First off, a disclaimer.  Because this is a review of a downloadable game, the format is going to be a little bit different.  Instead of a rating of out of 20, instead, it’ll be just three ratings:  Don’t get it, Neutral, and recommended.  Basically, it’s bad you won’t enjoy it, okay you might, good you probably will.  

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get on with the gritty emotional review (not really).  On the surface, High Velocity Bowling looks like a wiimulation (sorry, had to do that) of Wii Bowling.  But, after spending quite a bit of time with it, I can tell you two things:  It’s nothing like Wii Bowling, and with respect to that game, it is so much better.

Presentation 

Simplicity is the name of the game here.  When you first start the game, you are asked to accept the EULA (it should stop asking after the 2^nd time you’ve played the game), and you’re presented with the option menus.  There’s the expected quick play option that would allow you to instantly set up a bowling game with up to 4 players.  Once you’ve selected your bowler, and a brief loading screen, you’re immediately bowling.  And you do not even need 4 controllers!  You can have all 4 players share one controller, which is pretty great for those that only have one. 

The game will then have a little tutorial to the right that will teach you on how to play the game. 

Besides the quick play, there’re the challenges, which are I believe about 6 in all.  In order to move on to the next challenge, you have to beat the three scenarios of each challenge.

Beating a scenario will unlock the respective unlockables.  The first scenario pits you against an unlockable bowler.  Beat him or her, and you’ll unlock them for selection.  The second scenario is a bowling tournament, which consists of three bowling games, and in order to win you have to have the highest score out of the rest of the bowler.  Win the tournament and you unlock the character in the challenge costume.  

The third and final scenario of each challenge is a free-style bowling challenge.  They vary according to the challenges, but usually they ask you to accomplish a bowling task, like hitting a strike while trying to avoid an obstacle that’s directly in the middle of the bowling lane, which means you’ll have to learn how to curve your bowling balls.

In all, there are 8 bowlers to play, 6 of them unlockables, and about six challenges.  Besides the tournament mode, there’s the expected leaderboard, a trophy room for you to see trophies and patches you’ve accumulated, and a ball room to see all the balls you have.  There’s also an interesting option where you can buy characters.  For now, there aren’t any characters you can buy, but I believe new ones will come as DLC (which will probably cost money, perhaps $0.99 for a new bowler or something).  

What is missing is however an online head-to-head challenge of another player.  Although, I cannot fault the game for that, which I shall comment later.

Presentation wise, everything is very clean, and very slick.  Loading only takes a couple of second, and my entire time with this game there was no hitch in the gameplay or framerates. 

The characters themselves are as unique as they come as in the way they bowl.  They all have their unique stats, and although the latter will have better “stats” than the former characters, it’ll purely depend on how you play the game.  Although, there is one hate-or-love relationship most of you will have with the characters, and that is their comments.

As you bowl, depending on how you do, the characters will offer sometime amusing comments.  Some of you might hate it, and turn off the sound, while others will chuckle at the sly comment.  My favorite is, “The ladies always love a man with a mustache,” or something to that effect. 

The sound effect is actually pretty good.  In bowling, bowlers will tell you that there is a sound that is what is called the “perfect strike” sound.  That means that if you throw the ball at the correct velocity and direction, it will strike the pins in the right way that it’ll generate a sound that’s deep and full as you get the strike.  HVB almost exactly resemble that, because not all strike sounds the same.  For me, because I’m left handed, my perfect strike would be to start on the right hand side, throw to the left, and have the ball curve back to the right and strike the center pin on the middle left.  Just beautiful.

The graphics is pretty snazzy as well.  Of course, it isn’t a Call of Duty 4, but you shouldn’t expect so.  It does its job, and looks definitely a lot better than its competition.  It also supports 1080p graphic through HDMI as well. 

One surprising attribute though, is the custom music.  Picking it is as simple as it gets.  At any point in the game, you just press the select button, which will bring up the selection menu of your MP3s on your PS3.  You can group them to their categories, like genre or year, and with a push of a button, you’ll be hearing your own custom soundtrack to replace the game music.  One thing to mention is that the music is never disrupted.  Not while you’re bowling, not while it’s in the loading screen, not even when you exit a bowling game. That is a pleasantly nice touch.

It is unfortunate though that they do not take any playlist you might have created.  Perhaps a future patch can rectify this, but it is not detrimental for me because most of the songs I have on my PS3 are from this year, so I just pick the year category, but others with a huge collection of songs on their PS3 might have to juggle a bit.  And it does not take server media.  That means it will only play songs that’s stored locally onto your PS3. 

The presence of custom soundtrack means that the asset is there, and it’ll be up to the developers to take advantage of it.  Whether future games will include this can only be seen. 

Gameplay 

I mentioned earlier how HVB is so much better than Wii Bowling, and I guess it’s time for me to explain.  In Wii Bowling, you’re holding a stick, and although that might be fine for tennis or baseball, it feels pretty awkward when bowling. 

As in the case of HVB, everything is pretty much done through motion control (except spinning the ball).  But instead of holding a stick, holding the sixaxis feels so much more intuitive. 

Just as in a real life ball, you hold the sixaxis in the palm of your hand, and switching between right and left handed style is as easy as pressing a simple button with no delay in between.  Your middle two fingers, middle and ring, is used to grip the sixaxis while your pinky and index rest on the L2/R2 trigger button.

These buttons can be press in order to spin the ball in the respective direction.  Your thumb rests on either the X button (or the down button on the d-pad depending on your hand orientation).  

Before you can bowl, you must tilt the sixaxis in the left or right direction to place your bowler.  Once you’re done, you then pick which direction you want to throw in.  Finally, in order to toss your ball, you tilt your arms back as if in a bowling action, and follow through forward as if you’re actually bowling.

When I first started playing, I didn’t realize it, but the ways your fingers are set up is almost exactly as how I would in real life bowling, which definitely added to the immersion.  

One disappointment though is that unlike Wii Bowling, spinning the ball isn’t done through twisting your wrist.  Instead, it is done through pressing the R2/L2 trigger button.  This can be seen as both a good and a bad.  It’s good because after bowling a lot of games, your wrist might get a little painful if you keep twisting it to throw the ball.  And also, because of the way the R2/L2 trigger button is used, it is not a worse way of spinning the ball.  In fact, to some, it might just make more sense, and because your fingers are set up like that, it might even be easier than tilting your wrist.

But, a bad can be in that it might destroy any type of immersion you might like.  It’ll be up to you to determine whether not being able to twist your wrist is enough to prevent you from getting a game.  Personally, at first, I was disappointed, but after playing the game for a while, I’ve realized that using the trigger buttons is more appropriate.  That and I don’t want to hurt my wrist.  

As mentioned, everything is pressure and motion sensitive.  How hard you press the trigger buttons determine how much your ball will spin.  How hard you swing your arms forward will determine how hard you throw the ball.  Do it hard enough and you’ll enter the red zone, which is clearly indicated by the power level.  The red zone means you’re throwing it really hard, but you lose accuracy.  There is a “perfect” zone, indicated by a yellow dash which shows that is the ideal power, giving the perfect accuracy (although that is also determined by the bowler), and ideal power. 

In all, the motion control works pretty well.  There were a couple of hiccups in which the bowler would not begin their bowling motion even though you have.  I do not know whether this is game error, or a sixaxis error.  It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen once a twice per game, which might get annoying if you’re going for the perfect 300 game.  When these things happen, it’s best to not move, and wait for your bowler to start moving, and then go through your swing. 

The bowling balls all have ratings, and each deals with how well it’ll spin.  An F-rating ball might not spin at all, while an A-rating ball will give you some wicked curving.  Changing them is as easy as pressing the Square button. 

As far as physics goes, I’m not going to try and attempt to be an all knowing physics person about bowling, but I think it’s pretty good.  If you press the L3/R3 button, you can see the oil pattern of the lane, which you can then use to readjust your approach.  As far as I know, HVB resembles real life bowling physics pretty well.  There wasn’t any case of “WTF physics”, so I’m going to go and say the physics is pretty much spot on. 

Replayability

Besides the six challenges, and the three scenarios in each challenge, there is quite a lot to be had for this $9.99 gem.  The lack of online play might kill it for some, but I predict it might become a future DLC for perhaps another $4.99 or another $9.99 (a la Tekken Dark Resurrection).  But one thing us gamers must be able to acknowledge is not criticizing something that should not exist.  What I mean is, do not expect a $60 game out of a $10 game.  In order to gain some, you lose some.  You can argue Calling All Cars had online play, but it is not quite as “complex” as HVB, and definitely not as many replayability options besides online.  

HVB is extremely accessible.  Speaking from personal experience, I was able to get both of my parents in their 60s who have never played games before to play this game and get excited at getting strikes and spares (even though they don’t really know what it means, they just know that it’s good to knock all the pins down, lol).  I was also able to teach a young cousin who’s only 6 to play this game.  She didn’t get it on the first try, but as she played, she began understanding and soon even she was able to get the gameplay motion down.

I can say this is definitely a party game.  Bring a few friends over, use the custom soundtrack and you got yourself a mini-party.  I wouldn’t recommend playing this game while drunk though, because there is no strap to hold the controller to your hand.  The way you hold it is intuitive enough so that there is a very low chance of losing grip on the controller when sober, it is an entirely another case when intoxicated.  You have been warned! 

Final Remarks

With up to 4 players, High Velocity Bowling can definitely give Wii Bowling a run for its money if Sony decides to advertise it to the general public.  But because most gamers don’t know much about downloading games online, it might be suggestive that Sony release a Blueray version of this, perhaps with more contents and online play for perhaps $20-$30, and advertise the heck out of it. 

I’ve played both HVB and Wii Bowling, and I definitely prefer this one more just because of the more intuitive controls and handling.

The Good: Responsive motion controls.  Intuitive layouts and handlings.  Custom soundtracks.  Good amount of challenges to keep you playing.  Polished menu and bowlers.  Extremely accessible for all age ranges.  

The Bad: For a $10 game, there’s not much to be said that’s really “bad” about it, but I guess I should represent the greedy gamer.  No online.  Already an option to begin microtransactions.  Rare moment in which motion control would not cooperate.

The Ugly: Already an option to begin microtransactions.  Yeah, it just had to be repeated.

Final Score: Recommended