Today, we’re showing you these tables in action for the first time!

ModNation Racers
Just like in ModNation Racers, this pinball table allows you to alter the look of your Kart, Mod and Track Props. Plus, there are opponents to knock past, and six different ramp entrances to hit. Each ramp entrance corresponds to a move that is available in ModNation Racers on the PSP or PS3. Combo-ing those moves will raise your Boost meter and increase your score!

Fat Princess
The Fat Princess pinball table channels the spirit of competitive princess capturing. Knock down the walls of the castle to rescue the damsel, feed your captive princess, and build bridges and catapults and upgrade hat machines using the wood and ore that you collect. Just be quick and accurate, because the enemy advances with each missed shot!

WipEout HD Fury
WipEout HD Fury plays like an exciting race in the grand WipEout tradition! There are multiple challenging courses, boosters to hit, and powerups to collect. Just be careful not to fall off of one of the ramps, or you will crash and lose a position! Win a race in first place to earn the most points.

MotorStorm
The MotorStorm table features branching ramps which have eight different variations, each one representing one of the courses in MotorStorm. This pinball table also features 3 different multipliers from Tires, Vehicles and Boost. Just be careful not to boost too much and lose your multiplier in an explosion…

The Pinball Heroes Team and myself would really like to give our fans a mighty big “thank you” for all of your support and interest. As part of our thanks and appreciation, please be on the lookout for two new FREE Pinball Heroes themes available beginning June 8th. We will be bringing you two more on June 22nd.

Additionally, to any fans who are experiencing any issues with your in-game Trophy shelf please do the following to patch the game so that you chase down and acquire each of the tables’ awards. Highlight the Pinball Heroes game in your PSP’s XMB. Then, press the Triangle button to bring up the “Options.” Select “Update” from the “Options” Menu. At this point, your PSP should connect to the network and find the patch. Finally, just download and install it. We have also resolved the issues with the Online Leaderboards. Note: anyone who purchases the game AFTER the June 8th, 2010 PSN Store Update does not need to patch.

Well, that’s it folks. We hope that you are all enjoying the new tables!

So what are the new tables?

ModNation Racers

This table features three ramps, each of which is reversible and represents different moves available in the brand new PS3 and PSP kart racing champion. Try to combo the moves/ramps into each other to build up a huge Boost Combo. Hit each ramp direction at least once to activate the four-ball multiball! Just be wary of your opponents and the rotating platform in the upper part of the playfield. You can also alter your table’s appearance as well as your Mod and Kart!

Fat Princess

You’ve got their princess, and they’ve got yours. Prove yourself to be a true and brave Pinball Hero by rescuing your Red Princess! You’ll have to chop wood and mine ore to collect the resources you need to build or upgrade your Hat Machines, a Bridge or even a Catapult. Bash down the enemy’s doors to enter their castle and save your fair lady! But be sure to be accurate; missed shots will advance the blue fiends towards your castle where they will steal your prisoner.

WipEout HD Fury

In this exciting and fast-paced table, players will advance along one of six different tracks by shooting the flashing arrows. However, opposing racers are also involved and they need to be dealt with by acquiring various powerups. After 3 laps, hit the Checkered Flag ball lock to complete the race and receive bonus points for finishing in first, second, or third. Finish all six races and you’ll enter the Time Trial jackpot mode! Spell out F-U-R-Y and you can add a ball to your game, for up to four-ball multiball!

MotorStorm

This table features the eight race courses in the original MotorStorm, represented as branching ramps. Shoot the ball into the appropriate ramp and use the flippers to operate the track switches. Make sure that the ball follows the correct path to complete a race. Once you complete all of the tracks, then the Apocalypse Race Ticket is activated! Hitting the drop targets on the right and left will increase your Vehicle multiplier to really “ramp up” your score (see what I did there?). Finally, there is the Boost orbit. Hitting this will increase your boost multiplier, but if it gets too high it will explode unless you can cool it down in time.

If you haven’t played Pinball Heroes before, then there are some things that you should know about it. We’ve focused on making a fun, portable game experience. Something that you can just pick up and play if you want, but that also has more depth for anyone interested in going deeper. We’ve made the table nudge/tilt feature very forgiving to give players more control over the ball and prevent some frustration. Additionally, every table can be played in either horizontal or vertical mode. Pinball Heroes also features its own in-game goals and awards, as well as online leaderboards so that you can compare your scores to the rest of the world! For more info, head here to find out more.

Way back in November of ‘09 my partner in crime, Jason Coker, detailed our initial four tables. You DO NOT have to own any of the previous Pinball Heroes tables to purchase and enjoy the new bundle. If you have any previous tables, the new bundle will fit right into your existing game. If you don’t have any of our earlier pinball tables (what are you waitin’ for?) then this bundle will still be playable. You can buy Pinball Heroes Bundle 2 and then add additional Pinball Heroes tables if you like. The order in which you choose to purchase the tables is all up to you! Feel that rush of consumer power!

Well folks, that’s a lot of reading. In closing, let me just say that you can get all four awesome, portable and fun tables for just $9.99!! Check the PlayStation Store on May 25th, and have fun!

Our PSP NBA series is the only sports series that we know of that has been created from the ground up specifically for the PSP (as in, it’s not a port). Since it is not a port it can be optimized year-after-year to be tailor-crafted for the PSP. This has resulted in silky-smooth 60 frames per second gameplay and an absolutely feature-packed UMD.

Being on a portable system has been a huge influence on the design of NBA 09: The Inside on PSP. We have always tried to have a fast-paced game that could be played in short bursts. The on court action is quick and fun, plus there are a ton of mini-games to try. But of course, if you have loads of time, you can play multiple seasons in our new Franchise mode.

What we’d really like to talk about today is one of our favorite mini-games for this year’s version. It’s called ElimiQuest and it’s a little unorthodox. So we’ll start by explaining the development process and how it came to be.

Conquest

In NBA 07 for PSP we had the idea to do a turn-based game called Conquest. Our team is small and we try to get together about once a month to socialize, eat, drink and play a bunch of boardgames. We like to play a large variety from party games to strategy games. We’re all very interested in the game mechanics and where the strategy and fun of the game is.

All of this led us to create Conquest. When you begin the game, you choose a team and a city. That city connects to other cities that you can challenge or be challenged by. Whenever a city is challenged, the outcome is determined by playing a game of basketball with some minor rules changes. If the challenging city wins, then they gain control of the defending city and it’s team. If the defending city wins, then they get to swap one of their players for one from the challenging team. After each city has had a chance to make a challenge, then the players can be moved from one city to another.

The fun in Conquest comes from stealing another city’s players and building the ultimate team as you march your way across North America! This means that you get teams in Conquest that wouldn’t occur in the real NBA. The boardgame-styled map gives you more to think about as you plan your strategy. You can also upgrade your players and even earn retired players by controlling a whole division.

Elimination

When we started making NBA 08: Featuring Block Party for PSP, we knew that we wanted another basketball minigame that we could be as proud of as Conquest. We really wanted to change how you play basketball with this one. So instead of constantly using your best players to score, we wanted you to try to score with even the less skilled players.

To accomplish this, we decided that when a player had scored 6 or more points, they should be eliminated from the game. This meant that there would be situations with off-balance teams. You might have a team with only 3 players left going against a team with all 5 players. Naturally, this is an advantage to the player who was able to get a lot of his team to score before any single player got eliminated. The winner is the first team to eliminate 4 of his 5 players. This means that the points earned by the last remaining player are a waste. So you wanna be sure that you know which player shouldn’t score when you begin the game!

To help with the advantage in numbers, we decided to give a power-up to the team that eliminates a player. To help even out the playing field a bit, we took the best power-ups and assigned them to the lower rated players. The best players get the worst power-ups or, in some case, don’t even award a power-up when they are eliminated! This really helped to balance out the playing field of the various NBA teams in Elimination. Teams without big star players generally get better power-ups than the stronger teams.

So you have some decisions to make in Elimination. Do you try to spread out your points so that you maintain an advantage in numbers or do you try to eliminate one of your worst players to get a great power-up? Similarly, do you go the easy route and eliminate your best player and get a weak power-up?

ElimiQuest

Elimination turned out to be really fun in 08, so for 09 we came up with the idea to combine it with Conquest. The resulting un-imaginative name is ElimiQuest! It plays just like Conquest mode with the strategic map and capturing other teams, cities and players. However, instead of playground basketball, the cities face off in a match of Elimination.

As in Conquest, the players on the winning team that get the most points, rebounds or assists earn you medals to upgrade them. This means that if you really wanna upgrade someone, you’re gonna have to keep them on the court making assists and getting rebounds or have that player score 8 points (the most a player can earn in Elimination/ElimiQuest). Upgrading players in ElimiQuest is a little bit more important than it is in Conquest. If you have a poorly rated player who gets you a great power-up whenever he is eliminated, you should try to upgrade him so that he can be eliminated more easily.

Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far, then thanks for reading! We hope that you all get to try ElimiQuest and let us know what you think in your posts. If there is enough interest, we would love to discuss some of the other minigames that we have like Shootin’ Bricks, Pinball, Block-A-Shot, Own The Court, etc. Unfortunately, ElimiQuest couldn’t fit in our PSP demo, but be sure to check it out for our regular basketball gameplay along with a few minigames. The whole game is only 30 dollars, and we think that it represents a ton of gaming value at a low price.

P.S. Check out High Velocity Bowling from the PlayStation Store for the PS3!!