Hey everyone, I hope you’re having a good weekend so far.

First up, a quick introduction. As you’ll no doubt have noticed, our much-loved blog manager James Gallagher has moved on to pastures new. Since a few of you wanted to know who was behind last week’s mysterious ‘Contributing Editors’ recap post, we thought we’d make things a little more personalised this week. So, I’m Katie and, along with a few colleagues here, we’re working hard to bring you the biggest stories and breaking news until James’ successor joins us.

Without further ado, here’s this week’s recap.

Have a great weekend!

• Derrick The Deathfin Swims Onto PSN This Summer – The world’s very first underwater papercraft game.
• Sack It To Me: Meet The Men In Black’s New Recruit – Agent S! – The Men in Black have a brand new member joining their elite secret agency and there’s nobody better for the job than Agent S!
• Step Into The TARDIS From May 23rd With Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock – The wait is over! Check out the trailer.
• The SingStore On 16th May: Evanescence, Rihanna And Emeli Sandé – This week’s SingStore boasts new songs from the artists above but of course, that’s not all…
• BBC Sports Application Coming To PlayStation 3! – Exciting news for lovers of all things sports!
• Outlaws Of The Lost Dynasty Fights Its Way Onto The Network – A classic fighter from the era of when beat’em-ups ruled the consoles.
• The Apocalyptic Sale Is Nigh On PlayStation Store! – Here’s some awesome games with an apocalyptic theme to get you in training for our impending doom.
• PlayStation.Blog EU Disruption Today - Process of moving the blog to a new server and our IP address changed.
• PixelJunk 4am Goes Live On PSN Around The World! – Do you have a PlayStation Move? Do you like music? Are waffles delicious?
• The Last Of Us – The Sky Has Turned Grey – Joel and Ellie won’t have an easy road ahead on their journey across the U.S.
• PlayStation Home: Crazy Carnival – The Midway 3 is a collection of crazy carnival midway games and excitement!
• ‘Heads-Up’ Game Store Update 16 May 2012 – Speeding his way back onto the scene is everyone’s favourite blue hedgehog!
• Smart As Brings Next-Gen Brain Training to PS Vita This Fall – A social brain-training experience that will put your brain to the test with 20 unique, engaging, tactile and highly interactive puzzle games.
• VIDZONE UPDATE: Exclusive Dubstep And A Whole Lotta Hip Hop – Word to your grandmother people, it’s a distinctly urban post this week.
• Explosive AR On PlayStation Vita With The Launch Of Table Top Tanks – Who doesn’t like blowing stuff up with Tanks?
• The Making Of Sorcery: Creatures – This is the final installment in our four-part series detailing the making of Sorcery.
• Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time Coming To PS Vita – Picks up the relationship where Sly 3 left off…
• Access Episode 34 – This week’s focus is on Rockstar’s long-awaited threequel Max Payne 3.
• Foosball 2012 Developer Diary #1 – PlayStation Move Controls – Check out Foosball 2012 and PlayStation Move controllers in action!
• The Weekend Debate – Would You Dine With Daxter Or Cook For Kratos – If you could invite five game characters to a dinner party who would they be?
• Superbrothers + Jim Guthrie X Sound Shapes – A message from a representative at Superbrothers, written in the midst of a spring thunderstorm in the hill country at the Quebec/Vermont border.
• Mastering Mortal Kombat For PS Vita – Tips, tricks, and unique features to master with the PS Vita.

• Weekend Essentials 126 – Wow the world in PixelJunk 4am, help Max Payne rise again and play the original Deus Ex with PlayStation this weekend.
• New Portable IDs from the PlayStation Community – Give your Portable ID a new look with these brand new themes inspired by PlayStation Vita and designed by the PlayStation Community.
• Top Tips: Reality Fighters – Become the ultimate Reality Fighter with these handy hints from the game’s producer, Mitsuo Hirakawa.
• “Trophy Cabinet: Dead Space 2″ – Escape the horrors of The Sprawl with a platinum trophy courtesy of this advice from the PlayStation Community.

• Find out if Rockstar have another hit on their hands with our Max Payne 3 PS3 review.
• Fancy a change from the usual action? Here are 10 of the best PS3 RPGs.
• Capom’s new adventure is a challenge but well worth it. Read our Dragon’s Dogma PS3 review to find out why.
• We interview Treyarch boss Mark Lamia to find out about Black Ops 2′s multiple endings.
• It’s wish list time with 25 PS2 games we want in HD. Any of your favorites in there?

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It’s been mentioned to me a few times in the past: “Who would be my favourite guests at a dinner party?” Generally the rules for this would cover celebrities and any other well known sporting or historical figures. However, depending on the type of atmosphere I’d want to create on the evening, this doesn’t take much thinking about.

So, my debate for you all today is:

If you could invite five game characters to a dinner party who would they be?

My first invite would have to go to Nathan Drake. His charm appeal and stories of unimaginable near death experiences would have me captured in adventure bliss (whilst also naively arranging to join him on his next journey).

Get your thinking caps on and I’ll look forward to my invite!

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From approximately 5:00pm this evening the European PlayStation.Blog will be down for maintenance.

We are in the process of moving the blog to a new server and our IP address is changing. The disruption time will vary based on your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and how long they cache our old IP address.

You may still be able to access the blog as normal during this time, however please bear in mind that whilst you are free to browse and comment, you may experience issues such as comments not saving correctly or not appearing at all.

We would appreciate your patience during the disruption and will do everything we can to ensure the interruption as small as possible.

N.B This maintenance is not related to PlayStation Network and none of your gaming services will be affected.

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Well, here we are at the end of another week – and what a whirlwind it’s been. News has been coming in thick and fast, and from assassins to aliens, Starhawk to Sackboy we’ve had a stack of stories to share with you over the past seven days. Missed anything? Just fancy another look at what went down? It’s all here for you in this week’s recap.

• Sack It To Me: Sackboy Starts In Pole Position! – Check out this video to see just what IGN.com have to say about Sackboy’s leap into the racing arena!
• Arc Fans Get Ready To Battle – Arc Arena: Monster Tournament Out Tomorrow – There is something special about this genre that can’t be replicated.
• Datura Available To Download From Tomorrow – In the world of Datura you will find yourself placed in a variety of scenarios which will require you to make a quick judgement call.
• PlayStation Home: Mansion Living – Step onto the first floor of the PlayStation Home Mansion and experience the frills of a life lived in luxury.
• Starhawk…Welcome To The New Frontier – Starhawk is available in PAL regions from this week!
• Reality Fighters DLC Incoming – Hope you had enough practice to challenge Mr. Miyagi to become a worthy master…
• ‘Heads-Up’ Game Store Update 9 May 2012 – This week starts off with Sega’s Binary Domain, which is now available to download!
• The LittleBigPlanet Beta Is Coming Soon To PS Vita – Register Now! – The LittleBigPlanet Community is about to get a very special treat!
• Aliens: Colonial Marines – Your Multiplayer Questions Answered – We took to Twitter and posed @PlayStation followers a simple question — what do you want to know about the multiplayer mode in Aliens: Colonial Marines?
• MUBI Update: 10 May 2012 – Two movie passions have infected us over at MUBI: Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper, and the 2012 Festival de Cannes.
• PlayStation.Blog EU Disruption On 14 May – The European PlayStation.Blog will be down for maintenance from approximately 5pm on Monday, 14 May.
• Resistance: Burning Skies Trophy List And PS Vita Features Trailer Revealed! – A lot of “firsts” to the PS Vita – first-ever dual-analog FPS control on a portable device and the first competitive multiplayer shooter experience on the PS Vita.
• World Premiere: Assassin’s Creed III Gameplay Footage – What you’ve been waiting for this since the initial announcement back in March, so go ahead and watch it right now!
• Access Episode 33 – Episode’s Game Of The Week, Sorcery, includes mixing potions (don’t do fairytale herbs, kids), moving big rocks out of the way and sort of having a cat as a girlfriend.
• Moving On From PlayStation.Blog -James posted this short note to let you know that this will be my last post as PlayStation.Blog Manager…
• Get Ready For Mass Effect 3 Operation Silencer MP Event This Weekend – It’s time to make our enemies scream.
• The Making Of Sorcery: Sound – we turn our attention to the music and sound design for Sorcery.

• Weekend Essentials 125 – Build and battle your way to victory as Starhawk lands on PS3 and discover the intriguing Datura this weekend.
• Top Tips: Starhawk – Survive the new frontier in Starhawk on PlayStation 3 with these handy hints from developer LightBox Interactive.
• Game Talk: Mortal Kombat – Ed Boon, creative director at developer NetherRealm, talks about finishing moves and his favourite brawlers exclusively with eu.playstation.com.
• Game On – Find out how you can meet Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima in London tomorrow.

• Treyarch have promised it’ll be bigger but here are the Black Ops 2 zombie modes we want to see.
• Get the latest on this year’s game with these FIFA 13 screens and info.
• Feeling evil? Here are the 10 best PlayStation games that make being bad good.
• Find out what it’s like to win GT Academy with this film following the first ever winnner, Lucas Ordonez.
• What matters more review scores or sales? We ask ten developers.

Here’s a new review for the Blog, it can happily replace Battleships:

http://www.officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk/review/starhawk-psn-review/

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Dear Community,

I am posting this short note to let you know that this will be my last post as PlayStation.Blog Manager, as I am moving on from SCEE to have a go at some opportunities elsewhere.

“OK…so what’s the bad news?” I can hear you type in the comments.

That’s a bit of a joke, but the truth is that there isn’t really any bad news – my leaving opens the door for someone to come in with fresh ideas, different opinions and enthusiasm abound. I’m proud to have helped create a social platform that isn’t about individuals, but about bringing PlayStation customers closer to the professionals who make the games they love; hopefully the next in line will take this small idea even further.

However, I would ask you to be patient while my colleagues work through the transition. The department is working very hard to get the right person as quickly as possible, and recruiting good people can sometimes take time. In the interim, we have organised for some contributing editors to steer the ship and, when the next full-time Blog Manager has been appointed, you will be the first to know.

Well…they’ll probably let the successful candidate know first, but you’ll be informed pretty soon afterwards.

All that’s left from me is to say goodbye, thank you for sticking with us through thick and thin, and keep on enjoying your games.

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