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!

When you pull up your World Map this Thursday, you’ll notice that the MotorStorm chip has reappeared, along with a brand new MotorStorm game space. The new MotorStorm Super Carrier is essentially a battleship turned full-on party boat, custom-crafted for all of you road warriors that are looking for the perfect environment to meet up with other racing addicts and launch into multiplayer matches of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Of course, this space houses a proverbial boatload (pun intended) of awesome content, including the interactive DJ booth wherein you can play house DJ, using some of your favorite tracks from Listen@Home. Check out the video below for a fly-through of what is sure to become one of the most popular party spaces in PlayStation Home.

You asked for it, so you got it: This Thursday, February 18th, we will be releasing the highly-anticipated LocoRoco Island personal space, along with some a bevy of special LocoRoco-themed furniture. But that’s not all: We’ll also be unveiling a brand new LocoRoco game space – the Mui Mui King Passenger Boat. Both of these mega-interactive spaces come packed with games and other content that is sure to please all you LocoRoco fanboys (and girls) out there, so watch this video to get a taste of the new LocoRoco Island personal space (available from the Estates Store in the PlayStation Home Mall) and then pull up your World Map on Thursday to take a ride on the new Mui Mui King Passenger Boat (we’ve snuck in a few pics to whet your appetite).

For those of you that are looking for a truly otherworldly PlayStation Home experience, we’re pleased to present the brand new PlanetLand personal space. This patently sci-fi hangout is a real feast for the eyes, boasting gorgeous vistas, a wide array of clothing and furniture options, and even a predatory plant, poised to devour any unwelcome guests before they can get close enough to crash your pad. Peep the below video for an overview of the new PlanetLand personal space (and associated clothing and furniture), available this week only in PlayStation Home.

You’ve been waiting with bated breath for the season premier of the PlayStation Network exclusive The Tester – the new reality series that focuses on the trials and tribulations of a group of hardcore gamers all vying for their dream job as a member of the SCEA QA team. And since you’ve been so vocal about wanting to watch this hot new series in PlayStation Home, we’ve decided to bring it to you. Starting this Thursday, February 18th, and returning every Thursday that follows until the culmination of Season One, we will be airing each new episode of The Tester in the PlayStation Home Mall. And we’re even offering free virtual items to all of you that come out each week. So come watch The Tester season premiere, grab your free item from the Theater or Central Plaza commerce points (additional The Tester items will also be made available in the coming weeks – some of which are positively hilarious), and be sure to return week after week until the winner is crowned.

This week will see a major update to the PlayStation Home Mall, with no small thanks to our new resident business guru, Mr. Magnus Keynes. To celebrate Mr. Keynes coming aboard to the PlayStation Home team, we’ll be launching four new stores in the Mall. Some of these stores will be devoted to items from long-time partners such as Lockwood Publishing (who are releasing a Sodium store), Loot (our friends over at Sony Pictures Entertainment, who brought us Ghostbusters items and the Loot Sound Stage personal space) and EA (who are sure to continue to pack their store with tons of great content). However, two of these stores are brand new, such as the Exclusives store, which is full of limited edition items. To celebrate the grand opening of the Exclusives store, my good buddy Magnus is dropping the price on over 200 items specifically as thanks to you, the loyal PlayStation Home community. Pick up these items for one month only in the Exclusives store before they are pulled off the shelves forever. And if you see Mr. Keynes wandering around in-world (you can identify him by his snazzy gold suit), take a moment to say “hi” and welcome him into the fold.

Also launching this week in the new Mall is a LucasArts store. That’s right, my friends – we’re talking Star Wars and Indiana Jones in PlayStation Home. From the Stormtrooper costumes to the Indy gear, lightsabers to Sith banners, the LucasArts store is chock full of some of the most highly-requested items from the PlayStation Home. Here’s what our friend Brooks Brown, Community Manager over at LucasArts, had to say about this momentous occasion:

“Over the last year, since the world of PlayStation Home got underway, one of the things that has been put in my ear is that we need to get involved. From the moment I saw what this exciting new platform could provide gamers, I couldn’t have agreed more. As a user, I really want to run around as a Stormtrooper, telling people that they aren’t the droids I’m looking for. So it is my pleasure to announce that, as of Thursday, February 18th, you can now find a LucasArts storefront in the PlayStation Home Mall, packed with all sorts of items with the promise of more to come. We even have Imperial Officer uniforms for those of you who wish to act out your Grand Moff Tarkin fantasies – you know who you are!”

You heard him – this week’s update is just the tip of the iceberg. Check out these pics for a taste of what to expect now that LucasArts has come to PlayStation Home, and keep your eyes on this Blog for more announcements as they come.

Our friends over at Loot are throwing quite the event in celebration of the launch of their new store. The Aliens vs. Androids Event, scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 20th at 8:00pm PT (11:00pm EST) in Central Plaza, will pit Aliens against Androids in a battle for the brains (err…minds) of the PlayStation Home community, with the winners receiving gold trophies for their personal spaces and the second place winners (read: losers) receiving a silver gold trophy for their personal spaces (these items will appear automatically in your inventory if you own the Loot Alien or Loot Android virtual items; please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery). Aliens and Android outfits are available from the new Loot store in the PlayStation Home Mall (Alien items are for sale; Android items are free). See the video below for more details regarding this special event.

Last but certainly not least, EA will be hosting a NHL 10 game launching party next week. Join the EA SPORTS NHL 10 Community on Monday, February 22nd from 4:00pm to 8:00pm PT (7:00pm – 11:00pm EST), in Central Plaza, and play with the development and community team in a special NHL 10 Featured Game Party. To participate, simply add one of the following host accounts: NHL10Dev1, NHL10Dev2, NHL10Dev3, NHL10Dev4, Yaw_DEV, and LBotteron. Then, use the “Go To” feature to travel to official “instances” of Central Plaza during the event times. Once at the event, insert the NHL 10 into your PlayStation 3 and then join a game. Make sure to add people you meet in PlayStation Home to your friend’s list so that you can find one another in the game lobby.

See you in Home!

We here on the PlayStation Home team are pleased to announce that we are kicking off the holiday season in a big way come this Thursday, December 10th. We have quite a few surprises lined up for you, and I don’t want to give away too much too soon, but it’s safe to say that this year’s festivities will run for the remainder of the month and will include some very surprising developments.

That is, of course, assuming the entire community works together to solve the puzzles (and collect the rewards) associated with the huge Festive Tree, coming to Central Plaza this week. Peep the picture below (smuggled out of the developers’ offices by yours truly) for a sneak peek of what’s in store for you. And make sure you log in every day throughout the holiday season to solve puzzles, unlock rewards, and help transform PlayStation Home into the premier party destination for the New Year.

In other holiday-related news: We are releasing a ton of additional festive items that will help you celebrate the holidays properly in PlayStation Home, no matter what your personal style may be. Included in this new batch of items is a free menorah, for all of our community members that want to celebrate Chanukah in-world (free items for those of you who want to celebrate Christmas, Xmas, Kwanzaa, and even that holiday “for the rest of us” are currently available in the Mall). You’ll also find the Dead Space 2 Miner outfit (for guys and gals) in the Costumes store, along with a heap of other costumes bundled at prices that simply can’t be beat.

MotorStorm fanatics will find yet another addition to their collection awaiting them in the Estates store this week. The MotorStorm: Pacific Rift personal space is a perfect retreat for you and your friends after a day (or night) or racing around the 16 destructible tracks that make up the off-road mayhem of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Show the world that you are a true road warrior by customizing this unique beachfront locale with the MotorStorm-themed virtual items available in the Furniture store, and then invite your friends over to launch into multiplayer matches of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. Check out this hot new personal space in the pics below.

This Friday, December 11th, we will be throwing a scavenger hunt event to celebrate the release of Hudson Entertainment’s Diner Dash. Those of you that log in between the hours of 12:00pm and 5:00pm PST (3:00pm and 8:00pm EST) will find segments of a voucher code scattered throughout PlayStation Home. The first 50 users that assemble and redeem the code will receive one free download of Diner Dash on the PlayStation Network. So if you’re reading this now, it’s time you get into PlayStation Home and start searching high and low. These codes are guaranteed to go fast!

Last but certainly not least, our development team has managed to resolve the Z(7,-104) error that a small number of users had been encountering when logging in to PlayStation Home. In order to resolve this problem we will be rolling back the last reward item received on all affected accounts. This will fix will be deployed during this week’s regularly scheduled downtime (please note that due to the extra work required this week, the maintenance period will be extended).

Once this rollback is complete, users previously affected will once again be able to log into PlayStation Home with all of their other rewards and items intact. Of those previously affected, a very small number of users may find that their rewards have been rolled back further than the previous item in order to permanently fix this issue. This was done on a case-by-case basis, to ensure that all of you could get back into Home.

As always, stay tuned to this blog for more info about the season’s upcoming content and events (including another chance to win the UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves Fortune Hunter Edition. There’s so much cool stuff set to release over the coming weeks and months that we are sure you will keep coming Home time and time again.

You’ve all been waiting since last Thursday’s v1.3 core client update for the highly-anticipated camera item, and that’s why we’re happy to announce that every one of you devoted PlayStation Home community members will now have a free camera. You heard me – free! This camera will automatically appear in your inventory today and will allow you to take photos from the 1st and 3rd person perspective. Any pictures you take will immediately be saved to the “Photo” section of your XMB where you can then share these photos both in-world and out, whether it is in the Picture Frames that decorate your personal spaces or on Flickr, Twitpic, or Photobucket accounts.

You’ll also find two new spaces have been released in PlayStation Home today– the PixelJunk Museum and the MotorStorm Monument Valley Campsite. The PixelJunk Museum is a sleekly designed public area dedicated to the PixelJunk series where you can explore and collect content related to the PixelJunk Eden, PixelJunk Racers, PixelJunk Monsters and PixelJunk Shooter titles. The MotorStorm Monument Valley Campsite is a mesa-top personal space with its own MotorStorm caravan and an amazing vista of the MotorStorm festival across the Valley. There’s also a ton of MotorStorm-themed furniture available to customize this exclusive hideaway. Check out the pics below.

Dethklok – the death metal super group from Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse cartoon – is pleased to announce that their never-ending quest for intergalactic domination has extended into the world of PlayStation Home. Show your support for all things evil (and metal…but mostly metal) and pick up the new Dethklok merch, available in the Mall, and check out the Dethklok video, now live in the Theater. Raise high the horns and rock out in a manner most deadly with Dethklok in Home!

While you’re in the Mall, you can also grab the new Neptune Suite furniture and other assorted virtual items and the new Jon Burgerman line of virtual goods. World-renowned for his hand drawn cartoon characters (which have been shown in galleries around the world), Mr. Burgerman has lent his talents to Home and has produced a special line of animated clothing for the guys and the gals. If you ever wanted a tattoo for your avatar, it’s high time you check out some of Burgerman’s patented designs.

We here at PlayStation Home are all about spreading the love around and supporting important charities. This is why we have partnered with EA SPORTS to produce and distribute exclusive virtual items that serve to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 100% of proceeds for these items will go to the Brees Dream Foundation in support of breast cancer research and awareness programs, so please pick up these items and show your solidarity with all the breast cancer patients around the world. Remember, together we can fight this deadly disease.

MotorStorm Arctic Edge is finally here for the PSP and we have the 4th and final iteration of the “Making Of” video series to share with you. The teams at Bigbig and Evolution have really enjoyed your comments to the video series to date and are really looking forward to you getting your hands on the game. If you have been watching the series, you know that a lot of time and effort went into making Arctic Edge a title that brings the best of the MotorStorm brand to the PSP and PSPgo. (If you missed them, be sure to check out parts one, two and three!).

For part four, Bigbig Studios unveils a bit about the creative inspiration and artistic differences that make Arctic Edge unique, yet maintain all the things you already love about MotorStorm. They also talk about the challenges taking a game as big and as beautiful as MotorStorm and bringing it to the PSP in a way that is uncompromising to fun and graphic quality you are expecting from a MotorStorm title.

We had a lot of fun bringing you this series and hope you will have more fun playing MotorStorm Arctic Edge, available now on UMD and available on the PlayStation Store October 1st.

We’re proud to announce another major core space update. The Movie Theater brings you ten times as much exciting content [including from the PS.Blog! -Jeff] with a brand-new 10-screen layout, a new lobby, and the ability to unlock rewards in select screening rooms. Be sure to check out the screening rooms often – you never know when one of them will be giving something away. Stay tuned for lots of exclusive new videos over the coming months, including the future possibility of full-length TV shows or movies, with new features debuting on a regular basis.

But that’s not all! The Burn Zombie Burn space brings its classic cartoony graveyard style to PlayStation Home with a crypt for lounging in while you watch Burn Zombie Burn videos, a zombie-infested maze mini-game where you’ll be challenged to find your way out before you get zombified, and as always, an exclusive reward. Don’t get lost in the graveyard!

Next, the first wave of MotorStorm content will be swerving into PlayStation Home with MotorStorm Pacific Rift Game Launching functionality topping the bill. If you’re new to Game Launching, click here for more info on how this great functionality works.

There will be more MotorStorm news coming your way very soon; in the meantime, check out the screenshots below for a tantalizing snippet of some of the great MotorStorm content coming to PlayStation Home over the coming weeks.

Next (and this is very exciting) as of tomorrow, we will be launching a new event in PlayStation Home – the Fat Princess “Quest for Cake.” Based upon the brilliant PSN title which launches today, all you have to do is click on the PlayStation Events Space chip on your World Map to join in this very special confectionary quest.

In the fully redecorated space you will find eight pieces of cake, locked away in cages. To unlock the cake and feed your Princess you need to search the space high and low for clues. If you do manage to unlock all eight pieces of cake, and feed the Princess, a special reward will be yours – the Fat Princess’ very own throne for your personal apartment. Here are a few screenshots of the space to whet your appetite…

Finally, be sure to cruise through the Mall to check out still more updates to our lovely new stores…sources say there will be some cool new items to pick up to show your friends, both free and for sale!

See you in Home!

~CydoniaX, PlayStation Home Community Manager

Make no mistake, this mode is HUGE…it’s packed with unlocks, rewards and trophies, and has been designed to keep challenging you for as long as you want it to. How? Buckle up and I’ll divulge some (but certainly not all) of its secrets!

We were very pleased that the speed race events in Pacific Rift were so fantastically popular – they provided a great change of focus and pace from the Eliminator and Race events, and had the scope for repeated play, and for beating your own best score. While we’ll be the first to admit the formula wasn’t yet perfected, we all felt we had taken the first steps here towards something that would be absolutely stellar as a dedicated single player game mode. We decreed early on though that if we were going to revisit it, we had a few ideas to improve it, and we wanted to make sure it more fully realised it’s potential.

So the basic idea has survived pretty much intact; Start off with a bank of time (10 seconds) that’s counting down from the race start, make your way from one gate to the next as quickly as possible, each gate adding further precious seconds to your ‘banked’ time. Try to record as high a final ‘banked’ time as possible when you fly through the finish gate. So far, so good.

Well, in Speed Weekend, that’s become our qualifying race structure right there; You need to have at least 15 seconds remaining on your clock to qualify for one of the ‘easy’ races, 20 seconds for ‘medium’, and 25 seconds for the ‘hard’ race types. Beat that threshold, and that race is marked as complete on your race card. When you qualify on all 6 events for a vehicle class (2 easy, 2 medium, 2 hard) you’ll unlock a reward for that vehicle class. Work hard, get the unlocks for all 8 vehicle classes, and you’ll get a cool final pack of rewards. If you never play any further than this into the mode, you’ve just worked through 48 events! That’s probably 5-6 hours for the average MSPR player. But wait! For those willing to go the extra distance, that’s just the start…

Once you’ve qualified for an event, you unlock the Main Event version of that race. Now, as well as gates which add time, each race also features barrels strategically placed throughout the track. Any green barrels you hit are going to add extra time, 1 second per barrel. Any red barrels you hit are going to get deducted, 1 second per barrel, once you cross the finish line. This massively opens up the scoring opportunities, and the strategic decisions, facing the player. Do you straightline through those red barrels to save time now and take the penalty later? Do you veer off your racing line in pursuit of extra green barrels? Do you maybe ignore the barrels and concentrate instead on the quickest line between gates?

On bikes and ATVs, there are green bonus time barriers to duck under and buried red barrels that need to be avoided or bunny-hopped over (and duck and hop controls are assigned to L1 and R1 for this mode to make life easier for everyone)! Chances are your moment-to-moment strategy is going to need to accommodate all of those options and more, because your focus now isn’t beating our pre-defined thresholds, it’s beating your friends.

Before each main event the game presents the player with a friends-focused leaderboard. These are the up-to-the-minute times set by people on your friends list; your target time to beat is always going to be the buddy who’s directly above you on the leaderboard. Maybe he got more green barrels than you managed, maybe he went penalty-free and avoided all the red barrels. Either way, you go in, you race, race, race, and when you beat his time, the system automatically sends an update to his machine and next time he turns on the game, he’s going to see that YOU’VE now beaten HIS time! The dreaded red helmet icon on your progress chart tells you that your time has been beaten by one of your mates – which means you’ve slid down your friends leaderboard, and he’s just climbed closer to the top! This is such a compulsive feature, and makes the mode massively addictive – the months of playtesting here in the office have seen friendships turn into bitter, swear-laden rivalries as day after day, week after week, someone pushes the top score that little bit higher – and everyone else gets notified of it, and gets to work trying to beat it. The office swear-box has never had so much cash in it!

For us, this has always been the main focus of Speed Weekend. This is what’s going to keep you playing time and time again, day after day, improving your scores, and beating the best efforts of your buddies. We’ve worked hard to tune the experience so that this inter-friend rivalry as heated and compelling as possible. It soon becomes all about the strategies you pursue in each race; once you realise that you can slam into one barrel and propel it into others to get a ‘domino’ effect going, the scoring possibilities are opened wide. Of course, this also means one green barrel can hit a whole mess of red ones and scupper your best laid plans – so at the highest levels of competition there are multiple factors to take into account and the angle you hit every barrel can make all the difference to whether you’ll be the Top Dog or just a Middling Mongrel amongst you and your buddies.

So, be sure to grab a copy of Expansion: SPEED (coming soon), a couple of like-minded buddies, and warn your family and friends that you may soon be turning the air blue with foul language! Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines; the Speed Weekend is about to begin…

In each of the new expansions there are 3 brand new tracks, playable in all online modes, and offline in Time Attack, Free Play, and Split Screen. Let’s take in the holiday brochure descriptions of the new locations, pack by pack.

First off, the Expansion: Speed tracks;

Quicksands –

The sea breeze in your racing leathers, the sand in your face, crystal clear seawater in your gas tank…Quicksands isn’t just sun-kissed, it’s sun-smooched-on-the-doorstep-and-put-out-on-the-first-date. When ‘beautiful azure waters’ sits so close to ‘brutal, deadly crossovers’ in the brochure description, you’ll be saying, “Wish you were here,” while wishing you were somewhere else at the same time.

Darkfire Swamp –

No sooner was this swamp-based track completed than Mother Nature decided to do some heavy handed redesign. With fissures opened up along its length, long-stagnant pools drained and dried, and deadly molten lava rolling in for some hot pool party action, the MotorStorm organizers decided it was the best redesign EVER.

Engorged –

Through an impossibly narrow chasm where sunlight rarely shines, natures torrents carve new, untamed-able routes for her disciples to follow. Big boulders, fast waters and epic vistas; this track satisfies every appetite. One to really gorge on, you’ll need a hunger for survival – get ready to jump to the main course.

Moving onto Expansion: Adrenaline;

Reef Runner – The world’s downright-prettiest boat graveyard, Reefrunner combines hard, fast sand flats, wide coastal shallows and a lightning-fast, foliage-packed jungle sprint. Lightweights should look to hop over the sand banks, heavyweights can tear through the shallows, and everyone else can stick to the middle routes while trying to apply the sunblock and get their swimming trunks on for the post-race beach party.

Brimstone – Spurred on by a love of all things stupid and deadly, the hardcore lunatics united and set up this battlefield of a racetrack. Located inside an unstable volcanic wasteland, Brimstone offers smoking craters, sulphurous lakes, and deadly underground lava tubes. Hell above and Hell below makes this a hell of a good place to stage a race.

Hollowed Earth – At the top of the Island lies the racetrack at the bottom of the world. Built in and around a cavernous and complex natural cave system, Hollowed Earth demands fast reactions, racing discipline, and the ability not to think about the millions of tons of unstable volcanic rock directly above your head. A torch and a mining helmet probably wouldn’t go amiss, either.

As you may well know by now, each expansion pack also re-introduces familiar tracks in entirely new ways. Dubbed as ‘Track Variants’, there are 8 in total, selected from the most popular online tracks, and all given the ‘Volcanic’ subtitle. Rather than just tweaking the tracks by adding a few routes here and closing a few others off there with barriers or fencing, we’ve chosen to theme these redesigns around the idea of the Island going fully volcanic! Imagine lava Bombs spattering the track, erupting volcanoes, ash falling in the air, lava spewing across racing lines, the whole works! Each of these tracks features different degrees of ‘natural interference’ ; at one end of the scale we have The Edge Volcanic, which as an Air track isn’t going to see too much direct Lava interference, but is going to have its racing lines significantly affected by huge chunks of molten rocks smashing all over the track. At the other extreme, Earth and Fire tracks like Rift Volcanic and Scorched Volcanic show just what can happen at ground zero when the fires of hell spill out over the raceways! Lava levels rise, mud fields bake and crack, standing water evaporates, and tracks you think you know all too well suddenly provide an altogether different racing experience! We’re hoping you’re going to love the variety and surprises these new tracks provide, and that you’ll all enjoy getting your head around the new strategic racing approaches they require!

Next time, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the massive new single/multiplayer experience that is Speed Weekend, debuting in the Expansion: Speed pack! Keep those motors running!