Introduction: We all had a blast playing the bowling section of Wii Sports, and like many of the other games in that compendium, it left a lot of us wanting a bit more. We wanted the pick-up-ability and fun of Wii bowling, but with a bit more depth. It's taken 505 Games with the backing of Brunswick (a big name in the North American 10 pin bowling arena in case you didn't know) quite a while to produce a contender, and maybe it's missed the boat a bit.

GamePlay: The game mode of choice is of course going to be career mode. Faced with the obligatory 'design your bowler' section, you can kit your character out in various shirts, hats, shoes and glasses as well as choose their body style - slender or curvy for women, athletic or husky (which seems to be a rather quaint American phrase for 'a bit on the chubby side') for men. You'll quickly notice that virtually everything in the shop is out of your reach pricewise so let's go earn some money!
Well - no, you can't yet.

What you've got to do first is play six league nights (where there is no prize money) before you're allowed to enter your first tournament. And as each game takes around 30 minutes we're talking about 3 hours of gameplay before that will happen. This is not a game for people wanting instant gratification! Sure, you are allowed to forfeit a league night but the league goes on without you so your standing in the league will drop and of course you won't be building up those precious skill points.
So, with gritted teeth I slogged through the six matches to my first tournament. To be honest my bowling improved until I was getting 150 - 200 scores in each game (except when 'fatigue' kicked in and the game decided to trash my last frame each time).

Up for grabs are skill points which will enhance your bowler: Arm Strength allows you to bowl heavier and faster balls, Accuracy presumably makes it more likely the ball will go where you aim it, Hook Control allows you to spin or hook the ball, Stamina maintains arm strength and control throughout the game and Reputation gives you access to additional tournaments and head-to-head challenges.

A lot of attention is given to 'oil patterns' on the lanes. Now, as a purely casual bowler, I've never even come across this feature, but apparently the type of oil pattern will dictate how you should bowl & what sort of ball to use. Pressing '2' will show you the pattern on the lane. Unfortunately although it is deemed to be very important, no real explanation of how to interpret the patterns is given - with vague hints such as 'just follow the shot inside when the ball starts to hook more' which might mean something to a league bowler but just had me going 'huh?' Some sort of animated demo of a bowler and the effect the pattern had on the ball would have been most welcome. Maybe later in the game when you have more control of the ball this would become more evident, but if that is the case then it might have been better to introduce it at that stage to avoid overwhelming the casual player.

So, I was finally into my first tournament - time to earn some big bucks and buy that nice shiny pro ball. Unfortunately I was knocked out in the second round. And unfortunately you can't retry - its back to league night and another 3 hours of play before you're allowed another tournament. Cursing and swearing I played a couple more games then lost patience and forfeited the rest to get to the next prize night. This time I did much better, losing in the semi finals (after about four rounds). The pleasure of getting that far was short-lived as I realised I still wasn't going to get any prize money and I was back to league night again. And, I'm not sorry to say, that's when Brunswick Pro Bowling came out of the Wii and back into its box - never to see the light of day again.

Control: Well - there's only one way to bowl a bowling ball, so no prizes for guessing the movements required. They are basically the same as Wii bowling. And here I had a very frustrating couple of minutes trying to get my bowler to launch the ball. The manual states 'Press B and raise the controller to your chest'. Yes - but that doesn't actually work: you have to bring it to your chest & then press B, at which point he/she will change stance ready to bowl.

In what seems like an effort to make sure the control method is not exactly the same as Wii bowling the D-pad only controls target angle. The position is controlled by pressing 'B' and rotating your wrist left and right. This sort of works but is prone to over-shoot and if you forget to press 'A' to start bowling & just raise the controller to your chest you'll find your still in 'positioning' mode & your targeting line will wiggle all over the lane, requiring you to set it all over again.

Your bowling action is not directly linked to the action of your character on screen. Basically you swing back & that triggers the bowler to start his or her approach. You can then immediately swing back forward again but the character will obviously not bowl the ball until they get to the foul line. While this is completely understandable, it did feel a little odd at first - so much so that I generally keep my arm back until my guy reaches the line & then bring my arm back down in synch with his. Not necessary, but it feels right.

Wii sports bowling let you do a lot with the ball depending on your action. Try as I could, I couldn't get the same sort of response from this game. I could bowl a totally awful ball using a ridiculous amount of sideways movement, but nothing of any use. It appears to me that, at least in the early stages of the game, you can't really do a lot to control the ball so it's just down to bowling on the right line. Even then this won't always deliver a good result as the game seemingly arbitrarily decides whether to give you a strike or not.

Graphics: Graphics are OK but not brilliant, with opponents that all look more or less the same and fixed happy / sad animations. Amusingly the female animations are much more restrained than for the guys - the men will punch the air in delight whereas the ladies just seem to give themselves a polite little clap! And all of the characters perform exactly the same animations, so they rapidly become very tired. I experienced several moments of déjà-vu when I was sure I had played the same opponent twice - with the only differences seeming to be what each player was wearing.

There's some nice reflection off the alley floor and the more colourful balls look good rolling down it as the spin unwinds. Repetitive strike / spare animations that are the same for your bowler as all others (maybe male/female variation)

There are tacky 2D effects for strike / spare / turkey etc which you can't skip so also get boring very quickly. The effects are sort of in keeping with what you see on a real lane, with pins marching across the screen with 'strike' placards, or a rolling tire for a 'spare'.

Sound & Music: Musically the same is atrocious - there are a couple of awful background tracks that sounded like the ones you might get in a 'teach yourself guitar' play-along book. The music sound level was very quickly set to zero. However this makes the ambient sounds more audible which, while adequate, very noticeably loop every 6 or 7 seconds.
The sound effects for the tumbling pins is OK although bear little resemblance to the actual way in which they fall - you'll get the same sort of sound whether you trundle the ball into them at a slow walking pace or really whack them.

And then there is the special loud 'strike' sound which you'll get then all pins go over. Well - actually the sound is triggered as you hit the first pin so you'll know immediately whether you've got a strike or not. Even if you've got pins flying everywhere - if you didn't hear the special sound you're not getting a strike. It just struck me as the developers being a little lazy.

Final Comments: Brunswick Pro Bowling just didn't do it for me. I really liked playing Wii Sports Bowling and maybe that game's ease of use spoiled this one for me. But I really tried hard to get something from this game - coming back to it again and again in the hope that I would see a better gaming experience start to unfold. It just didn't happen - lack of progression, sloppy presentation and the need for hours and hours of bowling before anything even vaguely interesting occurs means this will be one for the bargain bin only.

Pro: If you are OK spending hours & hours building up your player then you might enjoy it.
Con: Tiresome, turgid and tedious. Little visible evidence of progression.
Final Score: 3.0 (4.0 if your seriously into bowling and have a lot of patience)

Reviewed by: Douglas Andrews