Sony has been a sneaky bastard as of late.

First, the Sony Home BETA in which only a select, covert few get to take the test run. Look, I’ve got no problem with limited BETA’s, just don’t tout the hell out of a product at tradeshows only to make it ‘cool kids’ only.

Next, the most recent and enormous system software update for Japanese-based PS3 owners only…yet available to the masses the world over…with limited info pertaining as to its benefits other than it won’t crash your system if manually installed. That’s reassuring.

Third and as first reported on Kotaku.com, the latest uninvited guest is ‘Life with Playstation,’ aka ‘a really shitty version of the Wii’s Weather and News channels.’ Limited cities, news and weather options equate to a waste of hard drive space and time. Click on a story link, and Life opens a teeny tiny browser window. Bizarro intuitive. Sure, it looks pretty, but integration with Google News and the Weather Channel does not equate to useful. Being optimistic, this is likely a trial tech run for a fully featured product. I hope.

Be warned: installing the Life software reaches needle in haystack proportions. You’ll need to pull up Folding@Home, then run two necessary updates. The first updates the former, the second replaces it with ‘Life with Playstation.’ (This produced ‘Adobe Updater’ flashbacks from dozens of failed Creative Suite attempts.) Have no fear, Folding obsessives: you can still pay Stanford University’s electric bill by simply selecting the @Home application from Life’s menu.

Thankfully, Sony did however, release something enormously useful this week online in its much ballyhooed and dirt cheap ($5.99) update to the popular ‘Pain’ game, the original now provided free with new system purchases. (Note to Sony: provide Collider with access to Playstation Network titles so we can review the damn things.)

For ‘Pain’ fans, this is what the still very good original should’ve been. Much more interactive environments, better game modes, tighter scoring systems, and now trophies equate to more sadistic human launching than ever before. There’s even a ‘Pain Labs’ feature where ‘Pain’ designers promise to add new content once per week, non gratis. The update thankfully and seamlessly installs onto the original. And yes, there’s more T&A characters to purchase. The thrill of launching silicone through the air returns in full force.