12 Best PS3 Ports

Hotline Miami came out on Windows on 23 October 2012, and Abstraction Games ported it to the PS3 and the Vita the next year. Both versions were released on 25 July 2013 in North America, with cross-buy, so buying it on one gave you the other. By the time the PS3 version was announced in February 2013, the game had already sold 300,000 units.

The PS3 version holds 87 on Metacritic, two points above the PC original, although one critic felt the controller made the game easier and that players would "miss out" on how it was meant to feel. Another found that the controls took some time to get used to, and that playing it on a computer was more ideal. Players who recommend it keep bringing up the soundtrack.

George Fan designed Plants vs. Zombies as a more defense-oriented sequel to his fish simulator Insaniquarium, and PopCap released it on Windows and Mac on May 5, 2009. It sold more than 300,000 copies in its first nine days. The Xbox 360 got it in September 2010, and the PS3 followed on February 8, 2011, as a PlayStation Network download published by Sony Online Entertainment.

You defend a suburban home from zombies by planting things on a lawn grid. Crazy Dave, the only human character, was a parody of a person Fan knew, and he runs the shop where you spend your money between levels. Players keep calling it fun. The undead never stood a chance against a sunflower.

No More Heroes was a Wii game, first released in Japan in December 2007. Feelplus ported it to the PS3 and Xbox 360 with high-definition graphics as Heroes' Paradise, out in Japan on April 15, 2010, and only the PS3 version was localized in English. Konami published it in the West in 2011 with PlayStation Move support, so Travis could recharge his battery-powered beam katana with the Move controller, much like on the Wii.

The Japanese PS3 version was censored, similar to its Wii predecessor, while the Xbox 360 version remained uncensored. The North American and European PS3 release is uncensored, and it came with various fixes to the game's performance and graphics. Players who own a Move still list it among the games that use one well.

Street Fighter IV was designed for the Taito Type X2 arcade hardware and reached arcades in July 2008. The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions came in February 2009 with additional playable characters and features not found in the arcade game. The North American Collector's Edition came with The Ties That Bind, a 65-minute animated film, on a Blu-ray disc for the PS3. In the US, PS3 owners got a Ryu figurine, while Xbox 360 owners got a Crimson Viper figure.

Super Street Fighter IV and its later editions share this entry. When players recommend it now, they usually name one of those, most often Ultra Street Fighter IV.

Tekken 6 reached arcades in November 2007 as the first game running on the PlayStation 3-based System 357 arcade board. The home version still took until October 2009 to arrive on the PS3 and Xbox 360, based on the Bloodline Rebellion update and with a single player "Scenario Campaign" mode added. Two years is a long wait for a game that was already running on the right hardware.

It was also the first main Tekken made for a console that wasn't Sony's. The PS3 version at first drew complaints about long load times when you hadn't installed it, and about laggy online play that updates later improved. Players remember it as a game for two people on the same couch, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2, which came home from the arcades in 2012, shares this entry.

Crysis came out on Windows in November 2007, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 version arrived as a download on October 4, 2011, without the online multiplayer and without "Ascension", the second to last mission of the campaign. That cut stuck. Crysis Remastered was built from this console port rather than the PC original when it came out in 2020, so it lost Ascension too.

Crysis 2 had already come out on the PS3 on March 22, 2011, so the original showed up after its own sequel. Critics gave the PC version 91 on Metacritic and the PS3 version 81. Players still remind each other that on the PS3 it was only ever sold as a download.

Ninja Gaiden came out on the original Xbox in March 2004, and its director, Tomonobu Itagaki, called the later Ninja Gaiden Black the final version. Tecmo ported it to the PS3 anyway, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma came out on June 14, 2007. The stronger hardware let Team Ninja use larger and more detailed textures, and the new version added a few new areas, extra save points and shops, arrows you can shoot in mid-air and chapters where you play as Rachel.

Players warn newcomers about how hard it is, usually in the same breath as calling it great. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Razor's Edge share this entry.

The Behemoth released Castle Crashers on the Xbox 360 in August 2008, and the PS3 version followed on the PlayStation Network on August 31, 2010, in North America. It added a Volleyball minigame for up to four players and four AI characters, and the King Pack and the Necromantic Pack, both add-ons on the Xbox 360, came included. Alien Hominid joined as a free playable character too, because the developers decided to "make the logical assumption that by this point everyone has the PS2 Alien Hominid, right?"

Metacritic gives the PS3 version 85 and the Xbox 360 version 82, and the PS3 version moved over 181,000 copies in 2010. Players keep recommending it as a fun beat 'em up.

Eternal Sonata came out on the Xbox 360 in Japan in June 2007, and the PS3 version followed in September 2008. Its hero is Frédéric Chopin, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 39, and the game takes place in the world he dreams of as he is dying. That's a lot of commitment to a death scene, even for an RPG. The PS3 version made Crescendo and Serenade playable, two characters who play a major role in the story but who weren't playable on the Xbox 360.

In Japan the PS3 version debuted at number four on the sales charts, with around 34,000 copies sold. Players who want a JRPG on the PS3 still point to it, and one player summed up which version to get: "Eternal Sonata's best version is the PS3 version".

Blizzard released Diablo III for Windows and OS X in May 2012, and the PS3 and Xbox 360 port followed on September 3, 2013. The console version then did something the PC game hadn't managed. At the 16th D.I.C.E. Awards the 2012 PC release had only been nominated for Role-Playing/Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year, and a year later the 2013 console version won it outright.

Square Enix published and localized the PS3 version in Japan, released there on January 30, 2014, and the Ultimate Evil Edition expanded the game on the PS3 on August 19, 2014. Players mostly recommend it as a couch co-op game, the kind two people play on one sofa.

Mass Effect 2 came out on Windows and Xbox 360 in January 2010, and BioWare at first denied that a PS3 version was in the works. The Windows version still turned out to feature lines of code referencing the PlayStation 3, and BioWare responded that the Unreal Engine 3 is cross-platform. It arrived on January 18, 2011, a year later, on the modified Unreal Engine 3 that BioWare used for Mass Effect 3, with add-on packs included, Lair of the Shadow Broker among them.

The first Mass Effect wasn't on the PS3 yet, so BioWare released Genesis, a downloadable pack that lets you make the first game's major plot decisions. The first Mass Effect followed in December 2012. Plenty of players call Mass Effect 2 their favourite game on the console, or close to it.

BioShock came out on Windows and Xbox 360 on August 21, 2007, and 2K brought in Digital Extremes to help build the PS3 version, released on October 17, 2008, internationally. It has no graphical improvements over the Xbox 360 game, but the cutscene videos run at a much higher resolution, and the PS3 got add-on content of its own, such as Survivor Mode, where enemies are tougher and Vita-Chambers give back less health.

Critics gave the PS3 version 94 on Metacritic, against 96 for the Xbox 360 and PC. Players still send anyone who wants a good story to it first.