Review of iBowl: Bowl for Free on Your iPhone

Bowling stands as one of the consistent American “sports” that forgoes athletics in favor of people who know how to accurately twist their wrists. Now that videogames have met up with motion devices we now have some interesting manifestations, similar to that found in Wii Sports. iBowl is a handheld version of the same thing that utilizes the motion sensors in the iPhone as part of the game.

Find out the specifics of the iBowl app as we review the different aspects in this article.

The basic gameplay throws you in front of a lane with a ball in the center of the planks. The very middle of the touch screen has a button titled Bowl. To roll the bar you just hold down the Bowl button and then use your whole arm and hand to “roll” the virtual ball. This is the standard gameplay, and it really does not change no matter what options you are given. The phone remains fairly responsive, but if you have any holding cases on it you may want to take them off to maintain your accuracy.

The game allows you to customize in a fashion by selecting a different ball to roll with. There really is not anything to these balls but their color, so it is purely for aesthetic purposes. The game also gives you an option to “challenge” another player, but this really just goes in the form of an email message. Selecting this will throw you out of the game and into your email function. You are able to choose whether or not to keep the sound effects, but they are not detailed enough to add realism or loud enough to actually distract you from gameplay.

The game is a little too simple to give you much value in your game. The gameplay is solid, which is the most important factor, but there are almost no additions. It would be nice if the challenge allowed you to search for random players online and if customization went all the way to create characters and items. One of the more distracting aspects of the application is that to exit a given window you have to exit the program all together with the Home button. Though there are a few reservations, the game ends up being fairly solid in the end. Six and three quarters stars.