Roses? Played out. Champagne? Too bubbly. Chocolate? A risky proposition. If you really want to make your significant other swoon this Valentine’s Day, grab a couple of controllers and play some games you can both enjoy. Sure, you could choose to pound your mate’s face in the Gladiator Duel in Sports Champions. But you know that’s a battle you can’t ultimately win — any victories now are always paid back with dish-washing duty later. Let’s make a pledge: This year, it’s about nest feathering, not neck-snapping.

Here are some cooperative-focused classics that should brighten up the boudoire tonight, plus some Trophy suggestions to keep things nice and friendly. We also want to hear from you — what games do you like to play with your main squeeze? Be sure to fill in the gaps in the comments.

PixelJunk Monsters
This is the quintessential couples game. PixelJunk Monsters’ two-player cooperative mode is legendary for transforming non-gamers into digital devotees in just a few minutes. If your significant other struggles with the tower defense basics, have him focus on upgrading emplacements and collecting gold while you focus on the strategy. A guaranteed good time for all.

Trophies to shoot for: “Construction Expert” (Build 10 towers in less than 30 seconds upon entering a stage), “Money Grubber” (Clear a stage without losing a single coin)

LittleBigPlanet 2
For starters, Sackboy is freakin’ adorable. Second, the platforming gameplay is second nature to many inexperienced gamers. If your mate has a creative bent, you might also consider building a custom level together — Create mode supports multiple simultaneous users. Or just pick one of over 3.6 million levels and play that — perhaps an enterprising user has already created a good Valentine’s Day-themed level?

Trophies to shoot for: “Complete Story Mode” (Complete the main path of the story mode), “Multiplier 5x” (Score a 5x multiplier in a Story level); “Community Spirit” (Publish a level to the community)

Dead Nation
The couple that slays together, stays together. This is a perfect Valentine’s Day choice for a mate who’s handy with an SMG and a melee attack, as you’ll need some tight teamwork to blast the countless hordes of the undead that infest the sprawling urban environments. Protip: If your significant other isn’t much of a gamer, go with the easiest “Brain Dead” setting to avoid heartbreak.

Trophies to shoot for: “Teamwork” (Complete a mission in co-op mode on any difficulty), “Double the Action” (Complete Campaign mode in co-op Mode)

PixelJunk Shooter
Despite its dual-stick shooting and retro stylings, PixelJunk Shooter is well tolerated by non-gaming significant others. Exploration is emphasized over action, and creative solutions are more important than a quick trigger finger. There are plenty of opportunities for teamwork, too, whether it’s winching your partner away from an erupting volcano or collaborating on hunting those all-important diamonds.

Trophies to shoot for: “Cave Cleaner” (Kill over 100 enemies)

The Beatles: Rock Band
Fab Four? More like Terrific Two. The Beatles: Rock Band is a good option for a non-gaming significant other. If playing the plastic axe or drums is too demanding (or embarrassing), offer up vocal duties. Who doesn’t know the words to a few Beatles songs? I wanna hold your haaaaaaand…

Trophies to shoot for: “Don’t Let Me Down” (Save a bandmate from failing), “Shake It Up, Baby!” (Use Beatlemania at least 5 times in a single song using either Bass or Guitar), “Let’s Get Some Levels” (Calibrate your system for the optimal experience)

Borderlands
An ideal choice for the hardcore shooter couple. Borderlands’ heavy co-op focus works nicely in splitscreen, and infighting will be rare as long as you agree to some ground rules on revives and sharing loot. In fact, the only risk here is that you’ll grind for loot and XP for so long that you won’t leave any time for romance.

Trophies to shoot for: “Group LF Header” (Rescue a groupmate from death in a co-op game), “There’s No ‘I’ In “Team” (Complete 15 missions in co-op), “United We Stand” (Defeat the Rakk Hive, the Vault Boss, Sledge, Krom, or Flynt in a co-op game)

Dead Space: Extraction
Some couples like their Valentine’s Day hot. Others prefer the cold vacuum of outer space, and that’s where this suspenseful sci-fi shooter fits in. Armed with a pair of PlayStation Move motion controllers, you and your main squeeze will nip and tuck the loathsome Necromorph with surgical precision. You’ll find this co-op gem lurking on your Dead Space 2: Limited Edition Blu-ray Disc; it’s also available separately on PSN.

Trophies to shoot for: “Twice The Firepower” (Play cooperatively with a second player), “A Star is Born” (Complete any level with a 5 star rating)

Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game
Deceptively tough despite the ultra-cute graphics, this 2D PSN beat-em-up is one where having a co-op partner or three will pay off in spades. You’ll want to exploit the tag-team attacks and revives as much as possible. And if the going gets tough, go ahead and steal a life — we won’t tell.

Trophies to shoot for: “The Power Of Friendship” (In a multiplayer game, reanimate another player at least 25 times), “Armed And Dangerous” (Defeat at least 200 enemies using interactive objects)

Time Crisis: Razing Storm
Gaming scholars have long known that lightgun-style shooters are an ideal choice for casual-gaming partners, and Time Crisis: Razing Storm is a natural if you’re packing two PlayStation Moves. The Arcade mode is packed with humongous action set pieces, screen-filling boss battles, and loads of secrets. Don’t overlook the Time Crisis 4 and DeadStorm Pirates bonus games, either.

Trophies to shoot for: “Arcade Master” (Clear Arcade Mode Ranking Play), “Synchronized Shooting” (Reach a Teamwork Level of 100% in DeadStorm Pirates), “Sharpshooter” (Obtain a ‘Nice Combination!’ rating 100 times in DeadStorm Pirates)

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a fun and safe holiday!

While everyone was away enjoying the holidays (and hopefully some new gaming gifts), we were working hard to ensure that the momentum keeps rolling with PlayStation Plus. With that said, let’s jump into some of the new content that will be coming to PlayStation Plus on January 18.

Kicking off the PlayStation Plus update on January 18 are discounts on two PlayStation Network titles, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Modern Combat: Domination. Play as Scott Pilgrim as he fights his way through Ramona’s evil exes in what Spike called the Best Adapted Video Game (Note: This 50% off discount is available for one week only). We are also offering a 25% off day one discount on Gameloft’s upcoming shooter, Modern Combat: Domination. Jump into Modern Combat: Domination with the PlayStation Move and experience total immersion into a modern war experience.

Along with both those discounts, we are also offering a 25% off day one discount on new DLC for Ubisoft’s real time strategy title, R.U.S.E., and a free download of Hero of Sparta, a popular PlayStation mini from Gameloft. More free themes and an exclusive Mega Man 10 avatar bundle also round out our next update.

This week is an especially good time to join PlayStation Plus as we are offering over $60 in free items, including downloads of Sam & Max, Lead & Gold, Crash Team Racing, Spyro the Dragon, and more. Along with these titles, we are still offering our free three-month offer for subscribers who purchase a year of PlayStation Plus. Also, look for PlayStation Plus subscription cards at major retailers, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart, GameStop and Target.

As always, check out the list below for items that are expiring from PlayStation Plus. There are several items coming down, so be sure to download them before it’s too late.

Are you new to PlayStation Plus and looking for more info on the service? Check out this post for more information.

Here are the highlights for the update coming to PlayStation Plus subscribers on January 18:

PlayStation Plus Highlights for 1/18:

Featured Games

Hero of Sparta (Free to PlayStation Plus subscribers, regular price $4.99)

Discounted Games & DLC

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (PlayStation Plus price $5.00, regular price $9.99)
Modern Combat (PlayStation Plus price $5.99, regular price $7.99)
Juiced 2 (PSP) (PlayStation Plus price $10.00, regular price $19.99)
R.U.S.E. – The Chimera Pack (PlayStation Plus price $5.24, regular price $6.99)

Featured Themes & Avatars

Mega Man 10 Avatar Bundle (Exclusive to PlayStation Plus subscribers for $1.99)
Argyle Girls Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
Hockey Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)
Sonic 4 Dynamic Theme (Free to PlayStation Plus Subscribers)

Last Chance, Get Them While You Can – Coming down on January 18:

Featured Offers to PlayStation Plus Subscribers

Burn Zombie Burn Home Item
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse (Episodes 1-5)
A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks
Fieldrunners
Crash Team Racing
PlayStation 15th Anniversary Dynamic Theme
Dead Nation Avatar Hero
Dead Nation Avatar Heroine
Hustle Kings PSN Avatar Bundle

Discounted Games/DLC

Battlefield 1943 (PlayStation Plus price $8.99, regular price $14.99)
Tomb Raider III (PlayStation Plus price $3.00, regular price $5.99)
Flow PSP (PlayStation Plus price $5.99, regular price $7.99)
Marvel Super Hero Squad PSP (PlayStation Plus price $15.00, regular price $29.99)

In the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood example shown, you’ll be able to train and interact with your guild of assassins on Facebook (while at work, for example), and then have that experience translate back into the PS3 version of the game, and vice versa. “You will continue to see brands like Assassin’s Creed across all content types,” Ubisoft VP of Digital Publishing Chris Early told us. “We want the player to experience the brands whenever and however they want.”

We also went hands on with the titles listed above. Here are some quick recaps:

Beyond Good & Evil HD

Perhaps the biggest news of the evening was final confirmation that the PS2 fan favorite and cult classic Beyond Good & Evil will be re-released as a downloadable PSN title. Beyond Good & Evil HD will render at an ultra-crisp 1080p HD resolution with higher-resolution textures and a smoother frame rate, plus online leaderboards. These enhancements will make Beyond Good & Evil HD the definitive version of the game.

Originally released on the PS2 in 2003, Beyond Good & Evil is a story-based adventure game that takes place in the year 2435 on a distant mining planet called Hyllis. You play as Jade, a local photojournalist who seeks to expose a corrupt government agency that has allied itself with a race of dangerous aliens called the DomZ, who have taken to abducting and enslaving the locals. Jade and her band of colorful sidekicks must expose the plot and save Hyllis, while uncovering a tangled web of conspiracies along the way.

Aside from its sumptuous visual design, Beyond Good & Evil HD is noted for its diverse gameplay styles: close-combat battles with Jade’s staff; sneaking past guards in stealth sequences that would make Solid Snake wince; snapping photos of rare life forms to earn cash; hoverboat piloting, puzzle solving, massive boss battles and more. Beyond Good & Evil HD is scheduled to hit PSN sometime in 2011, so stay tuned for more details. -Sid

Scott Pilgrim DLC

Soon you’ll have a reason to jump back into August’s #1 PSN title: Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game. Knives Chau (17 years old) is the highlight of an upcoming DLC pack, as you’ll finally be able to play as the Scott-obsessed high schooler.

Those of you who have played the game know that Knives is the summon-able helper for Scott, Ramona, Kim, and Stills, so I was wondering if she’d summon… herself? Actually, a tap of the L1 button sends either her sword-wielding father or tracksuited mom into the fray to help out.

The $1.99 DLC pack also includes Dodgeball and Battle Royale modes, and 3 new Knives-related Trophies. A free patch will introduce drop in co-op – no need to wait til the end of the level to get some help – as well as various bug fixes and tweaking. To me, an experienced player in this game, the ‘Average Joe’ difficulty level felt a lot less punishing than in the initial release.

Look for both the patch and DLC to become available in early November, to coincide with the Blu-ray release of Scott Pilgrim vs The World. -Jeff

From Dust

This upcoming PSN “God game” gives you nearly limitless control over the terrain and physical structure of an environment – the ultimate sandbox game, if you will. The goal is to protect a long-forgotten island tribe from elemental threats, and in the process, help them remember their past and their identity. No pressure!

Creator Éric ChahiI (much celebrated for his pioneering work on Out of This World and PSone classic Heart of Darkness gave me a private demonstration of the core mechanics in From Dust. I watched as he effortlessly molded the terrain and surfaces of an island environment using an interface that will be familiar to fans of ModNation Racer’s Track Studio tools. Chahil raised and lowered terrain with a quick button press, and the terrain responded realistically, as water pooled into crevices or spilled back into the surf. The visuals are undeniably impressive: water ripples and undulates, lava oozes menacingly, sand crumbles convincingly.

These natural elements serve as a painter’s palette in your efforts to protect the tribe from natural disasters and help them on their quest. If a nearby magma-spewing volcano threatens the tribe, you can suck up a large sphere of water from the ocean to put out the fires. In a river is threatening to drown the tribe, you might build a dam with gobs of earth or sand to redirect the rapids. The final game will feature a variety of environments, including deserts, islands, and more. Chahil is leaving the door open for possible PlayStation Move support post-launch, and it would seem to be a great fit for this ambitious title. Look for it on PSN in 2011. -Sid

Outland

This visually striking PSN title combines elements of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (sword-based action-adventure with platforming) with “Bullet Hell” games such as Gundemonium.

Outland’s story is still tightly under wraps, but I learned some cryptic clues. Despite the fantastical landscape you — surprise! — play as a modern-day character. Plagued by nightmarish visions, you wander the jungle and stumble across ruins of an ancient civilization, in the process learning about your role in a timeless battle between Light and Dark. How, and why, you are chosen is a key riddle in the game that will be revealed as you discover hieroglyphics scattered throughout the ancient city. The storyline elements are completely optional, though, and you can instead focus on running, jumping, and slicing giant spiders with your sword.

But there’s a twist. The gameplay revolves entirely around the theme of Light and Dark, represented by the colors blue and red, respectively. You swap between Light and Dark at will with a quick tap of R1, and you’ll need to do so with military precision in order to survive the ever-changing world around you. When you’re in the Dark form, red is your “friend.” Red platforms creak into life, red projectiles inflict no damage, and blue enemies can be defeated with a few sword swings. So far, so good, but then things start getting nuts: cascading waves of alternating blue-and-red projectiles fill the screen, requiring you to flip between red and blue in fractions of a second. Add in simultaneous platform jumping and combat with multiple enemies of multiple colors and you’ve got a formula that will make even seasoned gamers sweat. Outland will invade PSN sometime in 2011- Si

This edition features Scott Pilgrim, Shank, ‘Marvel-ous LittleBigPlanet’ add-ons, along with the Top 10 Avatars available. There’s also the new Top Gun game which made the PULSE crew want to rent this 80′s action classic (which by the way is currently available for rental or purchase on the video side of PlayStation Store.)

Thanks for downloading and watching.

First take a look at this brand-spanking-new trailer:

If that doesn’t convince you that this game is for you, I’m not sure what will. If you’re all about the 8-bit beat ‘em up style and chiptune music, do read on.

Recently, I (along with writers from a few other gaming sites) had the opportunity to chat with both Bryan Lee O’Malley (the creator of Scott Pilgrim) and Edgar Wright (the director of the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs The World movie). Both have serious gaming cred; the Scott Pilgrim books are laden with gaming references, and Wright’s Shaun of the Dead and Spaced both prominently featured PlayStation games.

Now I was going to spend a couple of hours carefully transcribing the half-hour conversation and placing the reams of text here. Then I noticed that Game Informer’s Ben Reeves, who was sitting about 4 feet to the right of me during the interview, already did that. You should read it.

My questions were about PSP appearing in Book #6 (O’Malley is a fan of Half-Minute Hero) and how Anamanaguchi got involved in making the game’s (awesome, chiptune) soundtrack.

If you’ve got any further questions, feel free to drop them in, and I’ll see what I can do to get them answered. Otherwise, keep an eye out for the full game (and the free demo) later this afternoon.

Once we decided to go for the old school, side scrolling, beat ‘em up style with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Video Game, we wanted to go all in! We brought in pixel artist extraordinaire Paul Robertson.

The next step was creating an amazing soundtrack. We immediately thought of Brooklyn chiptune rockers, Anamanaguchi. They wowed us (and 5,000 others) at PAX and really captured the sound we wanted for the game. Here, the guys share their favorite songs from the game.

Ary Warnaar

“Twin Dragons”

I really enjoyed how the Twin Dragons cue came into existence. It was very unexpected. A couple months ago we were playing a show here in Brooklyn with Ok, Go. I was hanging out backstage with one of my good friends Damon who also happens to be one of the most talented chip artists I know (he goes by Starscream with his drummer George). We were kinda bored and decided to start a collaboration italo-disco song on Game Boy. He started with an awesome bass line and beat, and I started writing some melody stuff. We didn’t get past the loop that night, but the next day I couldn’t get it out of my head, and kept working on it. I don’t remember at what point I realized it would work perfectly for the game… it sort of just transformed into that cue naturally. So yeah, it’s my favorite because it really started as a song for myself that ended up being for Scott Pilgrim. That natural transition is a great example of what made the project so fun. It never really felt like writing for a video game, it felt more like composing music for life stuff we’ve all experienced – stuff that Scott Pilgrim happened to have experienced as well…

Luke Silas
“Suburban Tram”

I’m especially proud of the track we wrote for the train level – Suburban Tram. When we were working on it, Pete had brought up giving it a sort of Hot Water Music-type sound, and it actually came very naturally after that. I really love positive, uplifting punk and post-hardcore music, and it was a lot of fun to try and translate it into our distinct style. Something about the final version of this track evokes real motion, as in makes you want to move, both from the heart and on the road.. at least that’s how i hear it!

James DeVito
“This is the End”

It was really interesting to hear ‘This is the End’ (yes, it’s for the perfect ending only!) go through many different phases as it was being written. At first it was just a straight ballad, but it needed something more… more epic and triumphant. Obviously it’s gotta be the best song ever if you have to be perfect to get there. That’s when Ary mentioned to Pete to think of it more as an epic Queen ballad, and it all came together after that. Pete absolutely nailed it. Not only will this song be extremely gratifying to the player as they perfect the game, but it also ended up being one of the last songs we wrote, and the last song we mixed, so us too were even treated to the ‘perfect’ ending of an incredibly amazing project.

Peter Berkman
“Scott Pilgrim Theme”

It’s really difficult for me to pick just one track to talk about, so I guess I’ll approach it in the big picture and discuss the theme. This was the first song we wrote for the game, I wanted the theme to be everything that epitomizes “Scott Pilgrim” to me. I wanted a melody that was both melancholy and triumphant, I wanted it to evoke a sort of nostalgic John Hughes world and the deluge of emotions and gut feelings that present themselves when you’re completely smitten, which Scott Pilgrim undoubtedly is. That’s what the second half of the song is about, the first half is about punching people, obviously.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World debuts exclusively on the PlayStation Network on August 10th.

Don’t forget to pre-order for a free Sex Bomb-Omb tee for your PlayStation Home Avatar!

Fortunately, we’ll be featuring the latest build of the game at our Comic-Con event on Thursday (invites just went out for that, btw – check your email). And Scott Pilgrim vs The World’s (PSN-exclusive) debut isn’t that far off, either – August 10th.

In the meantime, and just in time for Comic-Con, take a look at the latest trailer.

We’ll have more on Scott Pilgrim vs The World shortly after Comic-Con.

All I know is, I played a game that took me back to my gaming childhood: 8-bit beat’em ups with brightly colored sprites, old-school music, and couch co-op. And when I loved it, I wasn’t alone; Scott Pilgrim vs the World pulled in awards and nominations from sites like 1UP, Gamespot, IGN and Joystiq, and was one of the most talked about games of the show.

The key thing to note: Scott Pilgrim vs The World is debuting exclusively on PlayStation Network, and that you’ll be playing it in just about a month: August 10th.

You’ll be seeing a lot more about Scott Pilgrim vs The World here on the PlayStation.Blog in the coming weeks, including updates from Comic-Con and a post directly from Anamanaguchi, the famed chiptune band who behind the game’s sountrack.