Time to set your watch, as yet another bowling game has been released. Beyond the seemingly clockwork annual releases of bowling games, the genre has another curious common thread running through it: most bowling games are pretty second-rate. The recent release of Championship Bowling for the Xbox is no exception to this streak of mediocrity; its unsophisticated controls, stingy list of gameplay modes, and lack of depth are bolstered only slightly by a couple of funny character designs and some decent physics. The result is a game that even diehard bowling nuts should avoid.
There are a few things to like in Championship Bowling. The game's controls are immediately easy to grasp; you aim with the left analog stick and set your ball down the lane using a three-button-press shot meter, which controls both the power and accuracy of your shot (you can also add spin with the triggers). Additionally, there are a couple of interesting character designs found among the game's roster of stereotypical character types--our favorites being a fairly shameless unlockable rip-off of Jeff Bridges' character from The Big Lebowski; a sweet, grandmotherly type; and a sullen, hooded teenager type named, get this, Kid X. Honestly, though, we're not sure if we like the latter two examples because they are particularly funny or because our sense of irony is kicked into high gear at the moment. Finally, beyond the occasional curiosity--such as the ball furiously spinning even after it's come to rest at the back of the lane--the physics in Championship Bowling are decent. The bowling pins tend to fall in a suitably random fashion, and it's not uncommon to see a final standing pin tipped over at the last moment by one of its fallen cousins, nailing that spare you were hoping for.
Each of Championship Bowling's high points, however, has a disappointing flipside. For example, the three-button control scheme makes you, as the player, feel especially disconnected from your player--you hit the A button three times, watch the animation unfold, and that's about it. With mechanics like this, is it any wonder that the best bowling games are those found on cell phones? Wouldn't it be cool if the motion of your throwing arm was somehow tied to the right analog stick on the Xbox? Unfortunately, that's not the case here, and it didn't take long for us to get really bored with the detached nature of the game's controls. Of course, it doesn't help that the game's cast of characters are mostly lame, personality-free caricatures--the goth girl, the hot chick, the Russian redneck (okay, that last one isn't so bad). The few lines of dialogue that each character spouts are similarly uninspired. Finally, while the basics of the game's physics feel okay, they're not perfect. You rarely get that pin-shattering impression of power, for example, even when playing with the strongest characters in the game.
In terms of features, Championship Bowling is pretty bare bones. Its single-player game is divided between open bowling and tournament modes. Open bowling is where the game's multiplayer options can be found--up to four players can join in on the same Xbox--but, unfortunately, there isn't any online multiplayer to speak of. You make your way through the tournament modes, playing in environments ranging from the relaxed, open-air lanes of Hawaii to the bullet-riddled lanes of Detroit, and unlocking new characters to play with as you go. The environments themselves are serviceable, if not particularly inspired, and you'll see background characters repeat throughout the environments (such as in the shirtless guy from the Hawaiian lanes showing up in Detroit's seedy Bowl-a-Rama). Multiple camera angles add some variety to the shots themselves, but the fact that you can't skip or fast forward through the shots of the artificially intelligent opponent quickly becomes annoying and ends up making 10 frames feel more like 50.
The drab environments aren't helped at all by the generally drab character animations. While it's true that each bowler has a slightly different release, none of them look that good to start with--they're too stiff, too stilted, and too repetitive to merit much praise. On the audio front, Championship Bowling gets the basics right--the sound of the ball rolling down the lane is fine, as is the crash of the pins when the ball strikes. The game's soundtrack is hit or miss--the hard-driving metal songs sound like rejects from an off-road racing game, but some of the more toned-down tunes have a nice bluesy, lazy-Sunday-afternoon feel that suits the setting just fine.
In all, Championship Bowling's bland look and feel results in a rapid onset of boredom when playing the game. One of these days, a developer--defying convention at a peculiarly obsessive level--will spend an inordinate amount of time and effort coming up with a version of bowling that perfectly interprets the unique mechanics of the sport into a fun and engrossing video game. Think Rockstar's Table Tennis translated to the lanes. Until then, we'll have to sift through dull efforts like this one, which are simply going through the motions, hoping to hook the curious and uninformed.
