Top 10: Worst PS3 Ports

Top 10: Worst PS3 Ports
Tom Orry Updated on by

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The PS3 got off to a pretty bad start, but these days developers are pumping out better games, whether they’re exclusive or multi-platform. In the hope that we’re nearing the end sloppy PS3 ports of Xbox 360 games we’ve put together our Top 10: Worst PS3 Ports. Which games hit the PlayStation 3 in far worse shape than they were in on the Xbox 360? Which ports really shouldn’t have made it out of the QA department? Read on to find out.

10. F.E.A.R.

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F.E.A.R. was ported from the PC to the Xbox 360 fairly successfully, but something went very wrong with the PS3 game. Released after the Xbox 360 game, F.E.A.R. on PS3 suffered from a poorer frame rate and appeared to have had Vaseline smeared over the screen. For whatever reason this relatively old PC game didn’t run at all well on Sony’s latest console, which had a negative impact on the game’s action packed gameplay. For a game that’s all about carnage, a sluggish frame rate ruined things somewhat.

9. Splinter Cell – Double Agent

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While we admit that we might have slightly over-rated Sam Fisher’s next-gen debut, it is still an excellent game that tries to do some new things with mixed success. Sadly PS3 gamers didn’t get the same great game that Xbox 360 owners were playing months earlier. The PS3 game chugs frequently and seems to be missing much of the subtle lighting that impressed so much last year. What’s more, numerous sound effect glitches crop up throughout and cutscenes fail to run smoothly. It all felt rather sloppy and lessened the experience substantially.

8. Sonic the Hedgehog

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Although Sonic the Hedgehog could just as easily appear in a worst next-gen games Top 10, it also has the displeasure of being one of the worst PS3 ports. Already a less than spectacular game on Xbox 360, on PS3 the mistreated hedgehog’s latest game ran at an even worse frame rate. This is the kind of slowdown that we saw on the Nintendo 64 when 3D was still relatively new. To see it in a PS3 game was frankly quite shocking, and somewhat of an embarrassment.

7. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

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For a movie licensed game At World’s End on Xbox 360 looked rather nice. The game didn’t play nearly as well as it looked, but fans of the movie were at least able to see the characters brought to life faithfully in the game. On PS3 the game’s best feature was crippled by a terribly sluggish frame rate and more jagged edges than we should see in this age of HD visuals. The two combined made for a visual mess that at times was nearly unplayable.

6. Madden 08

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We don’t care much for American sports games at VideoGamer.com, but it was hard to ignore the sheer anger felt by PS3 owners over EA’s 08 line-up. Madden felt the brunt of this anger, down to the game’s 30 frames per second frame rate compared to 60 on the Xbox 360. Considering PS3 owners had for the most part believed that their console was the most powerful on the planet, to have such a difference between the two versions was hard to take. Madden fans who only owned a PS3 felt more than a little hard done by in 2007.

5. Quake Wars

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While it’s not quite so obvious in screen shots, the PS3 version of Quake Wars is by far the ugly ducking of the three games. On PC Quake Wars looked pretty impressive, with nice lighting and a great draw distance – and it all ran quite well on a modest PC. The 360 game isn’t a bad port at all, with some respectable next-gen visuals and plenty of tweaks to make the game more suitable for console gamers. The PS3 game suffers from a poor frame rate, appears to lack the impressive lighting of the 360 game and hasn’t had as much care put into its in-game menu designs. The game is still enjoyable on PS3, but the worst of the three by some distance.

4. Tony Hawk’s Project 8

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As the first Tony Hawk game on the PlayStation 3 many people expected great things. The PlayStation is where the brand made a name for itself and where many of its biggest fans started playing. Sadly, this port suffered from varying degrees of frame rate trouble and it was missing online play – something even older PS2 Hawk games included. At the time Project 8 was a great return to form for the series after some not so great Underground games, so PS3 owners felt quite justifiably upset over the problems and missing game features.

3. Orange Box

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Valve’s amazing games compendium that is Orange Box arrived on the PlayStation 3 a few months after it hit PC and Xbox 360. We were a little worried when it was announced that Valve wasn’t handling the PS3 port, with EA itself taking the reigns, and our concern was justified. The frame rate in the three Half-Life games got gradually worse as you moved through them, with moments in Episode Two being especially sluggish. On PS3 the visuals also had a blurry filter applied to them, which meant some finer detail was lost and the sharpness of the 360 game wasn’t present.

2. Lost Planet

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It’s hard to know what happened with Lost Planet on PS3. Built using Capcom’s in-house game engine (the same engine that brought us the excellently performing Devil May Cry 4 on PS3 and 360), for some reason this snow-based third-person shooter ran at an atrocious frame rate on PS3. Although the original Xbox 360 wasn’t silky smooth, for the most part the frame rate wasn’t a problem. Considering that PS3 owners had to wait an age to get the one-time Xbox 360 exclusive, such a poor port was hard to take.

1. PES 2008

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Oh dear. Where do we begin with the PS3 version of PES 2008. Although released at the same time as the Xbox 360 and PC versions, all the signs point towards a botched port job to the PS3. The frame rate in the original un-patched release is one of the worst we’ve seen in a high-profile release, the ground texturing is atrocious and the online play was broken. While the Xbox 360 game was no looker and featured similar online issues, it was far and away a better game than the PS3 version. Considering PES 2008 was hyped up to be better on PS3, the final game turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of 2007.