When I first bought my PS3 I was pretty much entrenched in my little XBox 360 gaming world and mainly picked it up as a cheap Blu-Ray player as figured I could also double up its value by playing the occasional exclusive. But as the years passed I found myself going back to it more and more despite the fact that I started ignoring some of the bigger high-profile games. I'm not fully sure why as despite some claims to the contrary and despite the PS3 being the hardest damn gaming system to program for that has ever existed, I haven't really noticed much of a difference between the two when competing games for them existed and I played them both. Perhaps it's just the fact that the PS3 controller feels a little faster and more responsive thus being slightly more fun to use in heavy action and fighting games. Then again perhaps it's that silly little last minute attempt for Sony to adopt the achievement goal era but attempt to maintain a brand uniqueness by creating the Platinum reward. Ahhhhhh the Platinum medal! Not only does it let everybody know you met and bested all the challenges, but it also shouts this out as a large demarcation of awesomesauce that further, and sometimes unwanted, DL additions can no longer sully your accomplishment as they do on the 360.

Now lord knows I'm the furthest thing away from being hardcore. Yes I'm an oldschool gamer that grew up gaming with no saves and only a limited amount of lives. But I get enough frustration in my day to day life and I don't really feel the need to press the issue and go for that platinum reward or get my 1000/1000 if it looks to be something I just don't want to tackle. Yet over the years I've actually slowly managed to pick up some here and there until the present moment in which I found that I've acquired 13 platinums which barely squeaked me into being level 13 and as luck would have it today's the 13th. So let's celebrate at Gamespot's loneliest little blog by checking out just what kind of crappy games damons played in which he did it all.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I believe one of the first games I played on my PS3. I had already 1000/1000 in on the 360 and I thought it was sad that I didn't have any games for the PS3 to try out. So my friend who had only a PS3 at the time gave me his copy to fool around with and darn it all if the game isn't just so much fun to play that I did all over again until I had my first shiny little platinum reward. This game often gets called out as an easy platinum game and while I agree the bulk of the game is not particularly hard as long as you take the time to build ol' Wolvie up, there are some difficult goals to be met besides just beating the game. The most annoying aspect is the fact that the game suffers from having a very annoying and very strange end boss fight on which you can instantly die from due to poor planning on the developer's part. This annoyance is amplified quite a bit when you face the boss on hard as it drags the battle out for quite some time which is quite nerve-wracking when you know that if he slips away from you at any moment he could teleport and crumble the world around you killing you instantly and you have to start all over again. An annoying end to overall a very fun game.

Tekken 6

The next one I believe was Tekken 6 which is a game I dearly loved but one which was very bizarre to get the platinum for as most of the goals pretty much revolved around their strange expanded 3D adventure brawler mode which nobody seems to like and yet the folks at Namco seem to be very much obsessed with pushing. Once you get used to who you have to fight and what to expect in terms of resistance and their reactions it wasn't too hard. But if it wasn't for some nice little solutions such as machine-gunning Devil Jin far enough away from one particularly difficult and confined level that he would fall out of the area rewarding you with an instant victory, then I'm not sure if I would've been able to get it done. Regardless once all that nonsense side game stuff was over I had very little to do in terms of goals but at long last I could play the very brief arcade mode with all the characters I had unlocked. Often fighting games have those annoying to nigh impossible goals of beating gobs of folks online in a row and crap like that, but thankfully not in this game and thus a fighting game with a shiny platinum.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Another fine action game that not only deeply entrenched me in the beloved Star Wars universe I grew up with, but one which was also dark and gritty and thankfully completely free of the stink of the prequels. I really enjoyed this game as the developers really made sure you would have a great time exploiting your jedi skills in order to deal a helluva lot of carnage and destruction and some at times rather shocking feats. Like many adventure games as long as you built your character up properly the game wasn't too hard, but on the highest difficulty level some of the boss battles were quite a problem and the game really forces you to use all of the powers and skills you develop to their fullest in order to survive. Not the most difficult to be sure, but I not only really enjoyed the action and settings, I also really enjoyed the character to the point that I secretly wished somebody would make an awesome film covering the arc of this game. Fun stuff, cool characters, and a shiny platinum for me!

Bayonetta

One of my favorite action games ever and probably the platinum I'm most proud of as I honestly never thought I would do it and pretty much decided it wouldn't happen after I tried my hand at a couple of the more challenging goals I had to achieve. But darn it if the game not only compelled me to keep playing it and get better and better at it, but it also allowed me the freedom to figure out how I would achieve those goals and I always get a kick out of the fact that I did some of the more annoying Alfheims in a way completely different from how my friend did them. A game which looks easy if you do what you need to do with solid precision, but if you don't things can get messy quite fast. But despite this the game isn't needlessly so hardcore that a single mistake will sink you instantly which is a lesson I wish more game developers would learn. There were some down moments such as the overly long motorcyle level and the needlessly long Space Harrier level which then dumps you right into a majorly difficult boss battle (a major gaming sin), but overall it was a challenging but incredibly fun game to play chock full of entertaining characters and some truly gorgeous character and level designs.

Dante's Inferno

A fun but shallow hack and slasher in the God of War mold, Dante's Inferno was rich in character and packed to the brim with all manner of monsters and demons so perversely realized that I'm actually kind of surprised this game didn't cause more of a ruckus with the wall to wall nudity eventually resulting in a very large swinging penis courtesy of a not so shy Devil. A fairly easy platinum to get as long as you took the time to explore every nook and cranny, and though I'm not opposed to playing a casually fun action game, the game mainly failed in that it provided you with quite a laundry list of exciting combos you could pull off, but the developers forgot to challenge you so that you would need to use them as it was fairly easy just to keep moving and hack away with a standard quick combo to get the job done. Overall it was fun to play through, but it just wasn't as satisfying as it could have been had the developers spent a little more time with it.

Mafia II

I really enjoyed Mafia II as the mechanics of the cover system worked like a charm and some of the characters were actually quite fun to be around. The game itself is pretty easy and doing the game on hard just means you need to take things a little slower and make sure you utilize cover always remembering who is going to rush you from where. There were some really silly moments of immersion such as cleaning toilets and walking to and from in prison very slowly which I assume was meant to convey some sort of atmosphere but just felt dumb. Then of course there was the game's strange obsession with suddenly taking away all your money and clothes several times (always a big annoyance in games in which you collect stuff), but once you knew to expect it and realized you could get money pretty quickly it was no big deal. I wished they could've opened up the city more and included actual side missions to play around with and the odd avoidance of nudity seemed strange considering you collect pictures of nude women from Playboy in the game, but overall it was still a fun game that I played through many times. It's a shame the DL that would come out all involved beating the clock which is the antithesis of how this game operates making the DL pretty much the most miserable experience of my gaming life. Thanks idiots.

The Saboteur

I really enjoyed this stealth sandbox game quite a bit and got quite a kick out of slowly bombing the crap out of everything without anyone noticing I was there. Initially the game takes quite a bit of technique to slowly take out a cluster of targets all being heavily guarded and patrolled. But once you unlock the ability to set bombs while disguised in full view of other soldiers as long as you didn't get too close to them the game really allowed you to abuse your enemy something fierce. I enjoyed figuring out ways to chain bombs and just unleash hell right as the Germans started to suspect something. Collecting vehicles was a blast as well and I managed to snag a platinum despite the usual bane of my completion in sandbox games, namely car racing, because unlike many other car racing mini games these were actually possibly to do...from my perspective anyways. A fairly easy but fun platinum but it takes quite of lot of bombing to finish up things so it's kind of a war of attrition.

inFamous

Like I strangely do lately, I pretty much got excited for this title and then skipped over picking it up for no particular reason and pretty much forgot about it until Sony offered it up for free as their apology for their network being down for so damn long. Needless to say I enjoyed it quite a bit and with the exception of a couple of boss fights and the main end boss fight on hard I don't remember it being too difficult to get everything finished up to obtain my platinum. some of the mechanics were a little wonky and I was less than amused at yet another game poorly implementing morality decisions that basically consist of "kick a puppy for no good reason" and "don't kick the puppy". The "good" and "evil" powers were annoyingly uneven with the "good" side being far better due to their self-healing properties. Still it was a bag of fun and after struggling with that boss on hard I finally had me my platinum!

inFamous 2

Pretty much played this as soon as I finished up the first game and despite my trepidation over the giant monsters that I watched my friend playing earlier that year, I still ended up having a good time and despite the changes I still enjoyed the characters and even the oh so obvious reveal. I was a bit disappointed that the folks at Sucker Punch somehow completely missed the fact that dying because your character keeps grabbing tiny out-croppings on the side of buildings was a problem in the first game and all they simply had to do was make the character NOT GRAB ANYTHING IF THE GRAB BUTTON IS HELD DOWN but somehow this obvious easy fix eluded them and...oh well. The evil powers were a little better this time out but really the main happiness about playing evil is that game is obsessed with attempting to make you accidentally kill the masses as they are quite fond of jumping between you and your target So when you are playing evil you don't have to worry about them and jog for a better position. You just note which direction your enemy is coming from and unleash every ounce of destructive force their direction...so satisfying. The game felt a bit easier but was quite a bit more epic and the challenges were more...um challenging so good times were had by all.

Saints Row: The Third

The newest iteration of Saints Row took one giant step forward and then a bunch of tiny steps backwards. I very much enjoyed the fact that tongue was firmly in cheek and now your character as leader of The Saints wasn't a super serious gangsta psychopath that nobody would actually follow, but now was quite a fun-loving silly sociopathic killer who I quite enjoyed playing. I was a little concerned that I would be able to complete the game as this time out you had to do versions of some traditional side missions that in older games I sometimes found nigh impossible to complete on the hardest levels. But this time out the racing was gone thank God and I managed to figure out a way to finish up the side missions on hard and along with grinding out like a madman to open up some very naughty legal cheat stats the game ended up being a lot of fun but probably a bit easier than it should have been.

Mini Ninjas

Okay okay! I know it's a kids game right? Yeah well it is kind of and even on the hardest level the game is fairly easy except for some situations involving portals and the end boss' third attack which can kill you in two hits and if you guess wrong you can't get away from him. But really I just loved this game's character designs and overall clean and stylish aesthetic and so I just breezed through it giggling with glee at all the cute as buttons goals and outcomes of my silly attacks. Not a proud victory I suppose, but an enjoyable journey nonetheless. NINJAS! NINJAS! NINJAS!

Captain America: Super Soldier

Picked up a cheap copy because I was bored and fairly poor and I had heard this game actually wasn't terrible for a license game. While it wasn't anything I'd recommend, I'll agree it wasn't awful at all although it was awfully shallow and despite the presence of all manner of reversals, much like Dante's Inferno during most of the game you don't really need them so I kind of forgot that they actually were there. That is until I had to do the challenges a couple of which were actually a bit challenging and in which I had to take down my giant robotic foes with speed and precision in order to obtain my platinum. A fairly easy game overall but those challenges at least made it feel like I had to make a decent amount of effort to win my shiny medal.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

Still sad and still fairly poor, I picked up a cheap copy of this old game as I played it years ago on my 360 and I kind of just wanted something fun to kick around. I was a little upset they took away the "build your own team" feature from the first game, but it's still fun, the new fusions are kind of nice, and the Civil War setting was a nice setting to stomp around in. As usual I went with Ms. Marvel as thankfully she's quite a bit better here than in the first game and sadly there's no god tier Spider-Woman to abuse the enemy with . Not too difficult of a game although there are a few combat scenarios on the hardest difficulty setting that are quite annoying. I never did completely finish up this game on my 360 as the danger room challenges made me a sad panda. But I sat down and figured out how to do them and kept at them until at long last I finished the last goal and got my 13th platinum reward! Thanks Ms. Marvel! ...oh also Thor who hits like...well like you would imagine Thor would hit like when he's fully buffed.