This Week on PS3 – August 2nd, 2011

Can real games please start coming out again soon? The downloadable stuff is usually pretty okay looking, but week after week of looking at either a single decent-looking new game or a handful of bad ones is becoming pretty soul-crushing. I don't know how much longer I can take it.

In Stores
Two disc-based games are out this week, both adaptations of existing animated works. I don't really know anything about either, and I'm not sure that I want to. There's Bleach: Soul Resurrection, based on the very long-running anime, and the Move-enabled Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, licensed from the kid's show that I've actually heard good things about. I doubt you'll ever hear a single thing about either of these games again.

On PSN
If you haven't played Dragon Age: Origins yet, you can download the whole thing to your PS3 now for thirty bones. I already got the game with all the DLC on Steam for a mere ten bucks a little while ago, but if your PC struggles with high-end graphics, this might be worth a shot. There's also the multiplayer shooter Section 8: Prejudice, the co-op focused Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team, and Galaga Legions DX, another retro-themed game to build on its roots and take the core ideas in a new direction.

Demos
Those last two games I mentioned have demos also available, if you're hesitant to part with your hard-earned ten dollar bills all willy-nilly. Nothing upcoming to try out, though.

Add-Ons
Reports suggest Red Faction: Armageddon might have killed the franchise, at least for now, but if you're one of the few to purchase and enjoy the game, it has the "Path to War" add-on out now. Another underperforming game, Brink, has the "Agents of Change" pack, which actually happens to be free. A variety of other games also have new pieces of content, including such PSN mainstays as LittleBigPlanet 2, ModNation Racers, and Rock Band.

Also
You can now get a year of Electronic Arts' brand new EA Sports Season Ticket service for twenty five bucks, which will give you access to certain new games before they are released and cheaper prices on DLC, among either features. We're still getting used to companies charging ten bucks to used buyers for full online access, and now everything they can think of monetizing now seems to be likely to be monetized. You can either complain about it or get used to it. I'll probably stick with the former.