The Flintstones Bedrock Bowling Review

Did you ever decide to borrow money from your folks in order to "smartly" purchase a computer game, investment like, only to exclaim half an hour later "Yabba-Dabba-Doo...? Is it possible that I finished the game?" The false feeling that you are a great player is probably inevitable, but this is too much. No matter how clumsy you are, and you mange to obtain this Southpeak CD, you will finish it in a little more time than it took you to install it. It is finally clear why Southpeak Interactive never released demo version of this game... The whole game would fit into the demo.

But the idea is great: Flinstones - the legendary Hanna-Barbera modern Stone Age family, known to millions of people worldwide. Fred, Barney, Dino and the colorful graphics I saw on a screenshot about a year ago, really made me want to play this game, and I've been trying to find out more about it, since. The Flintstones simply never had a serious game for the PC, so I figured that a well-developed game, featuring them, should automatically be a great success. And while you are rolling your eyes, cursing me, and muttering " You backward git, how old are you? It's a game for kids! Do you know how many games there are for children...with Tarzan, Asterix & Obelix and none of them are something exceptional..." I still say it's a shame. There are many of us "old" fans of the Bedrock family.

The plot is simple. It is taking place on a fine day, like made for bowling. However, Fred really has no luck in coming to terms with his little, whining boss Mr. Sate. Fred is threatened under the penalty of losing his job if he goes bowling and doesn't finish the enormous job of clearing the gorge. You can imagine his sad face when he meets Barney, who is on his way to some R'n'R. Luckily, the big Gazoo appears from nowhere and turns the whole gorge into a large bowling alley. He also changed the rules a little, so the pins aren't neatly grouped, but instead they are lined up all along slippery and steep courses, and our heroes are in some kind of shells. It looks something like that silly Japanese TV show, Takeshi's Castle, if you ever had a chance to catch one of those. I know about the plot from the only thing in the game that was done well: the intro movie that was designed and prerendered in a great way.

There are five characters in the game: Fred, Barney, Bamm-Bamm, Dino and Pebbles. I know that Wilma and Betty dislike when their husbands go bowling, let alone themselves indulge in such activities, but they could have made an exception in this case and made some room in the game for them. But who knows, maybe they develop a taste for this "bowrolling" and join the others (like, in the sequel, maybe....). The characters all have identical controls, so there are no problems in switching from one to another character.

When the bowling (or rolling) starts, your task is to slide down the lane and knock down pins. But to make things a bit more difficult, you can collect blue gems, and be sure to knock down those Dodo birds which are, for some reason, in the capacity of the standard timer found in racing games. In those games, the timer would show how much time you have left to pass the checkpoint; here you have to knock all three Dodo birds over before passing through the checkpoint. If not, it will be the end of the course for you, which is bad: shorter course = less pins and blue gems = less points = worse position...

Except for these goodies, there are objects on the course that will be presented as obstacles. You really have to watch out for those bombs, because colliding with them slows you down, and it probably hurts (actually, there is no health bar so you can play with bombs to your hearts content). Then there are these apes that throw rocks at you, little dinosaurs that run across the course all the time, squirrels, spiders, birds, etc. On some courses you will slide towards moving cars, on some, additional effort is required to overcome moving platforms, or you will bump into the mean Rockzilla and her brothers. However, you loose a life only if you fall into one of the lava pits or those enormous holes. This, by the way, happens rarely, and even when it does, it's no big deal. On the contrary, you will end up on the beginning of the game and have the chance to hit a Dodo, pin or gem you missed, but only once. If you die twice, that course is over for you.

The steering abilities are nothing to shout about. I already mentioned that all characters have same controls (the guys over at Southpeak Interactive even wrote so in the game features, but believe me, it would be much more fun if it wasn't so). Except steering left-right, you can influence the speed (insignificantly), which is not enough for the player to get that feeling of control. Try letting your character slide down the course without you controlling it. The outcome can easily be better than when you "meddle". You don't believe me? Try lane 7, for example ...

There are 3 levels of difficulty in this game (which is more than the number of options in the main menu).

That would be the whole principle of this bowling thing... Gazoo created 12 lanes, altogether (10 in Bedrock, 2 in outer space), and 3 of those lanes are "unlocked" by completing certain in-game tasks. Even though the lanes are boring, there are some fine graphic design feats: giant dinosaur, the big Rockzilla, waterfalls...Well, you can't say that the graphics are something special, but considering what game it is developed for-it's just fine. If, for example, Croc 2 had graphic design like this one, it probably would have been rated better (don't get me wrong, I'm not praising the graphics of this game, I'm criticizing Croc 2). Everything in this game is colorful, so it kind of reminds me of Tonic Trouble or Plane Crazy. Just like in those games, in this one you wont find models or environment with too many polygons, or some above the average textures (some of them really look bad: explosions, cacti, cars...).

If you like the idea of the game so far, but are frustrated because there is no progress or "unlocking", and because you are allowed to play any course (except the few hidden ones), leading any bowler, and you find somebody who shares your point of view, you can compete in multiplayer. And if you are really lucky, that someone will probably be in your neighborhood, so you can connect via LAN. However, if there is no such person in the vicinity (which sounds more probable), you can always connect over MSN Gaming Network. Of course, there is the option of home entertainment, including molesting your little brother or sister to play on the same computer (not split screen, though, in turns).

There you have it. You can take this article as a game review, or a tip on a financial investment, which will make you safe, not sorry. Hanna-Barbera fans wont find this game worthy of the Flintstones reputation...