Hello everyone! Team RamRod here, the developers of High Velocity Bowling. Today we break our long silence with an equally long blog post.
To give you some background on the HVB development team, we are a small team who works on several projects. As some of you know, Big Ern has left our neck of the woods (we still miss him). But, the team has since picked up the reins and is now leading a new charge for HVB.
A lot of you have been asking about HVB, and we are here to deliver great news. We are pleased to announce that we putting the finishing touches on a new update for HVB, which will hit the PlayStation Network TOMORROW! Excited? Well, the best part of this is that the new update – all new features included – is FREE! For our brothers and sisters in the north, that means FREE for you, too.
HEAD-TO-HEAD ONLINE PLAY! VOICE CHAT COMMUNICATION! WEEKLY ONLINE LEADERBOARDS!
We can hear you now … “Wait, what? Really? I get online play in the update? Will it support my Playstation Friends List?” YES to all of the above. You will now be able to play with your friends online AND be able to chat with them using a PS3 headset or microphone. Feel free to chat and talk smack after comparing your stats and rankings on the online leaderboards that will be updated weekly.
PSN TROPHIES!
Yup! PSN Trophies – 12 new shiny and purty trophies (7 bronze, 4 silver and 1 gold trophy). The only way to earn these is to play online (fortunately, we added that too, ‘cause we’re awesome!). If you’re worried you don’t have the skills, don’t stress — if you’re persistent enough, you will still be able to earn most, if not all, of these as well. Here’s the list:
BRONZE:
- Score 180 or higher in an online game.
- Achieve an online rating of 1600 or more.
- Knock down a total of 500 pins in online games.
- Get 10 strikes in online games.
- Get 15 spares in online games.
- Win an online game.
- Play 3 online games.
SILVER:
- Score 250 or higher in an online game.
- Knock down a total of 5000 pins in online games.
- Get 25 wins in online games.
- Get 75 strikes in online games.
GOLD:
- Get 150 strikes in online games.
PLAYLISTS WITH IMPROVED AUDIO!
You can access the XMB while in-game for your own custom soundtracks, with support for playlists. We had custom music before, but were not able to incorporate playlists. Now with the new XMB custom music feature, you can bowl while listening to a mix of Beethoven, Frank Zappa, Britney Spears, Weird Al Yankovic, Gregorian Chants and Nirvana! And with the improved audio options, you’ll be able to crank up your tunes, character voices, and ambient sounds, OR turn them off altogether!
MORE TRICK SHOTS!
That’s right, we’ve included a section on the menu to start posting additional trick shot challenges. You’ll be given two new challenges with your update, and additional trick shots will be created for download in the future. These challenges will not only help you earn patches that you missed out on during your normal gameplay, but get you more stars for the leaderboards!
NEW BALL BAGS!
We’ve added a new and more realistic Ball Bag system in HVB. You can only bring four balls with you onto the lane in each bag, so you’ll have to choose wisely. You can name and save up to 24 different ball bags so you don’t have to individually choose four balls every time that you want to play. Be sure to mix and match so that there are some good hooking balls and some good straight rollers in your bag. This way, you’ll be prepared for any oil pattern or pin leave!
ALLEY SELECTION!
You can now choose which lane to play on (as long as you’re not in a tournament). This means that you can play in Spider’s Garage, Tiffany’s Toybox, the Zen Garden, or wherever you want!
NEW ADD-ON CONTENT
We are going to continue to provide new content for HVB. This content will include more sinister Trick Shots, more wacky characters, cool bowling balls and quirkier costumes.
Anxious to get your game on and strike it up? These exciting new features for HVB will truly make your bowling experience fun. We made the extra efforts to make sure we delivered a lot of fun into a whole lot of FREE for our devoted fans! Please make sure you continue to check back here for future updates on HVB. You’ve all waited so patiently for more – we’ll be sure to make it worth your wait!
Until next time!
Team RamRod
Nice although i expected the INGAME SCREENCAPTURE to be part of this update..
ok. cool i guess.
does anyone know if home will be recieving after 2.5
Very nice! I got this game. I always play it with my little sister. The controls are a real draw for this game.
Cool beans, I might have to check this out. Online is a major bonus.
Wow! What a nice FREE update. One of my first PSN downloads, too.
This is so cool!
Thanks!
:P
OMG I swear I was just cursing you guys a a while ago in a thread about online never coming to HVB and here you are giving us trophies/online/add on content/etc. :( I’m sorry.
Nice update, I guess now I have reason to play this game, LOL I have this game already but before had no one to play this at home…
Let me know when we can turn off the sixaxis motion control then I may consider redownloading it.
Sweet. Online play was always what this game was missing. One thing I’d love to see is some sort of implementation of avatars. It’s fine to have the wacky characters, especially during solo play, but it’s distracting for multiplayer. I’d say it’s the only thing that Wii bowling has over HVB now that you’ve got online play.
nice! I got this game a while back and its been collecting dust. Definitely gave me incentive to pick it up. Also gives me incentive to get a few friends to buy it as well.
Very nice additions! It’s great that you’re giving us these updates free, you could have easily charged a few bucks for some of them. I look forward to returning to the game with some friends and racking up spares and trophies!
Wow, nice surprise!
nice…better late then never, brings new life to the game, love the six axis implementation…maybe we can get nariko or kratos to bowl in hvb sometime lol
I also want to add how impressed I am at the commitment developers have had with psn games. Even when I am satisfied with a game,you guys continually add updates and improvements that keep me coming back for more. Great job
Fantastic update… I find it amusing that small devs are truly focusing on giving consumers the best gaming experiences while other devs are pretty much ignoring their users completely, i’m looking at you Singstar devs.
Nice! I hadn’t played my copy in a while because I had beaten all but that last bowler (The asian guy, forgot his name), online matches should definitely get me to play more often! Also those trophies are just about right, though the silver one of scoring at least 250 is going to be a challenge. I don’t think I’ve ever scored above 220 yet…
Good stuff! But… I think I’ll choose not to update. I really suck at this game (seriously, can’t even clear the very first set of challenges) even though I find it fun. So I don’t wish to see HVB on my trophy list forever at 0%. :(
Nice update. I will strongly consider a purchase now.
This is a welcomed surprise, the wife and I love this game, thx much for the continued support, I thought you lot left it by the wayside :)
AWWWESSOMME!!!
My girlfriend and i play this all the time, and now we can get trophies for it!
i’m glad you didn’t forget about us!
and we can choose our lanes to play on? nice!
THIS IS APPRECIATED!
thanks!
:)
looks good, might interest me into buying it now that it has online play
I’m quite pleased that I purchased the game during the summer special. Time to dust off my…wait that’s not going to come out right. :lol:
Tomorrow is a day that I look forward to. You guys took your time but I’d say, it looks to be worth it. Thanks!
Very nice update
@1, it was an unexpected update. And really? Do you really want to take in-game pictures of HVB? HVB and bowling in general is fun to play, but not incredible to watch. I’m very happy with all the stuff added.
awwwww…ONLINE ONLY TROPHIES?!?!?!
are you kidding me?
that sucks…
so my girlfriend and i can’t play each other to get trophies?!??!!?
man that really sucks, all this win, and now this???
who the heck thought of online only trophies??!?!?! horrible idea…
*shakes head forlornly*
HELL YES!!!!!!!!!!!
This is awesome news!!!!!!!!!
Thanks so much for bringing this online with voice chat.
SEE! Now I can finally stop answering questions for you Mike. I told you guys he was busy!
GOOD JOB!
lol @ Travis!
Hey travis, could you PLEASE go back into PAIN and make the trophies harder? They are waaaay too easy!
Sarcasm Detector
Low ::::::::::::::::::::||:: High
lol
Outstanding, thanks for the hard work. I bought this awhile back and it felt a little barren, but this update justifies my purchase. :)
Does head to head online play using our friends list mean there are friends Game Invites? How does this work… how many friends can we invite to a game?
I love all the free updates to this game by the way, HVB is a great game.
I know you guys have a small-ish team, but can the team please consider adding in Sony Eye support for chat, video stream or photo ops of our winning/losing moments ala Burnout: Paradise?
Hello nmc75,
I\’m happy that you like HVB and you are as excited as we are that the Online update is finally here. =)
As to your questions. Head to head online play is just that, 1 on 1. It\’s really easy to use your PSN Friends list to find out which Online Lobbies, or \”Bowling Alleys\” your friends are playing in. Once you join them in the same alley, you can challenge them from there.
As for the EYE camera support, though it has been discussed, we ultimately had to trim our workload down and focus our efforts on finishing our Online mode.
I hope you enjoy the update tomorrow!
Mike