0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bowling

        

Bowling also know as Simple 1500 Series vol.18 The Bowling in Japan, is a first person sports game focussed around ten pin bowling. The game was developed by Tamsoft and published by Agetec and A1 Games for its North American release, the game was published by D3 Publisher in Japan.

The game released first in Japan on the 18^th of November 1999, with a North American release of the game not coming until 2001. In 2009 the game also received a re release in North America with the game appearing on both the PSP and PS3, both of these releases were published by D3 Publisher of America.

Bowling is a pretty basic Ten Pin Bowling game with three modes for the player to choose from. The first up is your standard Ten Pin Bowling game which can accommodate up to 4 human players alternating between each of the players. The multiplayer element to the game can be played with up to 4 human player it can also be played against AI controlled opponents

The second mode of play are Quest Games, this mode has the computer assemble 3 pins in different combinations to test the players skill this mode has sets of 3 pins that are presented to the player in succession The final mode on offer is the Special game mode, this is an entirely now mode of Bowling in which the player has three opportunities to knock down 45 pins instead of the usual 10 pins.

The game is viewed from a first person perspective, the game has no camera controls with the player locked into the view of down the bowling lane. Before making your shot the player can adjust the position of the bowler, the position the players bowler is shown as a red arrow point down the lane.

The player is able to adjust the power of their shot, the current power level is displayed by a power bar at the bottom of the screen, the power bar moves from left to right, with the left being a weak shot, while the far right is you more powerful shot.

The player can set how much power they want on their shot by pressing up or down on the D-Pad to increase or decrease the power level. Once happy with your power level you can being your shot by pressing the X button. The timing bar will then replace the power bar, this bar has a rapidly moving red line, with a stationary white line in the middle of the timing bar, the aim is to step the red bar on or as close to the white bar as possible.

Once you have stopped the red bar by pressing the X button your shot will commence once the ball has been released the player is able to change the balls direction, this is done with the L1 or R1 shoulder buttons. Once the shot has been complete a display in the top right of the screen will show which pins have been knocked down and which still remain standing. At the bottom of the screen is the score card showing the players scores for each round with the overall total one the far right of the score sheet.

With the game releasing in North America long after it’s initial release in Japan the number of critic reviews for the game are limited, with just four available and only three from the time the game release. Critically while the game did receive one good review the other three were pretty poor.

As usual we will start with the best of them which comes form PSX Nation, with the reviewer finding the game the best $10 offering from Agetec’s budget line-up released on Playstation so far. With the reviewer highly recommending the game to bowling veterans and newcomers alike.

The reviewer concluded by saying. "Bowling" doesn't pretend to be much more than an affordable and unlicensed virtual recreation of an American pastime, and it succeeds at what it does. In their 83 rated review of Bowling.

PSM Magazine are next up and we see a significant drop in review score for this down to an above average 60 review score. The reviewer commented on the emerging budget lines that are hitting the PSOne, they continued by saying.

Be forewarned that you can still find better bowling sims in your game shop's bargain bin for the same price, maybe even cheaper. They continued by saying, Heck even Tekken Bowling, a hidden mode in Tekken Tag Tournament on PS2 is just as good. Concluding the reviewer said, But if you just want a basic game of bowling and don't want to go digging, this one's worth a shot.

All Game Guide are the penultimate review, and we find another significant drop in review score, now down to a below average 40. The reviewer finding it hard to say much about the game due to its being extremely shallow in the features department.

They continued by saying. In fact, the game is about as deep as some of the bowling mini-games you will find in games like Super Monkey Ball 2 and Tekken Tag Tournament (which happen to be much more eye-appealing). To conclude the review said, Then again, for gamers just looking for simple tenpin simulation, Bowling is worth a roll once or twice.

Random Access are the final review for the game, and the most recent review with this one coming in September of 2014 and their poor 25 rated review. the reviewer finding Bowling to be a not very fun, with the reviewer comparing it to Bowling from Wii Sports.

The reviewer has major issues with the actual Bowling and had the following to say. the way your ball actually travels down the lane is determined by a quickly scrolling bar where you have to press a button to stop it right in the middle.

It's difficult to be accurate because that cursor is shuffling like a jumpstyler in 2008, and stopping too far to the left or right will cause your ball to defy the laws of physics and suddenly veer off into the gutter halfway down the lane. Concluding the review said, I'm not playing this anymore. I'm instead curling up in the fetal position, then being rolled down a bowling lane into ten pins of dysphoria.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of Bowling you will be looking at just 5 cents for your copy from Gamedude. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of the game your will be looking at an outlay of just $2.

Next up is Retrogames.co.uk, where unsurprisingly we don’t find this North American and Japanese only release available or even listed. So we will quickly move on to eStarland.com where we find the game available with two used copies on the market.

The first copy is a disc only copy of the game, this copy will set you back $2.23. The second copy that is on offer is a complete copy of the game, this will set you back just $4.46. As well as the copies already on offer a trade in is available for this game, with up to $1.50 paid for a complete copy of the game. this price will fluctuate depending on the completeness of your copy, with a disc only copy worth just 37 cents.

Lastly we have Amazon.com where we find a very good supply of the game on offer, and we find two good condition and complete copies almost straight away, these copies are priced up at $4.97 and $4.99. We also find a very good condition copy on the first page of listings as well, this copy is not much more expensive coming in at $5.98.

We also find another very good condition copy priced at the same price on the second page of listings as well as a third price at $6.79. Also on the second page of listings we find a professionally refurbished copy that comes complete and is in very good overall condition for $6.85

If you are looking for a better condition used copy, the first like new copy listed is priced up at $6.98, this copy however only states disc, case and manual and nothing about the games covers. There are however plenty more like new copies on the market with a good number available for less than $10.

If you however prefer your games to be new copies, there is a handful that are on the market, prices for a new copy start from $12.58, with another couple of new copies in this price range, the remaining new copies are a little more expensive, priced between $21.98 and $29.78.

Written by

P J Gibbon