DLC - September 11th

It's Thursday again, so that means it's game time.  Plenty of stuff available today, some game updates, and ton to download so let's get it started.  One thing you will notice is that there's no news on the European store update.  Reason being seems to be technical difficulties preventing it from being posted.  I don't even think they posted something over at ThreeSpeech, probably for fear the usual whining may actually set the European IntarWebz on fire.

IGN PS3
PlayStation.Blog

Add-Ons
PAIN Amusement Park and update release today. The update includes Trophies and some bug fixes while the Amusement Park update adds new game play modes and helps introduce two new characters. Combined price for amusement and characters will run you just under $8. The Trophy whore inside of me makes me excited about that, but the new game play should add more hilarity. It's rare that a game's just as much to WATCH somebody play as it is to play it.

Three new playable cannnon fodder for PAIN become available with today's update and expansion release  Here's the break down.

• Yeony is a school girl gamer who loves the FPS.  She's ridiculously busty as all the women in the game are, and flies around with a PS3 controller in hand... until it's blown from here near lifeless hand.
  
• Tati is basically a stereotypical exotic dancer on her day off.  But she's spiced to perfection with enough attitude to choke Rosie Perez all while being the same character Ginger.
  
• Kenneth appears to be added to possibly offend somebody other than feminist groups.  I'm sure you've heard comparison of "like a fat kid loves cake?"  Well Kenneth appears to be that fat kid.  If you were to combine all female characters from the game they still would weight less than Kenneth's mid-day snack.

I picked up all three but I've only really played with Yeony, and she isn't far off from Jarvis.  A little skinnier but the same wing span and funnier comments.  "I think I was just headshot!"

Rock Band keeps up with it's usual 3 to 4 songs a week pace with another 3 songs and a combo pack with all three. As usual they can be accessed from the Rock Band store in-game as well as the PlayStation Store.

For some reason we have Guitar Hero add-on content for tomorrow and not today. I guess it's too good to be available with all the other lovely stuff we have for today. Either way if you're a big Metallica fan you can download the entire Death Magnetic album for play in Guitar Hero III for $17.99. Which I guess isn't entirely bad. A full album for about the price of the actual CD. Of course since it's Metallica don't bother asking if you'll be able to then access the same songs as MP3s. So sometime on Friday September 12 you'll be able to get your hands on this whole album.

Demos
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift for Qore subscribers.
FIFA 09 Demo
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Demo

Games
Some TV Shows don't translate well to games, and others are near perfect.  Today we receive one of those games that would be perfect if implimented properly.  JEOPARDY! shows up for $14.99 and in my mind immediately falls short.  There are 2,500 clues in the game, but that doesn't mean much if they're multiple choice.  There's been comment about later updates allowing voice recognition so questions can be verbalized instead of a 25% chance at a guess.  Either way the game does have online play and is supposed to be updated with Trophies in the future.  At the same time they also announced that they're working on a Wheel of Fortune game for the PSN which should translate quite well.  Since (Suck it) Trebek is sadly missing from JEOPARDY! I wonder if they'll digitize Vana White!

Field Commander ($14.99)

Videos
No movie trailers this week, but I was finally able to watch The Fall. Last Thursday a trailer was released for it and it piqued my interests so I added it to my NetFlix list. The last 15 minutes of the movie didn't live up to the rest of it, but it was absolutely a beautiful movie and worth checking out. Reminds me of Jet Lee's Hero with the visual feel of the movie. The little girl who played the female lead was amazing, and she couldn't have been more than 7 years old.

Games
BiA: Hell’s Highway Brutality of War Gameplay Video
Blitz: The League II - Trailer 2
FIFA 09 Trailer
Golden Axe: Beast Rider Trailer 2
Legendary Behind the Scenes Episode 2
NFS Undercover Launch Trailer
NHL 09 Teaser Trailer
NHL 09 Defensive Sizzle Trailer
Saints Row 2 – Uncle Gary Sticky Bombs Trailer
Saints Row 2 – Uncle Gary Throwing People Trailer
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Producer walkthru

Themes
Lots of themes to play with today! I can't remember the last time there were this any.

Mirror’s Edge #1 Theme has a very bright background but very simple use of icons help it stand out. Sadly the background is too bright and drowns out things like your friends list or list of games, but the background has a red strip through it that kind of makes the theme. The red stripe makes sure you know what exactly you have selected. There appears to be only 1 background for this theme, and all video I've seen for the game has a very light and washed out feel to it. Works great for the game as nothing symbolizes freedom of movement like the roof tops of a city in the noon day sun, but this is blinding.

NFS Undercover Theme sports the same simple icons as the Mirror's Edge theme, except this time showing off in black and a gun metal color. Background showcases the city of choice for the game and the deliciously beautiful Maggy Q shown in the upper left hand corner. None of the expected engine noises or tires squealing for any of the sounds. This could have done with just a wallpaper.

PAIN Amusement Park Theme shows off a big postcard like vista of an over the top amusement park. Most of the sounds used are theme park inspired like a clowns horn or somebody vomiting in the bushes. Other sounds sound like rides leaving the gate, or the splash from a water slide. But just like with the new leading lady's themes the sound seems off on some of the effects. In the end it just feels cluttered. There's just too much going on in the background that it's hard to read the names of the video files I downloaded today. I'll have keep using the themes I downloaded from PS3 Themes with my customer wallpapers.

PAIN: Kenneth Character Theme shows Kenneth standing in the background in all his food loving girth. As one might expect from a man of Kenneth's size, his theme is food based. All the icons have some beef related food item behind them to accentuate their natural beauty with all the glory that is a beef. After all, it is what's for dinner. From the looks of Kenneth and the sounds used in the theme, he's not the sharpest crayon in the box, but he does appear to be eager... to do something. It's a simple but functional theme and could very well be worth all the little chuckles we got from Santa's theme.

PAIN: Tati Character Theme comes with the type of background all previous PAIN characters have come with, though to be honest with you I'm not even sure why they bothered putting shorts on this character. Very little left to imagine, so why waste the time? All the icons are glitzed and glam'd up, for the high maintenance type of girl Tati appears to be. The volume for the theme's sound appears to be off a little. If you enter a folder you hear "j00 like?" but it's so quite I had to seriously jack up the volume to even hear what she said. I then exited the menu with the volume on 55 and almost soiled myself as she lets fly a sexual charged scream. Some of the other songs are disco themed, like the type of music she may select while dancing around a pole in a nice gentleman's establishment.

PAIN: Yeony Character Theme is a little bright and girly and the sounds are all from old arcade game menus. Randomly she'll scream out "GAMER GIRL" for good measure, but nothing else really. I'm not a fan of the background myself but this may appeal to some of our female gamers. Of course that's provided they can get past the blatant stereotypes shown in all PAIN women.

Wallpapers
3 new PAIN Amusement Park wallpapers that look to be showing off game play moments of the new expansion or just the random chaos that can be an amusement park gone wrong; much like this one is!

Well that wraps up uy laziness for this week, off to see if I can get some Trophies in PAIN!  I guess I should login into Home as well to see if they decided to add something since the last time I wandered the main square.