Bowling Game of the Week - Brunswick Pro Bowling for the PSP

Brunswick Pro Bowling

PSP Handheld Console

Talk of the Week

This past week, I switched from my Super Nintendo gaming system to the Playstation portable (PSP) system. I haven't had much use of this system, in fact...it's actually BrocolliRob11's PSP. Last week, my "Shooting 300" article/review" had HUGE views and was also carried by The press in Japan and Spain (..I know...crazy right?)

I made the decision to step out of the 16 bit world and jump into the 21st century. Normally, I can't grasp the updated systems...as I'm clearly not a Modern Warfare kinda guy...I do dabble in the World of Warcraft realm, but not too often to consider myself any kind of authority.

I packed up my family Dimension mobile with a trusty snack and visited to my local Game N Trade in Lansdale, PA. I invested a whopping $8 on a used copy of The Brunswick Pro Bowling game. Sure...$8 isn't a lot compared to the normal $60 price tags on games today, but remember, last week I spent $.89 cents on the Brunswick Tournament of Champions Bowling game for Super Nintendo...so that's like a 100 times price increase!!

Now, the release date of this game is August 2007, so again...I missed the big launch party!! That's ok, with a retail sticker price of $19.99, I doubt they were having cake and ice cream or even a midnight opening. I took a chance, sort of a blind buy on this one. Not researching at all and going with my gut (which seems to be growing due to too much Holiday eating) feeling, I was pleasantly surprised to say the least!

I don't want to give a final review yet, since I've only played for 4 days this far but, I already really like this game. It's been a while since I've had a game that I can't stop playing...and I mean...can't stop!! The game is a bit awkward to start but once you get going, you're set.

After half a day doing the "Quick Play", I opted for the "Career Mode"...I laced up my rented shoes, hopefully minus the foot fungus, grabbed my Alley ball and hit the lanes. When you start..you have 0 of anything...no money to buy better equipment, you lack arm strength and stamina and have poor accuracy. Don't let that detour you from taking down the punks who wanna bowl you. I wasn't scared, I took down a few less than credible opponent's but sometimes you need to take care of business. Without explaining "how to play" I will mention a few finer points.

Graphics - so far, great. The pin reaction and ball motion are realistic. The oil breakdown on the lanes, great. Everything looks great...when I started with the "House Ball", I seemed to do much better playing the 2nd arrow, with medium hook. Now, this doesn't always work. Sometimes the lanes are drier, making you move your feet, slow down your ball speed and hook the ball more. Other times, the oil is heavier, allowing you to play straighter (more direct) and increase your rev rate (Spin or Hook potential). Pin carry, as it plagues some of us in the real game, comes into play here. If your ball travels down the lane before it begins it's hook, you will see the EVIL 10 pin, plus, splits will rear their ugly head...but the bonus, most are makable!

So far, I only lost 1 game in the 1st League session, finishing with a 35-1 record, averaging 215. Granted, not bad with a "House Ball", but after winning my 1st Tournament, I upgraded Bowling balls..to a Groove...terrible choice by the way. Way too much hook, was far to difficult to judge the break point and get the desired carry. With my extra money, I made another Ball choice...I went with the Target Zone, Red and Bone color (the Pic is the closest I could find to a match). This ball allowed me to continue my more direct line, similar to the House Ball, but had better pin carry.

Once I made this ball change..I instantly had better scores. Finishing out the 1st round of League games with back to back 300's. In techincal terms, if you're a bowler. I had very little head belly, stood on 14 and hit 8 at the arrows...<---- kind of like Geek Speak for Bowlers. This netted the best carry percentage and flush pocket hits. Granted, in "Real" bowling, a Target Zone is a spare ball or designed for a beginner, but for the sake of me living vicariously through this game..the Target Zone is great!!

Today, I started a new League session and after my first 6 games of League...I'm dominating with a whopping 264 average. My high being a 289. I do float between the House Ball and the Target Zone depending on the oil pattern they have out. I seem to struggle during the Tournaments the most, as my opponenst get extremely lucky and improve as soon as the tournament starts. I for one, will be playing this during the Christmas vacation...but I know my Wife picked me up Tiger Woods The Masters for PS3...and I can NOT wait to play that game. Until next week...see you on the lanes...even if it's only virtual.

Harry Potter LEGO review - John shows he's a Gamer!!

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (A guide to witchcraft with legos.)

Lego Harry Potter has been out now for a number of weeks and I am not afraid to say it, I had the game reserved since I first found out about it. So for me that would mean I reserved my copy of it back in November 2009 at my local video game dealer, yeah go ahead and laugh I don’t care. I am a huge lego video game and have every single one they have come out with except lego rock band because that’s not really a game like the other lego games are. I own all the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman games and was uber excited when the Harry Potter one was announced. Of course I have found out they are going to make a Spiderman and Transformers one too, so again the uber excitement has set in.

When I first heard about it and that you could do spells and fly on the brooms I initially was concerned for the game play and the intensity they might have put into it. I thought they may over think it and take away from the enjoyment that the other lego games provided to players. The other thing I was worried about was do I go with the deluxe edition that I would have to pay a little bit more for, but get the collectables they give with the game. I researched and talk to my video game dealer guru and he informed me it that the items you received with the game were crappy little pins and that it wasn’t the extra money, unlike the cool lego Indy key chain I got with the latest lego Indian Jones game. So with that Sofie’s choice of a decision out of the way I focused my concern on the game itself.

Now I will admit that I generally pick up the strategy guide book for all my lego games just to have should I get stuck in that one spot that annoys me to no end and need a little “guidance” with. Now as I talked with my non-regular video game dealer guru and asked when they would release the strategy guide he informed me they probably wouldn’t put one out because they don’t really do that for the lego games. Now once I was finished screaming and skinning him alive for being stupid in my mind I politely said, oh ok no big deal, but it was to me…oh well.

I got the game home and began to play it and I was bothered by it initially as you have to learn different spells and button functions that didn’t quite stay true to previous lego games. Some of the characters are a bit hard to control in general and you have to go through the game quite a number of times in order to find everything in order to get that beloved 100% complete status. Now I know every lego game you need to go through a number of times to complete, but this one was a bit excessive. As well the overall layout is a bit confusing as you traverse around the castle of Hogwarts and then the outside and courtyards, you tend to get lost rather quickly. I think that’s why I would have liked the strategy guide the most to reference some sort of map, but in the end I ended up making my own. There were a couple of glitches in the game and I had to restart the system because of them, but I guess that’s par for the course.

Now while I have said less than positive things about the game I do want to go on record and say once I got the controls and button functions down I did have a pretty good time playing it. I enjoy all the lego games and the motto is if it aint broke don’t fix it, and that’s how I felt the other games were until we got to Harry Potter. If I could say one thing to the designers of the game that would be to not over complicate a good thing, don’t put so much time into public area screens and just make the levels a bit longer instead.

I have only seen the first three films of the Harry Potter series and the game stayed pretty true to the films with the lego twist of comedy as they do in any of their games. I was glad to see that, but since I had never seen the fourth film in the series I was confused by the story line and was let down a bit by the final boss as he was rather simple to defeat while Myrtle was a bit more challenging to defeat.

All in all I would say if you’re a fan of the lego games and you have played them all then you will enjoy it and you might as well feed the addiction. If you have never played the games before then I would recommend playing one of the earlier lego games like the first Indiana Jones rather than the one with the Crystal Skull movie in it which is the second coming of Indy for lego.

Be Safe & pick up your toys when you’re done,
John Cannon