Please extend a warm welcome to Square-Enix’s thrilling crime drama Sleeping Dogs, joining the Instant Game Collection tomorrow! You’ll also find a sweet discount on the award-winning indie, Papo & Yo. There’s more where that came from, so read on. As always, let us know what you think in the comments.

May Preview

The following games are slated to be free to PS Plus members through the Instant Game Collection in the month of May.

Sleeping Dogs (PS3)

PSN Price: $49.99, Free for PS Plus members

Welcome to Hong Kong, a vibrant city whose exotic locations hide one of the most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations in the world: the Triads. You play Wei Shen, an undercover cop trying to take down the Triads from the inside. Heralded on several Game of the Year lists, this version of Sleeping Dogs comes with not only the full game, but also 3 premium DLC packs including the Retro Triad Pack, the Red Envelope Pack, and the Street Racer Pack.

Knytt Underground (PS3, PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)

PSN Price: $14.99, Free for PS Plus members

With an array of thrilling quests, unique zen-like gameplay and plenty of dynamic characters to meet and guide you on your adventure – Knytt Underground delivers a captivating and unparalleled experience. Download today and begin your journey to ring the six bells of fate and save this vibrant and enchanted underground world before it’s too late.

Germinator (PS Vita)

PSN Price: $9.99, Free for PS Plus members

Germinator twists the bubble genre, wiping away old school match-three games. Crash germ bubbles into those of the same color. Combine and grow them until they explode in a splattering goop. Trigger power-ups to pop them all and mess up the screen. Timing and accuracy are the keys to solving puzzles and preventing the germs from rising too high. It’s a great title for all ages, and will be downloadable free in PlayStation Plus later this month.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (PS Vita)

PSN Price: $24.99, Free for PS Plus members

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND is the definitive version of the Continuum Shift series, which includes character balance tweaks, a new character, Relius Clover, story modes for all previous three DLC characters: Platinum, Makoto, Valkenhayn, new modes, and improved online multiplayer! Watch for it later this month.

Pinball Arcade (PS3, PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)

PSN Price: $9.99 Free for PS Plus members

It’s pinball action on the go with Pinball Arcade on PS Vita. You’ll find great pinball tables likeTales of the Arabian Nights, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, Theatre of Magic, and Black Hole available from within the game. There are other tables available to download if you’re looking to augment your Pinball Arcade experience.

Leaving PS Plus In May

• May 7th – Demon’s Souls
• May 14th – Mega Man 9 & 10 Combo Pack
• May 21st – Tekken 6 PSP
• May 21st – Darksiders
• May 28th – Zombie Tycoon 2

Entering PS Plus in May(in no particular order)

• Sleeping Dogs (PS3)
• Knytt Underground (PS3, PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled)
• Germinator (PS Vita)
• BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (PS Vita)
• Pinball Arcade (PS3)

May 7th PlayStation Plus Update

Remember, check back every Monday to learn when BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND (PS3)
Germinator (PS Vita), Knytt Underground (PS3, PS Vita – Cross Buy Enabled), and Pinball Arcade (PS3) are arriving to PS Plus members. You’ll also find more discounts and other exclusives that we weren’t able to detail here just yet. Remember: the month preview is subject to change.

What’s your favorite content from this week’s update?

What was your favorite content from April?

Thanks for reading this week’s update along with the month outlook. You’ll find all the content detailed above with their Plus benefits active when the PlayStation Store updates tomorrow. Got more questions on Plus? Leave your comments below, or, if you’re looking to engage with more of the PS community, head over to the PlayStation Community Forums to discuss this week’s news more, find other topics to contribute your thoughts to, or start one for yourself. See you in the comments!

Subscription Links:

• Subscribe via iTunes
• Subscribe via RSS here
• Download the MP3 here on PS3, PS Vita or PC (Right-Click->Save As)

Guten tag! What. A. Show. This week’s PlayStation Blogcast comes to you by way of Cologne, Germany, home to the annual Gamescom videogame expo and countless meat products. Jeff and I made the 10-hour flight for good reason: We got hands-on time with loads of great games, from God of War: Ascension to Dishonored to Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified, not to mention sitting in on PlayStation’s well-received Gamescom press conference that introduced cool new games like Tearaway, Puppeteer, Until Dawn and more. Good, good stuff.

But perhaps more importantly, we finally got a chance to record a big fat Blogcast interview with Shuehei Yoshida, president of PlayStation’s Worldwide Studios. This conversation ranks among my all-time favorite Blogcast discussions for three reasons:

1. Shuhei walked us through his vision for PlayStation’s internal software development, including its focus on creativity and original IP.
2. It was our first (and hopefully not last!) interview to include EU PlayStation.Blog manager Fred Dutton.
3. At two points during the interview, Shuhei says…well, I probably shouldn’t spoil it. You’ll just have to listen.

But that’s just the beginning of this week’s double-stuffed, beer-battered episode. After talking shop with Shuehei, we shift gears to The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s upcoming survival tale, with an eye-opening interview with stars Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson — or, as you might know them, Joel and Ellie. From there, we delve into the development secrets of Sleeping Dogs, United Front Games‘ highly reviewed open-world crime drama set in the mean streets of Hong Kong.

Oh, and we share full details on next week’s jam-packed North American PSN lineup, too. Listen in, let us know what you think, and we’ll see you back in the States next week!

Stuff We Talked About

Gamescom 2012

Sleeping Dogs

Puppeteer

Tearaway

Dishonored

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Need for Speed Most Wanted for PS Vita

The Last of Us

Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified

Tekken Tag Tournament 2

The Cast

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game
details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating
descriptions.]

• Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. Special thanks to Astro Gaming headsets for providing audio gear.

It’s obviously not the end of our time with the world we spent over five years piecing together, but it definitely marks a turning point – the time when we release a game once named Black Lotus, then True Crime: Hong Kong and finally Sleeping Dogs to you. From here on Sleeping Dogs isn’t living inside a bubble, but instead exists as a part of gaming’s ever-growing cultural canvas. How big a part is in your hands – rest assured we have poured our hearts and souls into making our protagonist Wei’s world one we feel you will enjoy.

Up to now we’ve seen a lot of focus on the systems we have crafted – the combat, the driving, the social hub – but we’re most excited to see how people receive the story. Wei Shen’s triad odyssey is the glue that holds all these other tasty parts together. With it, Sleeping Dogs goes from being a collection of cool, well-executed elements – some we like to think have never been fully explored in an open world game – and it transforms into what we hope you will agree is a truly deep, rewarding narrative journey.

There have been challenges along the way. Nothing of worth comes without considerable effort, especially with a game like Sleeping Dogs. Many of our team have invested half a decade to reach this point. We’ve grown together, shared some rocky times, and ultimately found a way to make the game we wanted to make. We may not have lived life in constant fear for our safety like Wei does, but we too have faced significant obstacles to get to this point. The result is something I’m proud to be a part of.

I like to think Sleeping Dogs will function on multiple levels: open world game, undercover cop story, and an homage to Hong Kong cinema. However, the one thing all the United Front Games team hope it functions as above all else is a dramatic, enjoyable experience. We’re really looking forward to seeing your comments about the game – you can be sure we’ll be paying attention.

New from developer United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios is Sleeping Dogs, the stylish tale of undercover cop Wei Shen and his journey through the murky world of the Hong Kong Triads. Executive producer Stephen van der Mescht of United Front Games took time out at E3 2012 to explain how Bruce Lee and PlayStation 2 classic Bully have helped shape this extremely promising title, and why we’re seeing gaming leave its teenage obsessions behind.

What is it about Hong Kong that inspires?

Stephen: So many things. Its history in cinema, in martial arts, kung fu, everything as far back as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, John Woo. What’s interesting for us is seeing those older action movies and the new wave of Hong Kong cinema like Infernal Affairs and that shift towards more serious story telling.

There’s such a richness there and, from a gameplay standpoint, you think about doing it in an open world where there are so many possibilities. And then there’s Hong Kong itself. Geographically it’s a very interesting place, especially Hong Kong Island, which is where our game focuses. The different neighborhoods are so unique and distinct, there’s a rich mix of tradition and technology. It really lends itself towards different gameplay styles, such as street racing and free-flowing combat. That’s what really attracted our attention.

So it’s open-world?

Stephen: Yep, sandbox gameplay, go wherever you want, in whichever order. There’s a whole narrative drive and lots of side quests, favors that you do for people, mini-games, even things like cockfighting, which is part of the world we’ve created.

How faithful were you to Hong Kong’s city planners?

Stephen: We took 35,000 to 40,000 reference photos and hour upon hour of video footage, but it’s not a street for street depiction. It was important for us to capture the essence of city. Lots of the landmarks are there, many of the names are similar yet, first and foremost, we wanted to make that space fun to navigate around.

How do you research each aspect of such an expansive game?

Stephen: There’s a lot of literature around on Triad hierarchy and structure. We wanted to be as authentic to that as possible. We weren’t interested in doing caricatures and stereotypes. We were fortunate enough to have a few contacts in Vancouver, where we’re based. There’s a big Chinese community there, lots of people from Hong Kong, and we managed to talk to the former head of the Hong Kong police force’s organised crime bureau. He’d been there 25 years orchestrating undercover operations so he knew the ins and outs of the local Triads, from the pettiest crimes all the way up to the high scale stuff.

There was also someone we became chatty with who gave us insight into how Triads work within their stamping grounds. It’s not how you imagine it, Triad culture. They’re not always thugs who hang out causing trouble. They’re well integrated into their local communities, and to summarily remove them would cause those local societies to crumble.

What has the expertise from former Need For Speed developer Black Box Games brought to United Front Games?

Stephen: The core of the studio was set up by those guys. We’ve been in operation now for five years, and there’s obviously a strong driving pedigree running through the game. We’ve taken a lot of time to optimise our vision of Hong Kong for driving around at stupid speeds. We have these high speed road networks that fit into the city very organically.

We also pulled in a lot of people from Rockstar who’d been working on PlayStation 2 game Bully as well as guys from Radical, so there’s a whole bunch of expertise there. Open world games are hard to develop and from the very start we wanted all of our bases covered with the talent we have. Our strategy’s been quite simple – we wanted to create a game where it felt like the core mechanics could stand up on their own.

If you try the combat system, it’s quite deep for an open world game. The ability to seamlessly move from that into gunplay and crazy fast driving maintains that sense of big screen action. You can jump off the back of a car or a bike, so you can see we’ve tried to maintain that cinematic action movie feel.

How closely do you look at similar, rival games like the Yakuza series and LA Noire?

Stephen: We always look at competitors and try to figure out what we can learn. For us, we looked at those kinds of games, but to be honest we paid more attention to Hong Kong cinema for our fighting styles and to nail that reactive sensation. It’s a number one priority of ours to try to make something feel different from games that might occupy a similar space.

Was PlayStation Vita integration something you considered?

Stephen: Sure, we thought about it, but we didn’t want to do it for the sake of shoehorning an extra feature into the game. I feel you really need a strong idea to really tie different devices together, with a unique experience delivered on each of those devices. I don’t like it when people try to fit a PlayStation 3 experience into PlayStation Vita. I like the idea of a different take that feeds back into the main experience.

Did you look to any particular cases or storylines from your research to include in the game’s narrative?

Stephen: Well, the plot was built from scratch but we were heavily influenced by a lot of references. Look at movies like The Departed and Donnie Brasco – they both had an element of truth in them, which came from the stories they discovered by talking to people who were actually in those situations. The important thing for us to get across was that dual world of a cop pretending to be a gangster, and the stresses that come with that, of having to live this lie.

In terms of specifics, we referenced a lot of Triad crimes using newspaper cuttings. The game follows this guy becoming more intertwined with this world and we see his morality line get blurred. So yes, there are direct references to stories we discovered from the research we did.

Were there any ideas that you had to filter out?

Stephen: That’s one of the constant processes that you go through. There’s always iteration and from that some ideas fall by the wayside. Some things don’t make sense, but the general themes for us seemed to fall into place quite naturally. Women for example are a strong theme throughout the game. The principal character loses his sister at a young age. He’s grown up with just his mother around, and it’s interesting to explore how he interacts with women. There’s no love interest though, funnily enough.

There’s a big loyalty riff throughout the game as well. He’s a cop but he actually starts befriending some of these gangsters, he starts to actually like these guys. I guess it’s like Stockholm syndrome. He even helps to plan one Triad’s wedding.

With a game like this, which has a very strong plot along with defined gameplay elements, what leads – story or mechanics?

Stephen: It’s a very organic process. Those two standpoints grew together, although at the very start we focused mainly on mechanics. They can be fun, there’s a lot of opportunity and then you think, “Well these parts could all lend themselves to something set in the criminal underworld”. A lot of the time while we were writing the story we were picturing scenes, the situations we wanted gamers to see. For instance, we wanted to have a big Chinese wedding, so that led to us then working out a way of blending the right gameplay segments into the scene.

I imagine it’s a little like writing a song. Sometimes the tune comes first and you drop some lyrics in, while other times the words come first and a tune naturally builds up around them.

What I don’t like is making a game to fit a story. The two elements have to grow and feel right together, and that takes time. If you start to come up against a barrier, it’s probably time to try a different tack. Some ideas pan out, some don’t. That’s the thing about developing games: sometimes you’ve got to walk away from ideas that look great on paper but don’t quite work.

Do you think that with the technical challenges of building games overcome, more resources can be poured into pushing content in new directions?

Stephen: I definitely think so. You look at The Last of Us, Beyond and the Uncharted series and they are the result of developers wondering how to get the best out of all this technology. Also, people are looking to be entertained on a different level now. The average age of gamers is creeping up, and you see life being reflected in these games now. You could almost call this hardware cycle the adolescent phase – it’s maturing, broadening its horizons and becoming aware of adult issues. There’s been a phase – and this is no fault of the industry, it’s just the way business works – of repeating successful games. But there’s no mistake, we are definitely seeing games, the stories they tell and the experiences they deliver evolve faster than ever before.

Mrs. Chu’s Revenge

You play as Wei, an undercover cop trying to infiltrate the Hong Kong triads. In this chapter of Wei’s story, you begin in a Chinese restaurant owned by a distraught and saddened Mrs. Chu. She sits in the back of a grimy kitchen, hunched over a table, alone and in the dark. A close relative has been murdered and she wants you to deliver the man responsible.

Your first objective is to track down “Johnny Rat-Face” — the man charged with the killing. With only his cell phone number to go on, this would be a pretty difficult task for most people. Luckily, you’ve got the resources of the Hong Kong Police Department at your disposal. You hop on Wei’s 270 DX motorcycle and race around Hong Kong trying to triangulate Johnny’s signal using a mobile computer.

Following the trail leads you to Johnny’s hangout, situated in the derelict warehouses of a transport company near the docks. But as soon as he spots Wei, he makes a run for it and his henchmen close in on you.

With no gun in hand, your fists are about to get bloody. How you dispose of the goons is up to you — after all, Wei has comprehensive martial arts skills at his disposal. But if you’re feeling creative, then you may want to try using the environment as a deadly weapon. A nearby car chassis and engine hoist gives you the perfect opportunity to test this out – delivering a quick kick to the chest, then pushing your assailant into the open hood will cause the engine to drop and crush him instantly! But it doesn’t stop there. You can electrocute your foes using a nearby fuse box, give enemies a crash course in dumpster-diving or simply throw them over the railings and into the sea.

Sprinting through the warehouse, things go from bad to worse. Johnny’s biggest and baddest thug awaits, armed to the teeth with some serious firepower. While most people might consider diving into cover (and that is an option), you can use free-running to slide over the cover, feet-first into the unsuspecting con. While he staggers back, you can steal his gun and make him the unfortunate recipient of a bullet to the head… All of this delivered in one swift, seamless movement. Weaving between crates, ducking behind cars and hiding behind walls, you drop other thugs and pick up an SMG along the way.

But how did you get here? You were chasing Johnny and he’s now speeding away in a car. Before you know it, you’re flying down the wrong side of the road behind him. The SMG you picked up earlier will quickly dispose of Johnny’s backup: you can draw your aim and spray them without losing speed or control of the bike.

Driving through the smoking wreckage, you remember your goal: Bring Johnny back alive to Mrs. Chu. That bike won’t last long in a fight, so there’s only one option remaining. You’re going to have to jump onto Johnny’s car! Getting as close as possible, you hold down the action button to move Wei into position, let go and jump onto the car’s roof. After wrestling your way through the window and into the driver’s seat, you throw a few punches, subdue Johnny and drive him back to the restaurant.

It hasn’t been easy but this is what it’s all been for. While Johnny lies tied up and sprawled on the kitchen floor, Mrs. Chu stands over him wielding a large meat cleaver. What happens next I’ll leave to your imagination.

If you’ve got any questions then feel free to leave them in the comments. Don’t forget that you can get the latest Sleeping Dogs news over at sleepingdogs.net, on our Facebook page and by following us on Twitter.