Weekend Essentials - Issue 8

Never mind turkey and tinsel: check out all this PlayStation entertainment over the festive season.

Don't settle for a remote-controlled car this holiday season - download the GT Academy Time Trial, free from PlayStation Store, and launch your own real racing career.

Not only will it give you a taste of the latest Real Driving Simulator on PlayStation 3, Gran Turismo 5, the fastest players in each country will qualify for their National Finals and the chance to get behind the wheel of a real race car at Silverstone. The two most talented drivers will then embark on intensive training and only one will win a seat with the Nissan PlayStation race team in a full European GT4 Cup Season.

While time is always falling away from you on the race course, in Braid, you can rewind time, reverse its flow and wrap it around a single object across six worlds of mind-bending platform puzzles. It's available to download on PS3 from PlayStation Store.

Table time

Coming soon to PlayStation Store, Hustle Kings brings pool to PS3 in stunning style. It features plenty of game styles, such as nine ball, 14.1 continuous and trick shots; staggeringly beautiful graphics; fun multiplayer modes that let you bet your Hustle King Credits against online opponents; and unlockable chalks, cues and balls to spend your hard-earned cash on.

Quiz fanatics, you can now step out into the wild - Buzz! Quiz World is available on PSP, both on Universal Media Disc and via download from PlayStation Store. With four single player modes, multiplayer quizzes to get you passing the PSP around and online multiplayer via Infrastructure Mode for the first time in the series, it's like swimming in a trivia river.

While you're downloading, pick up a PlayStation Store bargain, courtesy of EA. The publisher is offering much of its digital content, including Battlefield 1943, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and additional content for Skate 2 and Dead Space, at special prices. Check PlayStation Store for more details and be sure to get in before 7 January 2010 to make the most of these offers.

Don't back down... anywhere

Namco's masterful Tekken 6 slams onto PSP for a round of beat 'em up brilliance. Go head-to-head with over 40 characters in a variety of settings around the world to find out if you're a contender in The King of Iron Fist Tournament 6. Take your battles on the road with this essential portable fighting title.

LittleBigPlanet scoops a Golden Joystick

This week saw the announcement of the winners of the Inaugural Australian Golden Joystick Awards at an event hosted by Future Publishing Australia in Sydney, attended by senior figures from the Australian games industry. The Golden Joystick Awards recognise the best in games entertainment and are voted for by gamers themselves, and Sony Computer Entertainment Australia is pleased to say that LittleBigPlanet scooped the award for PlayStation Game of the Year 2009. Congratulations to Sackboy!

Digital Comics out now on PSP

Welcome to Digital Comics, an exciting new service that lets you read and collect all your favourite comic books on your PSP system. Download a massive variety of comic books from the Comic Store of PlayStation Store and enjoy your comics anywhere you go, thanks to the portability of PSP.

With one of comics' leading publishers, Marvel Entertainment, and others such as IDW Publishing, Disney and iVerse Media providing hundreds of titles and adding dozens of new issues on a weekly basis, there's always an exciting new read to look forward to.

Join in the LittleBigPlanet Contraption Challenge

Want to express yourself to the world in LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation 3? Then step right up to the Little Big Contraption Challenge, an exciting event driven by the PlayStation community. Your task is to create a specific contraption based on a challenge set by Forum member Nuclearfish. You have until 27 December 2009 to publish your level, so head over to the official Forums for full details and start building your quality contraptions for Sackboy.

Batman: Arkham Asylum sequel and new shooter Spec Ops: The Line announced this week

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced this week it will publish the Rocksteady Studios Sequel to the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum™ video game. The sequel is currently in development with Rocksteady Studios and is based on DC Comics' core Batman property.

2K Games, the publisher of the critically acclaimed BioShock® and Borderlands™, announced this week that Spec Ops®: The Line™ is currently in development at YAGER for PlayStation®3. Spec Ops: The Line is a provocative and gripping third-person modern military shooter that challenges players' morality by putting them in the middle of unspeakable situations where unimaginable choices affecting human life must be made.

Party Time

It's the time of year when families come together, eat and drink well and promptly fall asleep. Keep them all awake with an impromptu post-turkey SingStar party and check out a stack of new songs available to download from the SingStore.

Unwrap the Festive Fun 2 SongPack under the tree and sing along to Cliff Richard's Saviour's Day and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Doris Day. If you fancy some funk before dinner, the Jackson 5 SongPack features five hits from one of the greatest family bands to come out of the 1970s. Or, once you're done filling your belly, fill your lungs for the Il Divo SongPack and belt out five modern operatic classics from the classical supergroup.

Play minis titles on PS3

The minis category is a new section for PlayStation Store that offers a range of all-new downloadable titles for PSP, and now you can download most minis titles onto your PS3 if you've previously purchased it for use on PSP. Pay only once for the title and you can then play it on either your PS3 or PSP or both!

minis have a 100MB size limit to make sure they're quick and easy to download and new titles are added to PlayStation Store on a regular basis.

Whatever you do, play, sing, watch and eat over the festive season, have a smashing time!