Sony’s PlayStation Plus is a subscription-based service that allows members to get weekly and monthly access to discounted games on the PlayStation Network, as well as the occasional free game. Sony has calculated that the $50/year service has granted thousands of dollars in savings.

Everyone loves free games, but nobody likes a free game that’s a piece of HDD-hogging garbage. “In PlayStation Plus We Trust” is a weekly feature outlining the new free addition(s) to the Instant Game Collection to help you decide whether that newest freebie in the Store is worth your time.

Light-gun gamers get the fair shake this week with Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection.

Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection

If you love light gun games, Chronicles HD Collection is right up your alley. This title packages both The Umbrella Chronicles and The Darkside Chronicles into one game for a ton of virtual zombie shooting action. There’s also quite a bit of game here, with both titles offering a fair bit of gameplay and replay value for a better score, as well as fun local co-op.

It’s possible to play the game with a regular PS3 controller, but it controls as well as you would expect a lightgun-style motion-controlled game to play without motion control–namely, it’s really weird. It’s certainly feasible, but you might not have a lot of fun doing so. Move is definitely recommended. Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection is rough around the edges, being a light-gun game (and an HD revamp of two Wii titles), but it’s a fun diversion and worth playing around in for a while for a bit of nostalgia.

Verdict: Worth Downloading

Deals

Puppeteer (Pre-order)
$35.99

Not a major discount, but $5 off this SCE JAPAN-developed title might be enough to entice the curious. Puppeteer features a strange, colorful world set on the stage of a puppet production. The art style is slightly reminiscent of LittleBIgPlanet, in that most of the environment feels composed of props and pieces that would make up a little play. The gameplay looks significantly more fast-paced, however, and will likely feel more like a traditional platformer. Still, it’s that hand-built look to the characters and locales that really give the game its charm, and should definitely make it worth looking into.

F1 2013 (Pre-order)
$53.99
$67.49 (Classic edition)

The newest iteration of the F1 racing series features a great deal of new, modern content to warrant the annual update. An additional Classic mode brings in some old-school content for the genre purists and the nostalgic gamers that lets you recreate some of the classic races. A more-expensive version skews much more strongly towards the classic content, and combines all of the material of the vanilla version with a wealth of 1980s and 1990s content if you want to revisit some F1 history.

Kickbeat (Cross-buy)
$7.99

Kickbeat looks pretty cool. It’s a fighting game that is played by matching button presses to the beat of the music to fight off waves of enemies.  Keeping in time with the beat will lead to chains and unlock special attacks and throws to decimate enemies. It looks to be a fairly basic game, but simplicity can be fun, and Kickbeat might just deliver. As a bonus, you can create your own tracks in the game from your personal music collection. This is definitely one I will be considering this week.

Zombie Driver HD
$3.99

Running over zombies with a car that has weapons attached? There’s not a whole lot more that you could ask for. While Zombie Driver might be a somewhat rudimentary game, it’s simple and silly enough to warrant a try. It really does boil down to running over zombies and collecting weapon upgrades for your car, and the game controls well enough to be entertaining. If the simple arcade pleasures aren’t what you’re into, it might be better to hold off, but take a look at the gameplay for this one and see if it strikes your fancy.

Retro City Rampage (Cross-buy)
$8.99

Hideous controls hold back an otherwise stellar title. Retro City Rampage is a screamingly funny throwback to the top-down GTA games of yesteryear, with generous sprinklings of references to a multitude of other games and movies, from The Dark Knight to Back to the Future. Laugh-out-loud humor comes at an impressively fast clip, and the references get more delightful the more often you can recognize them. Wonky controls and annoyingly tenacious cops hold the game back a bit, but this content-heavy nostalgia-fest is well worth the price of admission.

Let us know what you’re picking up in the comments, and check back next week for the next round of freebies!