We’ve reached that point in the console cycle where everyone is just sort of sitting around, twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the next generation to try out some new ideas. Microsoft decided to spend the last year of their system’s life churning out one last sequel for some of their popular series, while Sony seems content to pretty much just throw every game that’s already come out for each of their big franchises, shove it into one box and slap “HD” on there, mostly for marketing purposes. Sure, they claim they’ve done some touching up on the PS2 games, “remastering” or whatever you want to call it, but let’s not kid ourselves -it’s hardly the Ocarina of Time 3DS treatment.
Pretty much every big title with Sony connections has gotten the HD rerelease treatment by now. God of War, Ratchet & Clank, Team Ico, Sly Cooper and Jak and Daxter have all gotten bundles, with an Infamous collection joining them this month. Admittedly they can be a pretty sweet deal if you’ve never played a game in those series, which seems to be surprisingly common. Most of the PS2 games in this series aren’t playable on the PS3 in any other form due to Sony dropping backwards-compatibility several hardware iterations ago.
Sony’s Killzone series is next up for the treatment, with a bundle containing both of the PS3 games and a 720P upgrade of the PS2 original, all for $40. The Killzone series was Sony’s answer to Halo, and while it’s popularity has never come anywhere near competing with Bungie’s success, apparently enough people are into it that it keeps getting sequels. The multiplayer servers for both Killzone 2 and 3 are still active, and a fourth installment is in development.
At $40 it might be worth giving a try if you’ve never played a game in the series before. The same could be said for any of these collections really -the people who already own these games pretty clearly aren’t the target audience for them. A standalone version of the original Killzone is also planned for release, with trophy support thrown in, because trophies.
Here’s a good review of Killzone 2 if people aren’t familiar with the game series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfk8BffNGiQ&feature=colike
I bought Ratchet&Clank Trilogy/HD/whatever just days ago because I never had a PS2 (was a gamecube loser) and I’m pretty happy about such a bundle – but InFamous or Killzone? Maybe someone should say Sony they already released both: InFamous games, Killzone 2 and 3 on PS3.
A VITA-Port would make sense, even if the graphics would be not as good.
The bundles really aren’t a bad deal for someone who hasn’t played any of the games. I was considering getting the God of War collection, but since the larger bundle is coming out, I’ll just get that.