The coolest thing we’ve done is a progression feature that we call Trick Shots. As you play through the game, unlocking stages involves beating 3 types of challenges. I think Trick Shots is the most entertaining of the three. As I’m sure you’ve seen in the videos, we do things like add chairs, cones and ramps to the lanes that you’ll have to navigate through/around/over to knock down pins. You’ll also get a chance to try some of the most difficult trick shots in bowling, such as the “Flying Eagle“, a trick shot that Chris Barnes has made famous on the PBA Tour.

Another thing that I really enjoy is some friendly competition with my teammates here in San Diego and at our QA facilities around the world. You can post high scores from games and series for each bowler in the game and see how you stack up. Only one 300 game has been bowled, so we feel the difficulty level seems pretty appropriate. We’ve also started guessing how long its going to take for one of you high-caliber game players to toss the first perfect game after release… but I won’t tell you what our over/under is!

Anyhow, that’s it from me – I hope you go out and get the game! Its a fun game to play with friends or play through by yourself to try and unlock everything and see all we’ve put in there. There are 49 different patches to earn, so get busy. =)

I know I’m pretty excited about it, personally – I’m sick of seeing only my team and our hard working Quality Assurance guys & gals on the leaderboards. I can’t wait to see you all get your hands on it!

So with this new trailer, I hope you all can get a feel for the type of game we’re going for. While we do use the SIXAXIS controller for the bowling swing, we’ve incorporated a bunch of different gameplay experiences. You’ll start with just a couple of fairly vanilla characters and work your way up the High Velocity Bowling ranks. If you watch the video, you’ll see our resident bad boy Spider and his sidearm delivery. One note here – don’t try this in real life…it hurts!

Each “level,” if you will, has 3 challenges that you’ll need to pass before moving on. You can see a couple of the “Trick Shots” challenges in the video, with our ramp, chair & cone props. You will also need to beat each bowler head-to-head before being able to use them. Tournament mode makes you prove your consistency before moving on.

Anyhow, I don’t want to give away all the surprises… and trust me, there are some good ones. I hope you’re looking forward to this game as much as I am looking forward to getting it out there!

Hey all! I’m P.J. Snavely, senior producer for SCEA here in sunny San Diego. For everybody that read my last post on High Velocity Bowling and left comments, thank you very much. I’m looking forward to the release of that title in the next few weeks. I also share time on another project that’s been my baby since its inception and that’s NBA ’08 on PSP.

NBA ’08 for the PSP is our fourth iteration of basketball on the handheld platform. Over the past three versions, we’ve always tried to be on the leading edge of combining simulation NBA basketball with some new and innovative ideas in the genre – things that would be fun and different to play. Personally, I find it very frustrating when developers bring an identical version of a sports game to the PSP, so we’ve gone out of our way to ensure that NBA ’08 is significantly different than its PS2/PS3 brethren.

Along those lines, we came up with a concept for a “Basketball meets Risk” type of game mode that we call Conquest. In Conquest, you pick an NBA team and then try to “capture” other NBA cities by playing them head-to-head. If you win, you take over that city and all of its players. Should you lose, the defending city has the option to steal one of your players. We’ve also thrown in little gameplay twists, like if you occupy all five teams within a division, you can unlock a historic player who will come out of retirement and play for you. It’s a great combination of planning and “strategery” and (imho) a better gameplay experience than a typical Franchise mode.

Hope you enjoy the game – it hits shelves Tuesday, October 2nd!