There your character stands, looking across the alley, the alley that will define whether you are great or whether you can’t cut it. In bowling that is. That’s right, the bowling alley is waiting for you, the prominent up and coming bowler waiting to become the next great bowler of our time. Are you ready to take the challenge? In Bowling Blast, we have a faithful representation of bowling from the sound effects, to the ease of getting started and getting that coveted strike, or perhaps the ever elusive perfect 300 game.

Controls in the game are all handled by the mouse. The great thing about it is that the game shows what you need to do in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Each step from picking up the bowl, aiming the ball, determining how much power you want to use and finally the spin you want on the ball, and your done as your ball sails across your lane hopefully knocking all the pins down in the process.

That is essentially the game, as you try 10 times to knock as many pins down as possible and get a high score to be proud of. Especially if you’re not a bowler or have bowled, least you can experience some of the excitement from this game. Graphically the game looks pretty good, the different lanes around you and the actual pins and the ball look good. The animation of the bowler and the actual throwing of the ball and the pins being knocked down also look faithfully realistic like the real thing. You can even pick what colour of ball you will be using for bowling and, although not a big thing, it was still a nice feature to have.

Interestingly enough, there is music in the game just like at a real life bowling alley, but these tunes aren’t just generic tunes, they are actual songs recorded by some musicians with vocals too. That was really nice to hear and the tunes themselves, while a bit questionable, they do fit in with the game and really were nice to hear as you play the game.

There is only one character sprite used for bowling and it would have been nice to have had some more choices. Also some of the sound bites of your character are a bit low I thought. Could have used a bit more volume. Also there is no multiplayer in the game which was disappointing as in this sort of game it would be nice to bowl with a friend or even over the net, but a one player game is all you get with this title.

Still it was a faithful representation of the sport and if you’re a fan of bowling you should enjoy this game, so check out Bowling Blast and see it for yourself.