"World Bowling" (Game Boy)

Fun bowling game for the Game Boy, though at times can result in improper results to prevent from getting a perfect game.

For as long as I've been a sports fan, I also became a bowling fan. In fact, so much a fan that I succinctly pursued the sport seriously to the point where I feel that I wanted to be a professional bowler. I'd wake up very early Sunday mornings to catch live broadcasts of the Professional Bowling Association—PBA on ESPN to watch match plays between the top bowlers in the country, and even the world. My personal favorite bowlers? They'd have to be Tommy Jones and Robert Smith, with a dash of Pete Weber. Those gentlemen are power players—bowlers who know how to destroy the pins the moment they throw the ball on the lane. Yeah, I'm no stranger to the sport.

Sellers of this game see this as a *rare* game. How? Why? There's no reason to buy this game, complete with box, for more than $10. It's those sports games that are in low demand and aren't in the "retro-gamers-are-clamoring-for-a-copy" section of selling (this is in comparison to other sports games like Tecmo [Super] Bowl). Once again, one offended seller will read this and will send me a snarky email calling me cheap and not knowing value when I see it. If you're one of those people, let me know, and I'll let the video gaming universe show you're one of those greedy sellers on the internet. Our emails are open 24/7, so go ahead; Challenge us why you need to overprice such a game.

The price you pay in exchange for this isn't much worth it. For a sport that I especially love, next to basketball, I feel saddened by that reality.

Immediately, you have the choice to choose a male or a female bowler, then choose the weight of the bowling ball you want to play with. Apparently, the male bowler bowls consistently when playing with a 12-pound or 15-pound ball, while the female bowls better with a lighter ball, namely the 7-pound or the 9-pound ball. I can hear SJWs—Social Justice Warriors—spamming my email box saying, "wow this is a sexist game cause we, females, are capable of bowling and handling heavier balls. We should boycott the company that made this." I wish I made that up.

Once you choose your player, you see six country flags: Japan, China, United States, Canada, France and England. Below their flags are numbers representing the scores you need to get to beat to carry on to the next country. The highest is England at 250, meaning you have to bowl a score of over 250 to beat the game. If this was real life, I'd feel the pressure but would feel confident in such a challenge (my highest bowling score ever is 265, which I bowled in league back in August 4, 2005). Since you have to bowl on this game, it's easier said than done.

Starting off your world tour in Japan, you always start off with a practice shot. The unfortunate thing is you only get one, yes ONE, practice shot before the real game starts. Like match play on the PBA, you have one game to make it happen. You may end having to practice a few times before you find your sweet spot.

On the left of the screen, from top to bottom, is the number of players, the frame number, the graphical animation of the ball rolling towards the pins, the CONTROL and the POWER meters and the profile image of your bowler, who occasionally emotes during gameplay. On the right side of the screen is the top view of the lane where you set your adjustments by arrows, and on the bottom is the most current, recorded high score.

Play any way you're comfortable with, whether you like throwing the big curve ball, known as "hook", or throw it hard and straight. Me, personally, I play the straight line by the first arrow hooking to the headpin, Norm Duke style. To translate that in simple terms, I line up my player at the extreme right edge of the lane, having him throw at the first arrow, on the right, then curve the ball toward the headpin—the first pin at the absolute front of the other 9 pins. Testing the controls, the bowler seems to throw the ball in a straight line, then depending on the setting of the CONTROL meter, the ball will curve to that very direction—left or right, or if you stop the marker on the middle, the ball will be thrown straight. All that confused me at first but I understood it now.

The CONTROL meter, wherever you mark it, is where the ball will curve to. This means that if you have the 10 pin left, you'd be throwing a "back-up" ball toward it—possibly the most bizarre thing in this game (from the back shot, the bowler holds the ball with his/her right hand). As for the POWER meter, this depicts more of the speed than "power." If I learned anything in bowling, real life, that is, the ball thrown depends on lane conditions and the application of the oil patterns: speed is a must or speed kills. Luckily, this game bares no depiction on oil patterns on the lanes because if it does, it'll complicate and possibly frustrate a lot of players, especially those not experienced in the sport.

Anything else? That's all, now GO BOWLING. Since this game relies on the consistency of the meters and a little luck, it's very much hold your breath and hope you strike. There are times when I hit the same exact spot on the meters, and instead of striking, it hits 9 pins, leaving me a single pin to hit for a spare. Oh, speaking of scoring, strikes score higher and better than spares, open frames and gutter balls. However, if you didn't throw a strike, you're better off with a spare.

If you score a 9/—9 spare—all the way, your final score will be a 198. If you score a strike-spare, strike-spare, you'll score what's called a Dutch 200. To score a perfect 300, you'll need 12 strikes in a row. LOTS of people get confused with the 10th frame, so here: entering the first try of the 10th frame, if you throw a strike, you get a second chance; if you throw a second strike, YOU GET A THIRD CHANCE. If you struck in the first chance, but didn't on the second, your spare eliminates the chance for a third try. If you made a spare first, the second chance is your last chance on the 10th frame. If you didn't convert a spare on the first chance, the frame is done and you don't get a second chance.

My highest score on this game? It's a 247, and here's proof of it. The sad part was it was only against Japan:



Consistency is key, but sometimes the pins and the ball itself don't play nice. Worse, there's no password for this game which means you'd have to beat the game in one sitting. That's crazy difficult, as the ball and the pins, no matter how accurate you are, don't give you the proper result. Saying that makes this a very difficult game to beat.

There's almost no forgiveness due to its inconsistent results solidifies the reason for this game's low rating. What does the ending look like? You just receive a trophy then the game repeats? Most likely. If you've beaten this game straight through, send us a link/video for proof!

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development) and video production, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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