Generally, the Playstation 3 has had trouble finding truly successful franchises. While the original Resistance was met with a warm reception, its sequel was considered a failure in several respects. Ratchet and Clank have had moderate success on the platform; however their latest PS3 iteration was met with a tepid response from several critics.

Upon its 2007 release, the original Uncharted was met with varying response. While the animation was amazing, the gameplay was considered sub-par to other third person shooters. Then in 2009, Naughty Dog released Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Considered to be the 2009 game of the year by many, Uncharted 2 combined quality cover based shooting, amazing set pieces, stunning graphics and an intriguing storyline. Cooperative and competitive multiplayer were introduced that added a lot of replayability.

With Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog raised the bar for cinematic experiences. It’s a lofty task to follow up any game of that magnitude, but they hope to do it with Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. It seems like everything is in place for another game of the year contender. Is it up for the task, or does it fall just shy of the mark?

Crawl through the desert for the full review.

Halloween, for better or worse, is the time of year when it seems that every movie is horror themed. For a while, the Saw films were released around this time. Paranormal Activity has taken that spot, having a yearly release during the Halloween season.

Recently, video game companies have been getting in on the action, too. Last year, we saw the Double Fine release of Costume Quest and the Rockstar release of the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption. Now, Sucker Punch is celebrating the season by releasing this surprisingly full release of infamous: Festival of Blood.

Festival of Blood has a strange spot in the gaming world. While you don’t need inFamous 2 to play it, it still takes place within the continuity of inFamous 2…to a degree. Still taking place in New Marais, the primary location of inFamous 2, Festival of Blood is a sort of “What-if” scenario seen in many comics. How well does this alternate universe game fare?

Don’t say Bloody Mary three times after the jump.

The grind house genre of films has been making somewhat of a comeback in recent years, for better or worse. Be it the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez Grindhouse double feature, or films like Black Dynamite, this exploitation genre of films has had varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, little has been done to translate this genre into the video game space. Generally, someone simply slaps a film grain filter over a game and says it was “inspired by Quentin Tarantino.”

Enter 2009’s House of the Dead: Overkill, a film that sends up 70’s exploitation films. While the main draw for many to the House of the Dead series has been its camp, Overkill went all out and made one of the campiest, swear filled games ever created (and yes, it did have the record for most amount of cursing in a game confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records).  It certainly was not perfect, with a flawed combo system which forced you to miss no shots, seemingly discouraging the titular “overkill”, but like the films that inspired it, it gained a cult status among fans of light gun games. When Sega announced that it would be porting the game to the PS3, with new weapons and levels, many hoped this would help it gain the recognition that it deserved. Is this version the one to own, or is it just dead in the water?

Her name is Varla “*******” Guns, after the jump.

The PixelJunk series has become a staple of the Playstation network. From the tower defense game PixelJunk Monsters to the abstract puzzler PixelJunk Eden, the series has consistently tried to change formulas. In 2009, Q Games released PixelJunk Shooter, and earlier this year we saw the release of PixelJunk Shooter 2. While popular, their titles were somewhat misleading in that they were both more of a puzzle game than anything else.

PixelJunk Sidescroller seeks to rectify that by being a pure side-scrolling shooter. With a decent pedigree behind them, has Q Games made another masterpiece, or does it fall short of the mark?

Insert coin after the jump.