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Console Exclusives - Who Won The Winter War?
PS3 vs 360 - round 1 for 2010!
Written by Jon Denton, 22 February 2010
With Winter mercifully crawling into its frozen pit for another year, it's time to analyse the console exclusive games over this crucial season and work out who had the most critical success. It's been an incredibly close one.
Xbox 360 - Exclusive Titles
Mass Effect 2
So yes, it's also a PC release, but Mass Effect 2's position as the key Xbox 360 release in Winter 2009/2010 is crucial. It's a superb piece of work, the kind of thing that appeals to the 360's shooter-hungry audience but is also smart enough to broaden their horizons. With fantastic sales in its first couple of weeks and huge review scores across the board (including a 95% from GamerZines), this could well end up as Game Of The Year 2010. That Microsoft has ensured its exclusivity is supremely important, establishing the 360 as THE place to be if you want high profile sci-fi shooting. And a hell of a lot of people do.
PS3 - Exclusive Titles
MAG
P3Zine Issue 37
For our latest god of war 3 coverage, click here to download P3Zine Issue 37 for free.It's supremely functional, and it was never going to usurp Modern Warfare 2, but you don't see many 360-only shooter-heads peering enviously into the PS3 garden when MAG is on display. It's rough around the edges and far too confusing in its back-end, and only those who stick with it will reap the rewards. A solid game, but fairly insignificant in the wider battle.
Heavy Rain
This is the most interesting console exclusive, and not just because of its unique take on story telling and interactivity. No, what makes Heavy Rain interesting is how it positions the PS3 early in the year. A game this unusual and brave would usually not receive this type of marketing and PR push, but Heavy Rain has been dominating gaming headlines for two straight months, and it's not even out yet. It's a superb piece of work too - truly adult, bold and daring, tense and actually scary.
God Of War 3
There's no such thing as a 100% 'sure thing' in gaming, but this isn't far off. The third in the hugely successful and fantastically over-the-top franchise has been wowing the world in its trailers, and after seeing the breathtaking opening, we can confirm that God Of War III will not disappoint. More of the same perhaps, but when that 'same' is genre-defining brilliance, then who's complaining?
Conclusion
So, it might look like a whitewash, but you can't underestimate the impact of Mass Effect 2 on the industry as a whole. It's a huge seller already, comfortably blowing MAG out of the water, and will probably be as important (from a design point of view) as Heavy Rain. The PS3 wins in terms of sheer weight of numbers, and has done great work in positioning itself as the console where adults can turn to experience new things, but next quarter could be very different, with Splinter Cell Conviction, Alan Wake and possibly Crackdown 2 all arriving before the summer.
Has there ever been a better time to be a gamer? The battle rages on, and it's great fun to discuss, but ultimately, the real winners are those who own every machine going. After all, it's the games that matter.
god of war 3 coverage available in P3Zine Issue 37 - click here to download it for free!
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