Man to attach a web on an enemy and drag himself in their direction to deal damage. The fighting is far better than it was in earlier games. Three different versions of the game — one for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 — were released for the game’s October 2008 launch on a variety of platforms.
The fantastic beginning drops you right into the middle of a catastrophe. You’ll have to deal with easily killed goons, massive mechs, and enemies that fly around on Green Goblin-style gliders. The objectives and foes you face are varied enough to keep things interesting. The sound is usually decent, with some strong performances from the voice cast. Web of Shadows may not alter the formula of previous Spider-Man games.
Still, its coherent, exciting plot, various objectives, and frequently entertaining action make it a significant advance for the franchise. The story lasts about 12 hours, and the gameplay is robust enough to warrant a second play-through if you want to see how it ends if you take a different path. There are a few minor technical flaws, but the pure delight of the gameplay far outweighs them.
FAR CRY 3: BLOOD DRAGON (2013)
Blood Dragon is a stand-alone addition to the action-adventure first-person shooter video game Far Cry 3. The game takes place in a dystopian version of 2007, in which the globe is recovering from a nuclear war. The player controls Rex “Power” Colt, a cyborg military commando trapped on an unknown island throughout the game. Colonel Sloan, an elite operative who has gone rogue, is being investigated by Rex and another American cyber-soldier, T.T. “Spider” Brown, on an unknown island.
Sloan confronts Rex and Spider, knocking Rex unconscious and killing Spider. A simple character progression system is used in the game. Players can use a variety of firearms, including pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, and explosives like grenades, to accomplish their goals in the game besides using stealth methods like throwing dice to confuse attackers or completing stealthy takedowns with a huge knife.
Blood Dragon is the polar antithesis of its straight-faced predecessors in philosophy, tone, and mechanics. Rex Power Colt, a cyborg commando, knows no bounds. He doesn’t get weary running at superhuman speeds, doesn’t require oxygen to breathe, and can withstand any fall. Blood Dragon is all about the exaggerated ridiculousness of the action, and it’s more than fun enough to make it a terrific experience.
This hilarious, explosive shooter incorporates everything good about Far Cry 3’s gunplay and amps it up a notch. Blood Dragon is a unique beast with its lighthearted focus on comedy, nostalgia, and self-aware silliness, and it’s one you shouldn’t miss.
SLEEPING DOGS (2012)
Sleeping Dogs is an action-adventure game set in the third person. The player takes control of a martial artist, commando Wei Shen, a Chinese-American cop who goes undercover to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad. The melee combat in Sleeping Dogs has been likened to that of Batman: Arkham Asylum in that it allows the player to battle opponents from any direction using attack, grapple, and counter-moves, and the player can do it with or without weapons.
Environmental assaults include pulling adversaries to certain items, which Shen then utilizes to defeat opponents. As the game develops, the player gets numerous safe places to preserve progress but is occasionally compelled to visit them to go further.
Shen has immersed himself in the Hong Kong underground to uncover it from the inside out, and it’s intriguing to watch him get drawn deeper and deeper into danger. He’s not a faceless hero or a haphazardly assembled man. He appears to be as lifelike as a movie character.
The game’s driving mechanics are spot-on, with a wide range of vehicles offering distinct sensations, from beat-up motorbikes and enormous industrial trucks to supped-up sedans and expensive sports cars and everything in between. There are several treasures to find in addition to the game’s lengthy storyline, which includes numerous side tasks to accomplish. Sleeping Dogs is sure to keep you occupied with its tale and everything else that it has to offer.
RED FACTION: GUERRILLA (2009)
The third-person shooter Red Faction: Guerrilla, takes place in the year 2125 on Mars. The player assumes the character of Alec Mason, assisting the Red Faction in their attempt to defeat the repressive Earth Defense Force (EDF) on Mars. Alec, a mining engineer, visits Mars to reconnect with his brother Dan and start a new life. Dan testifies about the EDF’s harshness to the Martian people while on work detail and invites Alec to enroll with the Red Faction, of which Dan is an associate. An EDF assault squad quickly assassinates Dan with air support.
Alec is saved by guerrillas from the Red Faction and grudgingly joins them as a freedom fighter. The player is constantly armed with a sledgehammer-style weapon and three slots for various weapons and explosives throughout the game, which the player may choose from a list of over twenty options. For more devastating options against the EDF, the player can also operate armed vehicles ranging from converted civilian cars to tanks and giant walkers.
Red Faction: Guerrilla is the game for you if all you want to do is blow stuff up. Although the game isn’t flawless, it’s the finest option for unadulterated fun and free-form destruction. It’s satisfying to see a tower fall to the ground in a realistic manner after sledgehammering away at its support beams. While the game’s attractiveness fades as you advance through the lengthy campaign, it’s still worth playing, particularly if you get some of the better weapons. Volition has created an excellent multiplayer package that includes stat tracking, unlocks, and a variety of building-flattening game styles.
ENSLAVED: ODYSSEY TO THE WEST (2010)
The video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is an action-adventure. The game is set 150 years after a worldwide conflict in a post-apocalyptic world loosely based on the novel Journey to the West. Only the remains of humanity and the still operational military equipment left behind from the fight have survived. In a third-person perspective, the player assumes the character of “Monkey,” overcoming obstacles with a range of fighting and platforming maneuvers.
Monkey fights with a stick that may be used as a close-combat weapon and a long-range projectile weapon. The staff carries two types of long-range ammunition in the form of power cylinders: orange cylinders for blast impact and blue cylinders for stunning adversaries.
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West illustrates how a compelling story and excellent graphic design can transcend minor gameplay flaws. Your mobility is a little rough around the edges, and the fighting doesn’t truly show off its full potential until halfway through the game, but they are minor flaws in an otherwise excellent package.
The characters are incredibly lifelike, with subtle motions and convincing voice acting making these computer entities feel nearly natural at moments. It’s a lot of fun to see Monkey and Trip develop during their trip, and the bond you have with them gives your choices even more weight. The game is a fantastic experience with just enough variety and excitement in the gameplay to keep you interested.
PROTOTYPE 2
Action-adventure video game Prototype 2. It is the sequel to 2009’s Prototype, developed by Radical Entertainment and released by Activision. James Heller, the game’s new protagonist, embarks on a journey to eradicate the Blacklight virus. The plot revolves around Heller’s desire to assassinate Alex Mercer, the protagonist of the original Prototype, because his family was slain in the Blacklight virus epidemic.
In 2009, one year since the original game’s events, having returned from a tour in Iraq, US Marine Sergeant James Heller learns his wife and children have been proclaimed dead, prompting him to re-enlist in the military to combat the Blacklight virus for NYZ. Heller is informed about earlier outbreaks in Idaho in the 1960s and the first game’s events. He subsequently discovers that Alex Mercer has lost faith in humankind and seeks vengeance on him.
James Heller may shapeshift and adopt their identities and memories by ingesting other people’s identities and memories. It’s gotten more tactical to take people’s identities and shapeshift into them. If the player adopts the position of a soldier as a result of Blackwatch’s operations in the Yellow Zone, people will respond to him in a way that indicates they don’t want anything to do with him.
Prototype 2 is a solid follow-up. It doesn’t bring anything new or innovative to the genre, but minor changes make it more approachable than the original. Most significantly, it’s an unapologetically enjoyable experience that knows exactly what it wants to be. Little stands in the way of your fun in this game about murdering adversaries in an open-world setting. In Prototype 2, mindless violence is all the rage, making for a silly but exciting experience.
YAKUZA 3 (2009)
Yakuza 3 is the third main installment in the Yakuza series, published in 2009 for the PlayStation 3. Unlike the last game in the series, Ry ga Gotoku Kenzan!, a Miyamoto Musashi-based spinoff set in Edo-era Kyoto, this edition continues Kazuma Kiryu’s exploits from Yakuza and Yakuza 2. From the first two games, the game takes place in Kamurocho, a fictitious imitation of Tokyo’s red-light area Kabukicho and a whole new area named Ryukyu.
Kiryu and Haruka visit the cemetery where his adoptive father, Shintaro Kazama, remains in February 2007, after the conflict with the Omi Alliance is over. Kaoru Sayama joins them before departing for the United States. Kiryu assumes guardianship of an orphanage in Okinawa in the hopes of raising orphans as Kazama did for him. Before leaving, he enlists the help of his opponent, Goro Majima, to aid Kiryu’s replacement, Daigo Dojima, in his responsibilities as clan chairman. After Kiryu overcomes him, Majima agrees.
You’ll be immersed in an intense story about Japan’s seedy underbelly, set in an open world where you can complete various side quests while also encountering random battles, earning experience points to level up your moves, and taking items from your extensive inventory list to craft new weapons and armor. Fistfighting appears to be straightforward at first. You can use light, heavy, and grappling attacks.
If you like, you may use the nunchucks, katanas, and stun guns you discover on adversaries in combat. You can button mash while you strike individuals since each weapon has a limited amount of uses. The tale is fascinating, the combat is enjoyable, and there is enough to do. The game is coarse around the edges – it has pacing and repetition issues, and it doesn’t look like a new game either – but all of these flaws are minor snags on what should be a satisfying ride for those looking to beat up on some people and wander the streets of Japan.
DRAGON’S DOGMA: DARK ARISEN (2013)
Dragon’s Dogma is an action-adventure role-playing game that is played in third-person. Fighter, Strider, Mage, Warrior, Mystic Knight, Ranger, Assassin, Sorcerer, and Magic Archer are among the vocations available to the player. There are other options for gender and attractiveness.
The game begins with a troop of knights commanded by Savan reaching the finish of a journey to fight the Dragon, a monster that heralds the end of the world. The newly-arrived Dragon assaults the protagonist’s settlement of Cassardis at an unknown time in the present-day Duchy of Gransys. Hideaki Itsuno came up with the concept for Dragon’s Dogma.
Dragon’s Dogma captivated me because of its feeling of adventure. Going into the wilderness seems like a true adventure. You must spend time planning ahead of time, acquiring information about a task, and changing your team and equipment since once you’re out there, there will be nothing and no one to help you when darkness falls. Aside from those minor technological oddities, Dragon’s Dogma’s minor flaw is the uninteresting storyLINE and writing. Nonetheless, it’s a terrific game with so much going for it that I’m willing to overlook most of its flaws because it excels in many areas.
THE SABOTEUR
The Saboteur is an action-adventure game where the player can explore Nazi-occupied Paris, portions of France, and Germany. The game’s main protagonist Sean Devlin, an Irish racing car driver and technician, joins the French Resistance to free Paris when Nazi soldiers slay his best friend in German-occupied France during World War II. Color is an essential aspect of the game.
Except for the characters’ irises, city lights, blood and blue insignia of the French Resistance, and certain German symbols, brilliant red and replete with swastikas, areas dominated by the Nazis are depicted in black and white. The player can scale buildings and dash across roofs, where supply boxes are occasionally located, or get an excellent sniper’s view of the ground below. The player has access to garages, which may save parked cars and fix damaged ones. The player can also get into fist fights or take a sneaky approach, such as creeping about or donning a Nazi costume.
Although the plot can’t determine whether to be silly or serious, the exciting atmosphere contributes to the overall experience. The method in which color is meticulously put is the most intriguing feature of this art design. The invading soldiers’ despair and dread are aesthetically represented using stark black and white backgrounds. The orange flare of a gunshot or the burning scarlet of spilled Nazi blood gives a stunning effect in action situations. The Saboteur stands out among other World War II-themed games, and it’s a lot of fun if you can overlook its flaws.
THE DARKNESS
Starbreeze Studios’ The Darkness is a first-person shooter video game. The player assumes the character of Jackie Estacado, who tells the narrative through his narration. Jackie is assassinated on the evening of his 21st birthday by his “Uncle” Paulie Franchetti, who is sure that Jackie is seeking his place as the Don. As night falls, the Darkness appears forcefully and slaughters his pursuers, an ancient demonic power that has haunted Jackie’s lineage.
The Darkness’ capabilities include conjuring four imp-like creatures called “Darklings” to attack enemies, using “Dark” tentacles to impale foes or knock down walls, using “Creeping Dark” tentacles that sneak along floors, walls, and ceilings to take out enemies from afar, and creating a black hole that suckers anything nearby into it.
The Darkness is an incredibly gory adventure. The Darkness is stunning while having a great frame rate and a vast, well-detailed environment. The sharpness of the texture is such that you may hear a secret sequence of phone calls by scanning phone numbers from billboards and posters posted throughout the town and dialing them from a pay phone. It has a great art style.
The narrative has some incredibly dark and even scary parts. The voice acting in The Darkness is outstanding. The characters’ realism, combined with this heinous demonic power, creates an intriguing combination; the gameplay is gratifying, even if it isn’t particularly tough; and the presentation is excellent. Nonetheless, it is a must-play if you are a fanatic of M-rated action gameplay.