The Nintendo Wii and bowling go together like ham and eggs, strawberries and cream, or buffet tables and wheels! Never has a console been perfect for any given sport than that of bowling and the motion sensing technology of the Wii controller. Nintendo's own Wii Sports pack in proved this to be true, and now the folks over at Crave are attempting to build on what Wii Sports began. Mission accomplished? Yes and know. Read on to find out why.
Brunswick Pro Bowling is a bowling simulation. This game is not even close to the Wii Sports bowling game when it comes to "pick up and playability", so you may not want to buy it if you aren't willing to put in some serious time learning some of the nuances of bowling.
Game Play
When you boot the game up you are given the option of a quick game, begin or load a career in which you "create" your own character, or to simply practice. The create a player options are sparse and your player will probably resemble nothing close to your own likeness, so you have to use your imagination. In fact I only counted 4 male options and 4 female options to choose from. Once you have chosen your character you can choose from a handful of hairstyles, (none of which look decent), facial hair, and a few shirts, and pants. Once you're avatar is all set its time to hit the lanes.
By now you have more than likely played at least a few games of Wii Sports bowling, so it may only take you a few games to get used to the differences between the two. The first thing that stood out to me was the weight of the pins. Crave was able to use the vibration function of the Wii remote to give the pins weight and it works perfectly! Basically, when the ball hits the pins the remote vibrates giving you the feeling that the ball really hit them hard, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately, in the early going the pins almost seem a bit too heavy. Some of them will rock and sway, but they will not fall down after what appeared to be "perfect throws". They do however behave more realistically than the pins in Wii Sports Bowling.
While in career mode you have the following options: Choose event, view statistics, practice, and visit the pro shop. In the beginning of your career you will only have league night events opened to you. You compete against other bowlers in 3 game matches. As you win matches and complete other milestones your player will begin to "level up" in power, spin control, stamina, and accuracy. What's strange is that "stamina" is never really discussed in the manual so you don't really know how to counteract it. Should you rest by skipping matches or what? The practice option is cool because you can choose to leave any combination of pins standing, so you can practice those difficult spare pick ups.
Control
Controlling your bowler and ball is fairly easy because it functions for the most part just like Wii Sports Bowling. You hold down the B button to begin your throw, then thrust it forward and let go to complete it. The differences come when you are setting up your shot. To move your bowler around the lane you hold down the B button, then tilt your wrist left or right to "slide" him back and forth. Why they didn't give the bowlers a simple walking animation is beyond me, because the sliding just looks silly. Once you have your feet lined up you can move the D pad left or right to aim your throw. Now this is all well and good but I have found a glitch in the aiming that could potentially ruin the game for just about everyone. About 70% of the time when you are trying to line up your bowler to the very far left of the lane the game will stop you at the second to last mark. I initially thought the game was giving me a hint about where I should stand, but it kept happening and it only occurred on that side of the lane. This glitch made picking up the ten pin consistently just about impossible!
Graphics & Sound
While Wii Sports went for the "cartoony" look Brunswick Pro Bowling went for the realistic look, and while the lanes look okay the player models leave a lot to be desired. The lanes look decent but they could stand to be a little brighter and shinier. I expected the pins to look better as they suffer from jaggies when the camera gets too close. I would have liked the option to view manual replays instead of the automatic replays because the camera views are usually pretty bad. The player models are blocky and look like they were ported from an early PS2 game. From a distance it isn't too bad, but you will find yourself pressing A quite a bit to skip the horrible cut scenes and hokie animations.
The sound is passable, and since this is only a bowling game its kind of hard to mess that up. You may want to take advantage of the option to turn off the cheesy bowling lane music. You will know when you've thrown a strike by the sound of the ball hitting the pins, which I found kind of funny. The sound occurs about a half second before all of the pins have fallen.
Overall
So, should you buy this game or not? Well those that were hoping Brunswick Pro Bowling would pick up where Wii Sports Bowling left off may be a little disappointed. Because this game was geared more towards a simulation, it isn't as accessible for the casual fan of the sport. The casual fan that made Wii Sports Bowling a smash hit will be put off by the complexity of trying to read oil patterns, as well as trying to determine which ball to use. They will also become frustrated when the ball doesn't do what they expect it to do. This ramped up difficulty wouldn't be bad if the game actually taught you along the way. Instead all we are get are different bowling terms during load screens. Brunswick Pro Bowling is not a bad game, but it is only for the "hardcore" bowler. Wii Sports Bowling aficionados need not apply.
Game Play: 6 out of 10
Control: 6 out of 10
Graphics: 6 out of 10
Sound: 6 out of 10
Overall Score: 6 out of 10
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