As you already know, you will find naught but awesome in May’s PlayStation Plus update, by way of Ronimo Games and DTP Entertainment’s Awesomenauts! featuring team-based, cartoony, objective-based action for up to six players online and featuring a soviet space-monkey called Yuri. There’ll be a launch post from the developers coming soon, so stay tuned to the blog to find out more!

And if a brand-new PSN title’s not enough for you, the lovely folks at TikGames and Creat Studios have signed up to offer you no fewer than eight of their catalogue, available for the next two months at absolutely no cost. Go get your Hamsterball on, I know you want to!

I’m very sorry to have to tell you that there’s no PS one Classic in May (but there’s still a couple of weeks left to grab Silent Hill) – instead we bring you a PS2 Classic title in the form of Max Payne, brand-new to our Store and available to all our subscribers at no-cost! If you’re excited for the release of Rockstar’s Max Payne 3 later this month, there’s no better way to get yourself in the mood (unless you throw yourself out of a window in slow-motion, but I’ve never seen anyone do that in person).

New minis! Can they stand up to the sublime Floating Cloud God… well if anyone can bring us another hit it’s Futurlab, (creators of Coconut Dodge) with their brand new title, Velocity. We’re also including the recently released LA Gridlock for you as part of your subscription.

As promised, we also have 17 new title trials added to the Full Game trials section for you to get to grips with, (with more on the way before June) so if anything takes your fancy be sure to download and give it a whirl – 60 minutes and counting!

And later in the month? How about a launch discount on Binary Domain, SEGA’s criminally underrated robot shooter? What would you say to a 20% launch discount on Move-enabled mystery, Datura? We’ll even throw in some free day-one DLC for Ubisoft’s new downloadable ATV racer, Mad Riders?

It’s a big month, guys! I hope you’re all looking forward to May 2nd as much as me! See you in the comments.

PlayStation Plus Content

Content and offers are available until June 6th 2012 unless otherwise stated. Content may be added or removed, or move dates – please stay tuned to your weekly Store Update for the most up to date listings. Listed savings are approximate, based on SRP excluding Special Offer pricing and should be considered as a guide only:

From May 2nd

PS3 Games

Awesomenauts – 100% off
You save £7.99/€9.99

Hamsterball – 100% off until July 4th
You save £7.99/€9.99

Wakeboarding HD – 100% off until July 4th
You save £11.99/€14.99

Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom – 100% off until July 4th
You save £7.99/€9.99

Sky Fighter – 100% off until July 4th
You save £7.99/€9.99

Ricochet HD – 100% off until July 4th
You save £3.19/€3.99

Mushroom Wars – 100% off until July 4th
You save £7.99/€9.99

Magic Orbz – 100% off until July 4th
You save £7.99/€9.99

Smash Cars – 100% off until July 4th
You save £11.99/€14.99

Classics

Silent Hill (PSone Classic) – 100% off
You save £5.49/€6.99
Only available until 9th May 2012 – grab it before it’s gone!

Max Payne (PS2 Classic) – 100% off
You save £7.99/€9.99

minis

Velocity (minis) – 100% off and two weeks exclusively for PS Plus.
You save £3.99/€4.99

LA Gridlock (minis) – 100% off
You save £1.74/€1.99

Betas

Ghost Recon Future Soldier Multiplayer Beta

Full Game Trials

• Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
• Rayman: Origins
• Driver: San Francisco
• Borderlands
• Red Dead Redemption
• Episodes from Liberty City
• GTA IV
• Bioshock 2
• Mafia 2
• House of the Dead: Overkill
• Sonic Generations
• Medieval Moves
• inFamous 2
• PlayStation Move Heroes
• Sports Champions
• Red Faction: Armageddon
• Darksiders

Exclusive Discounts

Zack Zero – 50% off
You save £3.99/€4.99

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game – 30% off
You save £5.00/€6.00

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood – 30% off
You save £5.00/€6.00

Themes & Avatars

Mad Riders Plus-Exclusive Dynamic Theme – 100% off
You save £1.59/€1.99

OddWorld Plus-Exclusive Dynamic Theme – 100% off
You save £1.59/€1.99

Five Plus-Exclusive Avatars: Koala, Snake, Bunny, Frog and Chimp
You save £0.21/€0.25 per avatar

Still to come later in May:

• Datura – Launch discount
• Binary Domain – Launch discount
• Mad Riders – Free day-one DLC pack available at launch

… And as usual, loads of additional Plus discounts on upcoming PSN Store Special Offers.

Please note: additional offers may become available throughout the month. Keep an eye on the Plus section of the PlayStation Store and the weekly Store update posts for more information.

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Hey guys, sorry we’re a bit late to market this week with our content update, but hopefully you’ll feel as though it’s worth waiting for and very much in keeping with the quality you’ve come to expect this year. It’s always a good feeling to give away content in a single month that more than covers the cost of the annual subscription.

So by now, if you’ve headed over to the SCEA update you will see they’re getting Shift 2: Unleashed and Shank 2 in their update this month, courtesy of the lovely folks at EA. Here, it’s no different, as EA’s 145 car, 36 track monster of a racing title is now yours at no cost, alongside the ultra-violent and ultra-awesome grindhouse 2D platform-brawler.

Don’t forget there are a huge number of additional cars and a couple of extremely useful time-saver packs available for Shift 2: Unleashed, all available from the PlayStation Store.

The PS one Classic this month is Silent Hill, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a proper classic title – never before has radio static been so terrifying. Unfortunately you’ll have to wait just one more short week until it’s available (sorry!) but it will be available into the start of May’s publish to make up for the lost week.

This week we have two brand-new minis for your entertainment, ‘Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims’, in which you’ll float and shoot your way through seven beautifully drawn worlds to save your followers and ‘Golf Mania’, offering 90 holes of single and multiplayer golfing challenges from traditional courses to gravity defying glass towers.

I Am Alive comes to PS3 with a 20% discount for all you faithful Plus users, and Wheels of Destruction will also be available at a discount for the two weeks after launch.

New themes, lots of avatars which include a set of exclusive avatars developed by SCEA and an avatar pack from the PS VITA favourite, Escape Plan for you guys too.

Later in the month we give you the chance to blast some more zombies with a launch discount on SEGA’s House of the Dead 4 (with additional freebies) and we bring a bit of culture and refinement to Plus with a launch discount on the absolutely gorgeous (and inexpensive) Pure Chess – we’re even throwing in a free piece of DLC for the game that has been described as ‘the Gran Turismo of chess’. How about that?

Alright, enjoy your racing and/or revenge killings. See you in the comments. (more…)

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Hello everyone – just when you thought it was safe to start thinking about April’s Plus content (and the update will be announced here on the blog this afternoon) we throw even more value at you in the shape of PlayMemories Studio.

You may already be aware of PlayMemories and Filmy, two applications available on PlayStation Store that allow you to manage your photos and home-videos respectively, to create slideshows, edit, filter and view what you capture on your HDTV via PS3.

I am pleased to announce that from today, PlayMemories Studio will be replacing both the original PlayMemories and Filmy applications. (more…)

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One and all, I hope you all enjoyed your copies of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 last week to round off what was a pretty awesome month for PlayStation Plus.

I remember when I first started at SCEE and those two PS one Classics were among the most requested – it was great to be able to bring you long-awaited content at no cost when it launched.

In fact, we enjoyed that so much, let’s do it again.

A big thank you is in order to the fine people of Atlus, since Trine 2 is coming this Wednesday with a 30% launch discount for the first two weeks by way of apology for the delay in SCEE. Even better though, if you’re a PlayStation Plus subscriber, it comes with a cool 100% discount, making Trine 2 our PlayStation Plus Game of the Month.

I hope you’re all excited for the release of ThatGameCompany’s Journey on March 14th in SCEE – the game has been receiving some amazing reviews and truly is a masterpiece. But why wait to find out? This Wednesday, our PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to get their hands on Journey one whole week before everyone else and grab yourselves a free Plus-Exclusive Dynamic Theme.

And there’s more. We’re providing you with another full digital title this month at no extra cost – Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus HD (part of the Sly Trilogy) – Sly’s first outing on PS2 given the HD Classics treatment for your pleasure. You’ll be sneaking around the world, stealing back your family heirlooms from other master criminals and it’s a great example of classic action-platforming at its finest.

Of course new minis as well, Farm Frenzy 2 and The Impossible Game are available for you at no cost, alongside Jet Rider from the PS one Classics range.

We have new themes, including a very cool sketchbook theme to celebrate the launch of Jak & Daxter HD Trilogy, and two avatars for you featuring Naughty Dog’s dynamic duo.

Discounts this month include Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension and Toy Story 3 and additional launch discounts across the month, including Shoot Many Robots! from Ubisoft and additional discounts on sale content going forward.

More later in the month, we’ve not forgotten those additional games that are currently available in SCEA, so watch out for those to be slotted in over the next few weeks, as well as a selection of additional Full Game Trials.

In the meantime, you have lots of play from this Wednesday so get to it!
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Update: Sadly, we are now unable to publish The Simpsons Arcade until next week, Wednesday 8 February, and not today as listed. We apologise for getting you excited about playing it too early but, rest assured, it will still be available to PS Plus members at no extra cost for a full four weeks. By way of small compensation, we will extend the 100% discount on Back to the Future: The Game for an additional week, for those who might have missed it last month.

And so by popular demand, we update at the beginning of the month and bring you one of the best months yet for PlayStation Plus.

First of all, we have a brand new PSN title for you at no extra cost, The Simpsons Arcade. The year – 1991. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to chase down the nefarious Smithers, who has kidnapped Maggie! Play as either Homer, Bart, Marge or Lisa and track him down before it’s “too late”, (too late for what I’m not entirely sure…) and save the day! The Simpsons Arcade will be available until the 29th February, so make sure you grab it in the first 4 weeks of this refresh.

(more…)

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