It's PSN Thursday, and that means I might just gear up and blow the dust off my PS3 controller. Or I'll just browse the Store for 10 minutes while telling myself "You don't need to buy this, seriously" over and over again. Either way, new stuff is available via the network (we covered a bit of the new content this morning).

Square Enix's PS3 version of THEXDER NEO is the PSN Game that has my eye this week, but I'm also thinking about taking a gander at the LittleBigPlanet PSP content. If " The Sack That Time Forgot Level Pack" is as clever as its name seems to indicate, I wouldn't mind dropping the $2.99 on it.

Hit the break for a pruned list and don't forget to tell us what you plan to download. We print out all of your comments and stick them in a wicker basket of happiness at the end of every week. Why? I'm not sure.

Writing about patches is usually something that gets reserved for big-name, attention-grabbing videogames, but I'm always willing to make an exception to the unwritten rule when we're talking about a Capybara product.

Especially when said product is the excellent PSN puzzler Critter Crunch. My hope is that providing any extra exposure to this game, no matter how insignificant it might seem, will help generate more interest. Also, I really wanted an excuse to re-use this work of art.

ADDITIONS!

• XMB Audio support
• language select available for all!
• Hey losers! You get a little XP even if you lose in multiplayer

TWEAKS!

• Player feedback regarding DIFFICULT LEVELS has been taken to heart. Tough levels got a little less insane!
• Coop networking tweaks to decrease pesky lag
•  Multiplayer “Disconnects” are now awarded more accurately
• Catching a jewel while feeding glorious vomit to your son will no longer interrupt you
• Your rank will now be retrieved more reliably when playing Adventure

NASTY BUG FIXES

• No more annoying audio glitch
• No more Wins/Losses upload issues when the server is in ‘maintenance’ mode
• Player score for Challenge levels now correctly handled in ALL cases
• “Barf Success” icon now shows up correctly in ALL cases
• “King of the Jungle” Trophy now successfully unlocks correctly even with a score of 0

Plan on the patch rolling out sometime today. If I had more specifics, I'd share 'em.

Critter Crunch Patch Coming Tomorrow [PSN Stores]

Rockstar has announced that the two Grand Theft Auto IV episodes, billed together as Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City, will finally be released for the PlayStation 3 and PC on March 30, 2010. Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned (originally released in February 2009) and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony (originally released in October 2009) will sell for $19.99 each on the PlayStation Network and Games for Windows Live; in addition, the standalone Episodes From Liberty City disc that came out on the Xbox 360 will be available for $39.99 for PS3 and PC. The PC version will include 32-player multiplayer matches and an "advanced video editor" to make highlight reels of the carnage you wreak in Liberty City.

This has been rumored for a while, especially since a patch in November 2009 added Games for Windows Live Achievements for The Lost and Damned to the PC version of GTA IV. And earlier this month, Rockstar teased that they "promise to be very good" to PS3 owners in 2010. As someone who owns GTA IV on the PS3, I guess I should be happy -- it's always great to see more gamers get the chance to play this stuff.

But I have to wonder: Do PS3 and PC owners even care at this point? GTA IV will be almost a two-year-old game by the time the episodes come out on the PS3 and PC, and since its launch in April 2008, the open world genre has seen a significant amount of growth and evolution. Around the release of The Ballad of Gay Tony last October, I remember hearing a lot of folks talking about GTA IV as if going back to it a year and a half after the game's release made its flaws much more apparent, and much less tolerable.

I'd also love to know the percentage of people who bought GTA IV on the PS3 -- over 1 million gamers in the first five days after launch -- but have since gotten rid of their copies under the assumption that the episodic content that was promoted as exclusive to the 360 would never be coming to the PS3. I still have my copy, but I'm unsure if this late port will actually get me to pop it back into my PS3 to play the episodes, especially considering the top-tier new releases coming out seemingly every week in the first half of 2010.

So tell me, GTA IV PS3/PC version owners: Are you going to buy the episodes now that you finally have the opportunity to do so? Or is this a case of "too little, too late"?

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City Coming to PlayStation 3 and PC [Rockstar Newswire]

Some here might be offended that you'd consider downloading the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves demo when it goes up on the PlayStation Network later today. After giving the game our Editor's Choice award in our review, and then later awarding the title Destructoid's 2009 Game of the Year, we'd hope you'd trust that it's a fantastic game. You don't trust us?

Nah, don't worry about it. We're pretty laid back. Download it today if you haven't played it already. I don't know how good the demo will be, but we're sure it'll support our high praise.

What else for today on PSN? There's Square Enix's Thexder Neo in both demo and full game form. There's a LittleBigPlanet Groundhog Day costume. How 'bout a Dantes Inferno video? Maybe a Final Fantasy XIII trailer?

Sony is celebrating a great 2009 by starting off 2010 right: as a “thank you” to all the folks who bought PS3s and PSPs for the holiday season, they’ve slashed the prices of 10 12 PlayStation Network games in half! Now, I suppose you could chide them for not knowing how to count, but why complain when you’ve got an extra two games to choose from? Here’s the full list:

PS3 Games:

Gravity Crash (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
ZEN Pinball (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Critter Crunch (now $3.49, original price $6.99)
Braid (now $7.49, original price $14.99)
Burn Zombie Burn (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Tank Battles (now $3.49, original price $6.99)
Uno (now $3.99, original price $7.99)

PSP Games:

Savage Moon: The Hera Campaign (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Crystal Defenders PSP (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Creature Defense (now $3.99, original price $7.99)
Kurulin Fusion (now $2.49, original price $4.99)
Thexder Neo (now $4.99, original price $9.99)

The sale is only valid through January 27th, so don’t dilly-dally. At the very least, you should pick up Critter Crunch. To facilitate that, the game’s developer, Capybara Games, put together an homage to the famous January 1973 cover of National Lampoon magazine; you can see it in the gallery below. So buy Critter Crunch, or they’ll kill poor, innocent, fuzzy little Biggs! Only you can stop this tragedy!

PlayStation Store Update 1/21/10 [PlayStation.Blog]

SCEA's first original PlayStation Network reality show, The Tester, will soon be unleashed upon the world. Well, they haven't given any exact dates yet, but with the casting call closed and the contestants chosen, it'll presumably be kicking off relatively soon.

If you are really feeling this show, there's an official Web site with a bunch of new details. Go to it! Those geniuses at 51 Minds who gave us The Surreal Life and, more importantly, Rock of Love were brought on to help produce The Tester.

Also, David Jaffe is going to be one of the guest panelists. All factors considered, I'm confident hilarity is bound to ensue. My only concern at this point is that of cost, as in, I don't think I'd pay to access something like this.

The Tester: Cast of the First-Ever PlayStation Network Reality Series Revealed [PlayStation.Blog]

Because of its popularity with the crass crowd, Zipper Interactive's Ben Jones thinks of Microsoft's Xbox LIVE service as "more juvenile" than PSN.

"I actually consider Xbox LIVE the more juvenile of the two," Jones told GamerZines during an interview at the currently ongoing London-based MAG event. His reasoning is simple: assholes say the darndest things over LIVE. "Each service has its own posse," he continued. "I think the PlayStation audience definitely fits more to our game [MAG]."

We're guessing that his opinion will shift to somewhere in the middle if Sony manages to actually get a headset or two into PSN users hands. Until then, though, Jones totally has a point -- LIVE subscribers hear and dish out a lot filth or idiocy over the service. LIVE users also pay for the pleasure of putting a parrot next to their Avatars. We're actually having problems figuring out which is the worst of the two.

Zipper: Xbox Live "more juvenile" than PSN [GamerZines]

Patchwork Heroes, a new download-only game for PlayStation Portable, looks as adorable as it does confusing. The basic idea behind it makes perfect sense -- as a little dude, you climb up warships, dismantling parts along the way before your town is destroyed -- but there's no telling how it, uh, plays.

The announcement came with a few screenshots, which didn't help much in the way of visualization. Then it finally hit me (I've still got the headache to prove it) -- I know this game from somewhere! Patchwork Heroes is just the localized name. In Japan, it's known as Million Ton Bara Bara.

At any rate, Patchwork Heroes looks flat-out different enough from everything else on PSP right now to keep my interest. Let's hope that translates to me booting up my poor dust-collecting portable in the not-so-distant future.

Announcing Patchwork Heroes for PSP [PlayStation.Blog]

You know who's fat? The Princess, that's who. She's so fat (and hungry, like fat people, of course) that when her PlayStation Network title gets patched, the developers also have to deliver brownies with it.

Yes, Fat Princess will be receiving a patch on January 21, along with it a brand new city-themed map named "Brownie Town." Patch 1.04 will "fix an issue with the online rankings, so now the All-Time & Monthly scores for Team Deathmatch and Invasion have been swapped to post correctly." Finally.

The patch (and the map) are totally free; simply fire up Fat Princess when the patch goes live and get ready to go down to Brownie Town.

Fat Princess: All Hail The Fans With Patch 1.04 [PlayStation.Blog Europe] [Image]

Look, I like the PSP Minis idea. I like a lot of the games released so far. They recently announced PS3 compatibility. You'd think the format would have taken off already, but some studios are pointing out problems with the format and the delivery method, both of which they feel are holding Minis back.

Alex Aktion of Beatshapers, the studio behind titles BreakQuest and MelodyBloxx: "The problem is that the PSP audience won't pay much. It's way better than it was three years ago but still not enough. There are some reasons for non paying - including piracy and no credit card."

I've heard that you can nab any of the Minis games easily without paying. Maybe Sony should fix that.

Others touch on support from Sony, which most say is lacking. Halfbrick, a key Minis player,  says that they would like leaderboards and more online features. They'd also like to be able to share save data between the PSP and the PS3. Don't hold your breath, guys.

Another anonymous dev made the situation sound worse. He complained that Sony does nothing to help promote the Minis titles at all. He continues: "Most of the people I know - and they work in the games industry - have never heard about [Minis]. I can imagine how it is with people who don't work in the industry."

A few shakes of the finger and Sony could fix all of this. What are they waiting on?

Piracy and lack of marketing holding back Minis [GamesIndustry]

Making one game can be an expensive ordeal. After all, between developers, art designers, music, licensing, and everything that entails going into a game, making just one product can be an ordeal. There's not too much you can do other than penny pinching as much as you can to make a game. W!Games seems to have found an interesting solution to this problem: design a whole game universe that not one game will be built on, but rather, a whole series of games. Thus is born the Mistbound IP.

Brand new, the Mistbound universe is that of peoples in the midst of an industrial revolution. Wild and picturesque lands have been squashed beneath mining and crass consumerism. Surrounded by floating mists, the island is isolated. Unfortunately, the rampant mining has escalated the already deep and divisive gorges that cross the nations. With the industrial expansion, the gorges have split farther and deeper, cutting the once unified nation into separate factions, all the while more and more of the island falls into the mist below. This is the foundation for W!Games first game in the series, Greed Corp. Hit the jump for my impressions.

Like Conrad, I'm a little worried about Mega Man 10. Ever since I heard that Capcom wants to make the game as good as Mega Man 4 (my least favorite game in the series), I've had the feeling that Mega Man 10 might suck. Some think that all Mega Man games are created equal. Not so. A good Mega Man game features likable bosses, creative level design, and music so good that you wont mind being constantly murdered then forced to replay levels over and over again. The crap games just feel like cheap imitations of Mega Man 2.

Looks like Capcom may have at least one of their bases covered. These bosses have officially won me over with their bios. When I first saw him, Chill Man seemed like just another ice-based Mega Man boss, but now that I know that he's a published photographer, I love him. I just hope Sheep Man doesn't quit his teaching job. The economy in the year 20XX is way too unpredictable to risk unemployment.

Also, Nitro Man looks badass in bike form. His fellow transforming Mega Man bosses Turbo Man and Charge Man look like total nerds by comparison.

Hit the jump for bios on all eight new Mega Man bosses, and peruse the gallery to see them in action.

Get to know your Mega Man 10 Robot Masters [The Mega Man Network]

[Update: For those that doubt the validity of these fan-made translations, looks like Capcom has put up this slightly difference take on the same content. Looks like Blade Man talks to much FOR REAL.]

As if you couldn't have guessed, the release of Final Fantasy VIII on the PSN's PSOne Classics channel has been met with enthusiasm by spend-happy gamers, rushing to the top of the PSN chart. The PSN  top ten chart is full of PSOne Classics, in fact, demonstrating that high-end graphics and "next gen" technology simply can't beat a well-made product. 

Here's the full top ten for you:

1. Final Fantasy VIII
2. PixelJunk Shooter
3. Final Fantasy VII
4. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
5. Resident Evil 2
6. Frogger Returns
7. Call of Duty Classic
8. Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned
9. Marvel vs. Capcom 2
10. Battlefield 1943

I was definitely among those who downloaded the adventures of gloomy Squall and his stereotypical friends, and I'll do the same when Final Fantasy IX appears. Square Enix knows full well it can make a ton of money releasing the same old stuff, and it's all our fault.

EA Sports revealed a new NBA Jam game for the Wii on Monday, and now we’ve got rumors of another “update” of a classic sports franchise. A source leaked details to Joystiq of a game called Tecmo Bowl Throwback for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. You might remember that when Tecmo announced last spring that they were indefinitely shelving Tecmo Bowl Wii, they also said that Tecmo Bowl would be making its way to Xbox Live Arcade in spring 2010. (If this Tecmo Bowl-related stuff sounds familiar, it's probably because of 2008’s Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff, a DS adaptation of Tecmo Super Bowl.)

It would appear that Tecmo Bowl Throwback is that game, except now it’s coming to PSN as well as XBLA. Joystiq’s source says that Throwback is an HD remake of the original Tecmo [Super] Bowl for NES; it will feature the same team statistics and plays as that game, but it will have a new soundtrack. Throwback will reportedly also include the ability to play Tecmo Bowl in all its original 8-bit glory, and you’ll apparently be able to create your own custom teams, too.

TOUCH. DOWN. Assuming the rumors are true, are you guys excited?

Rumor: 'Tecmo Bowl Throwback' coming to XBLA, PSN [Joystiq]
'Tecmo Bowl Wii' On Hold, But 'Tecmo Bowl' Hitting Xbox Live Arcade In Early 2010 [G4 TheFeed]

[Update: Joystiq’s source has confirmed that Throwback will be based on Tecmo Super Bowl, not the original Tecmo Bowl. Who’s pumped for the return of Tecmo Bo? -Samit]