Greetings, PlayStation Nation! It’s time for a proper introduction. I’m Sid Shuman, and I’m the newest recruit of the PlayStation.Blog team! You might know me from my 11 years with GamePro, where I served as writer and senior editor covering my favorite topic in the world: video games!

In my new role with the PlayStation.Blog, I’ll be working with fine folks like Jeff Rubenstein and Chris Morell (a fellow partner-in-crime from my GamePro days!). My day-to-day focus will be updating and maintaining PlayStation’s official Twitter account (Follow us: Twitter.com/SonyPlayStation) and Facebook page (Facebook.com/PlayStation), as well as helping moderate and maintain our new PlayStation.Blog Share, where you can submit your own great ideas to the PlayStation team. We read every one of them!

I’m proud to be a part of a PlayStation team and, especially, to be serving you. So without further ado, let’s take a closer look at the week’s posts on the PlayStation.Blog. See you on the internets!

• Wakeboarding HD Coming to PSN March 25 — If you love Jet Moto, Hydro Thunder, SSX, or Crazy Taxi, you owe it to yourself to check out this gorgeous hi-def PSN title. Dodging sharks while busting monster wakeboard trick combos: yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a win.
• ModNation Racers Release Date, Pre-Orders and Box Art! — Zoom, zoom, zoom! I played this nimble kart racer at GDC 2010 for the first time, and was pleased by the tight controls (epic drifting!) and the adorable character designs. Better yet, the track creator is one of the best user creation tools I’ve ever seen. This one deserves your attention.
• God of War III Launch Special Tonight on SPIKE TV + Midnight Launch Events! — The Game To End All Games is (finally) here, and the midnight launch festivities couldn’t have been more epic. Catch up on the Spike TV special, too, hosted by GameTrailers’ Geoff Keighley and featuring a special appearance by God of War III director Stig Asmussen.
• PlayStation.Blog God of War III GDC 2010 Meetup Recap — Epic game + epic fans = epic community meetup. San Francisco will never be the same after our record-shattering God of War community event, featuring a blistering Challenge of the Titans competition, countless raffle prizes, and a special God of War III play session. Intense!
• Coming to PSN this Week: Patchwork Heroes — In this charming PSP game, you carve pieces off gigantic airborne battleships using a saw. Epic AND cute: what’s not to like? The theme song deserves extra points, too.
• God of War III Out Today! — The wait is over: Kratos will have his revenge. The first level alone is enough to take your breath away. What are you waiting for?
• New Limited Edition Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP Entertainment Pack — This limited edition PSP Entertainment Pack is a killer deal. Fully loaded with a 2GB Memory Stick, free PSN movie voucher (US only), exclusive DLC, plus the slick “Spirited Green” PSP-3000. And, of course, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the latest chapter in Hideo Kojima’s powerful series.
• Meet The Tester Cast Members Luge and Doc in PlayStation Home Tomorrow — Regular viewers of The Tester might have wondered whether Doc and Luge had “a thing” for each other. If you made it to our in-Home meetup with these popular contestants, you’d have gotten the chance to ask them for yourself!
• 3D Dot Game Heroes Walkthrough — If you’re elderly enough to remember the 8-bit and 16-bit generation, 3D Dot Game Heroes will be right up your alley. It’s both a tribute to, and a parody of, the Golden Age of Gaming. Let Atlus’s Aram Jabbari give you the full tour!
• Introducing PlayStation.Blog Share — Since starting with the fine folks of the PlayStation.Blog, Share has been a near-obsession of mine. The concept of fans contributing fresh ideas to PlayStation, and voting on them, is a powerful one. Have you Shared today?

This Week in PlayStation Home: Twisted Metal, Resistance, inFAMOUS Content + Musicality Apartment, PlayStation.Blog Meetup and More!!! — Home gets hotter with a slew of content updates. And in another first for the PlayStation.Blog, Chris, Jeff, and I held a virtual meetup in the Central Plaza and Theater to meet and greet fans and give out sweet exclusive items. We hope to make these Home meetups a more frequent event — stay tuned! UNCHARTED: Eye of Indra Motion Comic Bundle, Rika and Pinkerton Skins Launch on April 1 — Readers have long clamored for access to the Rika Raja and Daniel Pinkerton skins for Uncharted 2’s multiplayer mode. The wait is over! Read how to claim the booty in this blog written by Arne of Naughty Dog! echoshift Add-on Levels Free Through April 1 — There’s still time to grab seven free add-on levels for this brain-twisting PSN puzzler, but only if you act fast. make.believe: thatgamecompany — thatgamecompany is famous for introducing Flower and flOw to gamers worldwide. But where did this innovative independent game studio come from? How did they get started? All secrets are revealed in this short, beautifully shot documentary video. PlayStation Comics Store Update — Comic geeks, rejoice! The PlayStation Comics Store grows ever-larger: highlights include Dragon Age # 1, Star Trek: Nero # 3, and The X-Men (1963) # 6 through #10. Remember: reading is fundamental! The Tester – Episode 5 Available Today — With only three episodes left, The Tester is heating up! If you’re a newcomer to the show, there’s never been a better time to check it out. There’s only three episodes left! No spoilers! PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap Coming to PSN this Spring + PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe on UMD — Dylan “Mr. PixelJunk” Cuthbert gives the skinny on eagerly anticipated updates to the smash-hit PSN game series. With PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe hitting the PSP on UMD for only $20, and PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap getting a beefy upgrade on PSN, now’s the time to dive into this celebrated retro-styled series. First MAG DLC free, coming next week — Zipper Interactive wasn’t kidding when they said their support for MAG had only just begun. Rejoin the fight with potent new Flashbang Grenades, new Light Machine Guns, and a double-XP weekend starting March 25th. All hail MAG! PlayStation.Blog Moves East next week. Come Meetup with us! — Meet Jeff and the PlayStation.Blog team in Boston and New York next week! Of course, we’ll have cool prizes and gaming swag to hand out. But the real attraction will be hands-on sessions with PlayStation Move, our state-of-the-art motion controller coming later this Fall! PlayStation Network Video Content Update — Lots of scrumptious new video content to peruse this weekend on the PSN Video Store, including Twilight Saga: New Moon, Ninja Assassin, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, and my personal favorite History Channel TV show, MonsterQuest (This week: Sasquatches!). No April Fool’s Joke – Heavy Rain Taxidermist DLC Available April 1 — Gain a different perspective on Heavy Rain’s storyline with this standalone side story set in a very bad part of town. Can you evade certain death while hiding in an urban den of horrors? ModNation Racers: Redesigning Kart Racing — Building a Better Kart Racer: Get a better ‘handle’ on ModNation Racers’ controls and feel with this informative new video. Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake Trailer and Interview — Learn more about the exclusive new content planned for the PSP version of this team action-RPG, including new modes, new maps, and a beefier (cakier?) story mode. Viva la girthiness! LittleBigPlanet: Sack It To Me – The Hedgehog Edition — Holy crap! Sonic the Hedgehog is hitting LittleBigPlanet and we’ve got the full scoop straight from the developers.

Courtesy of Jeremy Dunham

• MAG Free DLC and Extended Double XP March 25 – Flashbangs are coming.
• Patch Alert: MAG v1.04a – We’ve updated the Syr Daria Uplink map and nerfed spawn campers!
• SOCOM 4 and PlayStation Move Reactions – The video game media’s thoughts on our game and new peripheral.

Courtesy of Arne Meyer

• Eye of Indra Bundle with Rika and Pinkerton skins to be released in North America – Covered in full detail on the PlayStation.Blog, the Eye of Indra motion comic bundle will be available for purchase on April 1 in the US, Canada and Mexico. You can get the Rika and Pinkerton multiplayer skins by purchasing the bundle and we’ve made sure that anyone who has purchased all the individual episodes also get the skins.
• Player spawn point updates being rolled out – Over the past couple of weeks we noticed that our spawn points needed some tweaking. We announced this week that we’re rolling out updates to UNCHARTED 2 over time to our multiplayer maps to alleviate unfair player spawning during matches.
• UNCHARTED 2 wins 4 awards at the GAME British Academy Video Game Awards – Evan and Christophe were on-site at the awards ceremony in London, United Kingdom, to accept four BAFTA awards for Action, Original Score, Story and Use of Audio.
• The Art of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves – out in April 2010 – Ballistic Publishing, SCEA and Naughty Dog are pleased to reveal the upcoming 272-page art book of concept art, production art and character models. The art book will come in three flavors for collectors of all kinds. You can pre-order now, and there’s even a limited release pre-order bonus – a 15 minute video walkthrough of 3 concept pieces.