The Bowling Dead Review

The Bowling Dead

Popular culture has been awash in centuries old fears in the 21st century.

Movies, books, and video games have been released by the dozens in recent years featuring vampires, werewolves, and zombies. The latter group, zombies, seem to be everywhere right now. There is a popular television show on AMC featuring zombies and a number of films at the box office. Zombies even appear on iOS platforms in the form of The Bowling Dead.

The game takes a new approach to zombies and bowling games by crafting a story that takes bowling enthusiasts out of the alleys and into dark back alleys to battle the undead.

So what is the scoop on The Bowling Dead?
To find out, keep reading our awesome iPad review of The Bowling Dead! Boom shakalaka!

Story

In the game you play as the hero who is trying to clean the undead menace from the streets of his town. As the game opens the hero tells us of a United States that has become a wasteland awash in zombies; zombies that are unlike the traditional brain-eaters in pop culture.

These zombies cannot be killed simply by having their heads bashed in or knocked off. As a result, civilian militias and the military alike couldn’t defeat the zombies with any of their weapons. Low and behold, our hero finds a secret U.S. weapon in his local bowling alley, bowling ball with the properties necessary to kill any zombie. The question is whether you will be able to fend off the hordes and cleanse the streets.

Presentation, Graphics and Sound

The presentation takes the cake with coloring and overtones that match the grindhouse feel of the game. The Bowling Dead has 3D state ofthe art environments and characters with over 40 stages in Campaign mode and unlimited Survival mode.

There is a huge arsenal of weapons to unlock, including specialised balls such as the disco ball and chainsaw ball. You can say you will see a lot of balls in this game.

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The best features of the Bowling Dead is the game’s presentation, graphics, and sound. The graphics are sharp on the iPad’s HD display and the sound puts players in a bowling alley with the thump of the ball and the smack of the pins, despite the back alley appearance.

Check out these screenshots we took using an iPhone 4S.

Gameplay

Throughout the course of the story the hero will fight zombie hordes in dimly lit back-alleys. Like many other bowling games, all it takes to fight the zombies is a simple flick of the finger. A short flick essentially tosses an airborne ball at enemies, but is most useful when the zombies get close up. To better battle the zombies in the alley, the gamer needs to pull back on the ball and then flick forward.

In a world overrun by an undead horde, one man stands in the way of the complete annihilation of the human race. One man…and his balls. You will need (bowling) balls of steel to play this game!

The precision and accuracy in the game are impressive, though it can be difficult to put curve on the ball. While the curve isn’t necessary to nail a 7-10 split, you will need to do it in later stages of the game to miss open manholes and hit your zombie targets. Should a zombie get too close, it is time to take out your favorite melee weapon and fight to the doom. Target zones are highlighted on the zombies as “soft spots” that make for easier swiping kills.

As the game progresses, gamers are offered upgradable bowling balls that explode, light up the alleys with disc lights, or have chainsaw attachments that cut down multiple zombies at once. Other upgrades include various melee weapons and player upgrades that offer customizable gameplay options.

Lasting Appeal

In the end, The Bowling Dead is an enjoyable game with lots of extra options available to the player as they progress. However, the lasting appeal of the game may be its biggest downfall. The many stages of the game and all the customizable weapons make playing your way through the game enjoyable, but one run through the entire game is bound to be enough for most people to move on to a new game. It is after all, more or less another bowling game with different targets. Regardless, the game is a must-have for anyone craving for a unique zombie-bowling-madness experience. Oh, and it’s free. You can’t beat that!

The Bowling Dead was released for free on iTunes on November 24, 2012 for iPhone and iPad.

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I am a happy-go-lucky type of guy from sunny California.

1 Comment

  1. This is a fun little game, actually. Check it out!

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