The Baconing is part of PSN Play, so preorder now and get some extra goodies.

Now, that’s already pretty sweet. But Sony is seeking to sweeten the deal a little bit more. If you grab all four PLAY titles from the store by 20 september, you’ll receive a PSN voucher for PayDay: The Heist, the PSN Exclusive first person bank robbery game, which looks something akin to a cross between Heat and Left 4 Dead. Also, if you’re a PS+ member, you’ll get a 20% discount on each of the four games in the promotion.

Now, on to the games, in date order of course.

Kicking off the program on August 24 is Street Fighter III Third Strike Online Edition, which you likely already know about as the third Street Fighter game. Well, it’s a version of the third Street Fighter game at least. Picking up the game during the promotion will net you an early unlock of GILL, who is usually unlocked by beating the game with every character.

Next up is The Baconing, the third game in the DeathSpank series. This one is going to be available for on August 31, and a purchase of the game will give you an additional co-op character known as Roesha, described as “One Bad Mutha”. Those groans you can hear are coming from me, though the actual game looks like the best game since Psychonauts to feature magical bacon.

If you’re up for something considerably bloodier, then perhaps September 7 will have something more up your street in BloodRayne : Betrayal. Now, if you, like the rest of the world have already forgotten about Majesco’s BloodRayne franchise, allow me to bring you up to speed. “Ginger Nazi Vampire”. That’s about it, although this instalment in the series comes from WayForward, makers of insanely pretty 2D games, so there’s hope here at least. Buy it, and you’ll get an item for your Home avatar. I’m going to guess it’s not an arm band.

September 14 bring us Renegade Ops! From the makers of Just Cause 2 comes a top down Sandbox vehicle shooter. It’s pretty much a homage to classic games like Jackal, and it looks like a boat load of fun. Grab it, and get a vehicle and character pack, with two extra vehicles and weapons to use.

Finally, there’s PayDay: The Heist. If you’ve bought all the games on this list before 20 September, you’ll be getting this one for free. Otherwise, expect it on October 5. It’s a first person heist game from Overkill Software, who emerged from the ashes of the sadly departed GRIN. It certainly looks like a game you’re going to need a headset for, as the best way to instruct one of your four co-op partners is definitely to shout “don’t die” as many times as possible. It works, trust me.

PSN PLAY pre-orders start next Wednesday, August 10. Look for reviews of all of these games as and when they release.

The article also provides some behind the scenes details regarding this next title. Previously, the past two games in the franchise were praised for their humor and art style, but were almost universally criticised for their gameplay which got repetitive very quickly. Hothead has stated to Kotaku that this game will be different and will encourage tactical thinking when dealing with enemies. Hothead said ”…player’s will now feel compelled to use tactics and strategy to defeat their opponent.”  Further to this, Hothead also disclosed that this will be the first title in the franchise to not feature the lead character’s creator, Ron Gilbert. Currently the game is set for a summer release for both consoles and PC. Hothead has also released a teaser trailer embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Source: Kotaku

PSNStores: How did you decide on the art style for the game? It has a pop-up book feel that is very interesting to look at.

Art We, Art Director: We experimented with a very wide breadth of art styles encompassing both 2D and 3D. There was initially talk about using animated clay figures and villages made of popsicle sticks and cardboard. We even played around with fully articulated 3D buildings which reminded us too much of every other standard RPG. As we played more and more with different ideas and styles we fell in love with the charm of some of the 2D concept imagery. Given that DeathSpank plays out like a folklore or ancient legend we decided that the world he lived in should be seen as an open book. This worked perfectly with the illustrative style of the world and all the supporting props. It feels like these storybook characters and monsters are walking around on a pop-up book that was left open, which is exactly what we were striving for.

PSNS: Voice acting in a Ron Gilbert game is always one of the most important things. How did you go about casting the various characters in the game?

Adam Gejdos: While Ron is very serious about the quality of voice acting, the process was really fun and organic. In total, we spent about 6 weeks in the studio averaging about 6-8 hours a day.

For DeathSpank himself, I had known Michael Richard Dobson for many years and had worked with him on various projects over the years. We originally brought him in to voice the character of DeathSpank for a very early test playable of the game. We had planned on auditioning the character of DeathSpank a bit later in production but when he came in to do the temp work, we spent an hour or so trying out different voices and attitudes and Michael just nailed it. We felt Michael understood the nuances of the character. It didn’t hurt that he is extremely easy to work with and has great comedic timing. Once we put it in the early playable, we kind of just looked at each other and said “I guess we don’t need to do any auditions!”

For the many, many secondary characters, we did a call out to actors based on the various personalities and ages of the characters. Vancouver has a long and rich history of animation and videogame voice over with a wide breadth of actors to choose from so finding actors was very easy.

Then we put them all in a cage and let them fight it out, no holds barred. From the surviving actors, we divided the characters up and booked the recording dates.

Then the police got involved so we had to go back to the drawing board and hold real auditions. Those went well although the pay-per-view numbers weren’t as high as the cage match.
We spent a few weeks auditioning and then went through the recordings and we chose our favorites. We then brought those actors in to record the official lines.

Often we got really creative in the studio and the actors had a blast just riffing and trying out alternate lines. I have a library of unused takes that are screamingly funny and many are quite…”blue” as they say.

PSNS: Mechanically, the game is very similar to action RPG’s such as diablo. Where did this idea come from?

Darren Evenson, Lead Designer: Diablo definitely played a large part in the feel we wanted to create (tons of enemies, plenty of loot, lots of action), and the game is often referred to as “Diablo meets Monkey Island”. But creating a game like this for the console hadn’t been done, so we had to come up with some clever ways to help the transition feel natural. In fact, this is why you can map any weapon and item to any of the buttons on the controller.

If you haven’t tried DeathSpank yet there is a demo on the PSN store. But if you have get ready for the next installment coming out September 21st.

“Bigger, longer, harder–these were the words that drove us while we created the follow up to our introduction to the DeathSpank universe,” said Vlad Ceraldi, Director of Game Development for Hothead Games. “In T.O.V., we’re taking action RPG fundamentals and adding loads of new creatures, environments, weapons and characters, while continuing to push the envelope with our signature humor.”

There are also going to be some new additions from the first game, the most prominent being a new character for use in co-op play. Steve a “ninjatastic” fighter will be joining the ranks with Sparkles the Wizard, who you might remember from the first game if you played with a friend. There should also be some more crazy weapons and monsters just like with the first game.

DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue will be available for download on PlayStation Network on September 21, 2010 for $14.99.

What I liked:

• “Pop-up book” graphics

• Nerdy self aware sense of humor
• Voice acting

What I disliked:

• Animation can get sloppy, leading to lame deaths

• Nothing really to do after you beat it

After reading about the reaction to the demo in our forums, I was slightly worried about how DeathSpank turned out. 
Then I installed the game and of course sat and played it for 3 hours straight. Yeah, you could say I enjoyed it. The game follows the titular hero on his adventure to recover an ancient artifact and thwart the arch villain Lord Von Prong. The game doesn’t take itself seriously, setting the tone for one helluva fun and funny outing.

The graphics are bright and unique. While it’s a 3d game, the game makes use of 2d set pieces to give it a “pop-up book” look to it.  For the most part, it worked. One of my few problems with it was that sometimes the camera would zoom out too far and it was difficult to see who was hitting me. Sometimes this happened a little too often… usually in the graveyard.

Gameplay starts out as essentially a button masher; reminding me of a simplified dynasty warriors. As you deal damage and block attacks you fill up your “justice meter” which gives you a super attack depending on which weapon you use to activate it. Oh yeah, Deathspank equips four weapons at a time, so this certainly mixes up the gameplay at times. Some offer physical damage, some AOE (Editors note: area of effect for you non-nerds), and others have elemental powers. As the game progresses, you’ll have to learn to block and choose your attacks more wisely than you had when you started.

Chris K had a worry about the item management system, but I found it easy enough to get used to, though things did get cluttered. It seems like you’re constantly upgrading to bigger and better weapons and armors, and besides clutter, it certainly helps to keep things fresh. Quests consist of the run of the mill fetch variety. Not terrible, but certainly not groundbreaking stuff.  There is also a simple local coop mode where your friend can play as Sparkles the wizard. Sparkles has a few uncustomizable spells and attacks, but while limited, it certainly adds to the enjoyment of the experience.

I trudged through Deathspank in under 10 hours, and though I ran into some frustration, I still found myself enjoying it (and sometimes laughing my ass off).

This game was purchased for review purposes. For more info on our review policy click here.

As far as I’m concerned, “flamethrowering’ is most definitely a verb.

The other title picked up by EA last week for publishing duties. The mind behind this one is someone most video game fans know, Ron Gilbert, the man behind The Secret of Monkey Island. DeathSpank is an action RPG, and as you can tell from the screens and the trailer it looks gorgeous.

The game casts players in the role DeathSpank, the Hero to the Downtrodden, a Vanquisher of Evil and Defender of Justice as he fulfills his life-long destiny and searches for a mysterious and magical item only known as “The Artifact”. Along the way he’ll rescue a few Orphans, defeat a local tyrant and tumble headlong into the even deeper mystery surrounding the legendary Thongs of Virtue in an epic adventure game that includes collecting loot, crazy puzzle solving, witty dialogue, collecting loot, over-the-top animations, fun, accessible action combat, and of course, collecting loot.

No date set for this one yet, not even a time frame. I would expect that we will be hearing more from Hothead Games and EA at E3 time.