240 · Championship Bowling

• It’s Friday Night. You’re in a 4 player competition bowling game. The finest bowling game made. CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLING
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • When you play these retro games, when modern ones exist. It’s hard not to compare. Wii Bowling is the perfect bowling game. Championship Bowling is gonna take a lot of work
• Overview
  • It’s bowling. Is bowling enough to suck you in?
  • You can choose your player - handedness is all that changes
  • You can choose your ball - weight
  • You can choose your lane
• Gameplay
  • Control and Power Meters
    • Control should imply much more spin on the ball than it does
  • Find the “strikezone” and stick with it
  • The animations
  • Inability to reposition
  • If you’re not good at this game, they have a pretty damn High Score requirement just to get on the board
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Championship Bowling GENESIS
    • Not the same developer or publisher
    • The game includes three different play modes: standard bowling; spare mode, where a handful of pins are placed with the goal being to pick up a spare; and bonus mode, where specific pins are worth different amounts of points.
  • Championship Bowling XBOX
    • The only funny thing I have to say about this game is that it looks as bad as those wacky animations that play in real bowling alleys
  • BOWLING on PS1
    • No fun title, the cover art is just a picture of 10 real pins. No characters to choose or see. Just hilariously low effort
• EGL
• Next week - Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine
• NEStalgia Byte - The Portopia Serial Murder Case

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 It's Friday night. You're in a four-player competition bowling game, the finest bowling game made. Championship bowling.

00:25 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. I'm Joe. When you play these retro games in the timeline that we're playing them in, where modern games also exist and they don't know that they're retro, so we're just kind of retroactively reviewing them, but with no nostalgia, it's hard not to compare any bowling game, and specifically championship bowling, since it's the game we're reviewing this week, with Wii Bowling, which is part of Wii Sports, the perfect bowling game inside the perfect sports game.

01:04 Championship bowling has a lot of work to do in this episode to convince me personally that it's essential, because sometimes when I think about bowling, I think about Wii Sports bowling before I even think about real-life bowling.

01:17 Wow. I don't think about that at all. When I think of bowling, aside from real bowling, I think of that one arcade cabinet with the controller that's just a ball that you roll. That's bowling.

01:32 See, I was also thinking a lot about Wii Bowling while playing this game, but not the motion controls, just the other controls that could be incorporated into a game that doesn't have motion controls.

01:46 So yeah, I guess I wasn't even thinking about it, but I was comparing this game to Wii Bowling. But gotta love that ball control. So it's a bowling game, and you know, yeah, say no more, but is, we don't usually do this, but I'm just gonna ask right off the bat, is bowling enough to suck you in? Like, is this enough for the game, like, just the idea that it's going to be bowling? Does it stand a chance for you here?

02:11 I mean, no. When I saw this on the thing, I was like, okay, great. This stands no chance to make it on the essential games list. It might be fun, might be interesting, it might be a good simulation of bowling, but unless it's like an open world bowling, bowling, which is the only kind of game that exists in the future, then no. I'm personally going to keep my hand close to the vest here on whether or not I would think this could be essential, because I don't want to spoil my vote for the essential games list, so... I can't wait until it's just no.

02:55 It's not about spoiling. It's not, yeah, it's not about spoiling. I don't think... Sean did play it as if, you know, the way he was talking just now was as if he's playing this game for the first time while we're recording, so technically he kept everything in the correct tense. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I don't want, you know, I just want to make sure the listeners all know that, like, throughout this whole episode, no matter what I say, there's a chance that I would put it on the essential games list. Right, but Joe, the question remains, is bowling enough to suck you in? I, alright, I'll say this. I think that when you say there's a bowling game, I'm already like, that's an uphill battle.

03:36 But, it's possible. I can see a way. I can see it being possible. Like, if it's just a crazy, fun, like, two-player bowling game with, like, really good... that, like, emulates it very well, maybe. But, let's say, like, okay, if you told me right off the bat that championship bowling, like, you were, like, you actually got to, like, walk around the city in which the bowling alley was, and then you'd get calls throughout the day from, like, a cousin of yours, and they'd ask, like, hey, would you like to go bowling with me? And then you'd go, and you'd pick him up, and you'd go to the bowling alley, and then you'd bowl, like, ten frames. It's basically Grand Theft Auto, but there's a bowling minigame in it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's that.

04:22 Well, actually, yeah, Joe, I don't know if you caught on, but you're describing Grand Theft Auto 4, in which there is a bowling minigame in that, in which your cousin calls you. That is exactly what I was doing, yes. I actually didn't even know that, yeah. That's so funny. I've never even played Grand Theft Auto 4. I was just like, it sounds like Grand Theft Auto.

04:39 Alright, but to Sean's point, right, like, bowling in video games nowadays, is more like something that's included as a side minigame that you can find. You know, like how in Yakuza, like, there's all sorts of minigames in the casino, or karaoke, or stuff like that. Like, that's what bowling is now. Nobody is releasing standalone bowling games anymore, to the best of my knowledge. Maybe on mobile phones they are, but definitely, like, I can't think of a bowling game being announced for PS5. I just don't see it happening. That would be something else. Can't even get them to make tennis games anymore, and now we want bowling?

05:19 Yeah, I hear you. And it's, uh, I guess I'm just trying to play the crazy devil's advocate here, because I'm, like, thinking of, like, when we played NES Golf. Not that we voted that essential, but I was like, that surprised me. Yeah. And I hear a bowling game, I'm like, okay, well, any sports game is going to have a very hard time with me, but maybe it'll surprise me.

05:40 And look, we can make this game sound good. You can choose your player. You get to choose your ball. You get to choose your lane. Like, there are customizable options. The problem is, is that when you choose your player, it actually doesn't, like, affect their skill or their types of moves they do. It's just their handedness is all that changes. And choosing your ball is about choosing the weight of the ball. How do we get to pick the color? Yeah, seven-pound ball is always the same color. That's how they know it's a seven-pound ball, Sean. Well, yeah, but, I mean, if you are a real professional, you can get whatever color you want it.

06:19 And choosing your lane is an aesthetic choice. It doesn't create any crazy lanes where it has zigzags or something, and you have to try to get around it. Yeah, that's how I want, like, mini-golf bowling. I will say, just like, as an aside, that this did pop up on our recording schedule at probably the perfect time, because while I admittedly haven't gone bowling in years, I did just watch, like, a 30-minute video about, like, the science of bowling and oil on lanes and asymmetrical weights in the middle of a bowling ball. So, like, I'm at peak bowling curiosity at this moment.

07:00 Sean, at any moment, did they talk about control and power meters during that video? In a way, but it was more so, like, you know, not that. Hmm. How close did this simulate, like, the oil patterns on the lane or the physics of bowling to you? I mean, the only thing that I think, to answer your question seriously, I think that there might be some simulation of an oil pattern

07:31 just in, like, when a ball hooks. Maybe that's something that they've got cooked up in there. But other than that, I can't really tell. Is the oil pattern the thing that makes the ball go straight all the way down to one inch before the pins and then hook a very sharp left turn right into the gutter?

07:51 That is exactly what that is, yes. Okay. I think for the sakes of this episode, we're just going to assume everybody knows the rules of bowling because this is exactly that. This is 10-frame bowling. There are no other modes. There's no wacky new additions to video gamify it, which is fine. But I'm just saying this is the bowling that we all know and play. So with that in mind, the thing that makes you able to be a bowler in this game is that once you've chosen your character and the weight of your ball, you get to select where you want to stand within the lane and then how much power you want to use to throw the ball and how much spin you want to put on the ball.

08:37 Power is done through a power bar, similar to what we've seen in most sports games where you have to have some kind of indicator of how hard you're throwing or how hard you want to hit a ball. Here, it's the same thing. It's just a swinging power meter that moves relatively fast. Control, on the other hand, is showing a ball moving on like a semicircle from left to right. And if you land the ball on the left side, it spins to the left. And if you land the ball in the middle, it goes straight forward. And if you spin the ball to the right, the bowling ball will also spin to the right. Control seems to be the element here that is the least communicated of the three things. When you're standing in the lane,

09:23 wherever you stand is where you're going to release the ball from. And that much is clear. Power, again, we've seen it in many games. So we're aware that like at the highest, you're going to throw it really hard. And if you screw up and happen to hit it less than halfway, you're going to throw a pretty weak ball. But control, to me, seems like if I'm throwing to the left or to the right extremes, my ball should be curving pretty damn hard. And yet, it's almost encouraged to go to the extremes here in the left and right because of the nice spin that it puts on your ball and the way that that hits the pins

10:01 better than throwing dead on, if you will. I don't know if you guys experienced that. I just thought control was the outlier here in terms of expressing what I thought it meant. Yeah, so I felt like during this game that it was actually missing an entire variable that you're supposed to be inputting for.

10:25 I would think that you should also be changing the immediate angle that you're throwing the ball at. The only thing that you're controlling is the spin that you're putting on the ball and not so much are you going to throw it a few degrees to the right or the left. You're always throwing the ball straight down and then the only after effect is that spin that finally catches the grain of the wood at the end. And yeah, it is sort of like you only...

11:02 I would only do the extremes or maybe just above the extreme because there really isn't any effect for most of the shot. But I also don't really... It took me a few tries just to understand what control actually meant because I don't know what that icon is supposed to represent. Is that a bowling ball in a baby carriage? I couldn't quite tell. Is that supposed to be a metal...

11:34 a thing that covers food when it's being served at a fancy restaurant? I'm seeing a guy with a jump rope and he's about to make his... He's at the top of the apex of the rope and he's about to spin it around again. Oh my God, I see that, yeah. And there's just like blue between the rope and the rope. Wow, but from a very low perspective. Yeah, he's like laying on the ground almost.

11:56 So yeah, there was just a little bit of uncertainty when it came to what I was actually controlling here. Yeah, the exact same thought immediately when I played this game is like, I'm missing a major element of control, ironically, where I cannot angle the direction I'm shooting.

12:17 Like, I get that, that like, yeah, you're using this thing to curve it and you can't just be like, you can't just input like a value of how much you want to curve it because it's not actually that easy in bowling. But it's also not actually this hard. You're never going to try and curve it to the left and accidentally curve it to the right because you did something a little too late. Like in real bowling. So it's weird that this thing's going so fast. Same thing with the power. Like your power in bowling,

12:42 one of the things that you, you know, you have pretty one-to-one control over. You're never going to like, oh, I accidentally, maybe you will give it too much power, not enough power. But like, this is the fastest moving power bar I think we've seen. I mean, right? So it's like, you might think you're going to get max power, but if you're a second off, you're going to get absolutely no power at all. And it just feels like, and I know we've had this kind of things in other games before, but it feels like it's giving you the wrong type of challenge to try to even remotely like bowling.

13:16 Like the challenge should come with like thinking of the angles and thinking of the aims. Yes. And since you can't turn the angle, like I'm thinking of, I mean, I know it's a more advanced system, but I'm thinking of Kirby's Dream Course. Have you ever played that game? Like that game is not super easy, but you are selecting exactly the angles you want to shoot at. And you have to think about like the geometry of it. Now that changes this game a lot, but yeah, go ahead.

13:42 Even most bowling games, what they do is, is after you've selected where you want to stand, they just kind of put like an arrow where you were, you know, a dotted line or whatever, and you just can then choose how you want to curve it. Like that is something that could easily be done on this NES game. There's nothing advanced about that or like, you know, there's just no graphical way to do it. The dotted line thing has just always been the way to show which way you want to direct the ball. So I agree with both of you that it's kind of confusing that it's not there. To go back to the power thing,

14:18 like the reason why it's bad is because anything less than like three-fourths of the bar being filled is basically like a waste of a shot almost. Like you might get like a couple pins or whatever, or you might gutter out or something because you threw it so weak. So you do need mostly max power when you're throwing this ball, in my opinion. And then with the control thing, the spin that you're applying isn't actually showing like a spin in the sense of like, say you're going all the way to the left. I would expect if I went all the way to the left on control,

14:52 that my ball would leave my hands and immediately spin over to the gutter before it even made it halfway down the lane. Instead, it just kind of puts this like gentle spin on it ever so slightly as if I'm the pro-est bowler of them all. And I'm curving it just enough so that it gives it extra spins so that all the pins, even though I can't see them because they don't animate well enough,

15:15 they perfectly like hit each other. And I've done it. Like it doesn't feel earned. It almost feels like going to the maximum to the left or the right is like the best state. Like they made that, instead of like trying to decide what's the best way to spin it, it's like, nope, that's the best spin. That's not as good of a spin. Like it feels a little like that sometimes.

15:34 And in modern bowling, like in real life, like it doesn't matter how much spin you put on it. Like during that first like two thirds of the lane, like you're not going to see that. So that is realistic that crazy spin doesn't immediately gutter you out. Again, really all this game is is basically three different knobs that you're tweaking 21 times maximum. Right. You're adjusting power, you're adjusting control, and you're choosing where to stand. There's no other like, there's no weather to take into account wind direction like in golf, which that would otherwise be.

16:22 There's no change in initial conditions. The lane doesn't change over time. So that's just what this game is. And that's usually fine in like a more modern bowling simulation because there's still some of that like that baseline satisfaction that comes with a strike. But what Mike just sort of pointed out, there isn't enough detail up there in the pins to actually get that satisfaction.

16:59 And you know, Sean, what you mentioned about just adjusting knobs as the way to be the player in this game, that you're not really doing much of the bowling, you're just kind of selecting attributes for your character. That winds up being a problem because once you find the strike zone and granted, easier said than done to replicate the magic, right? Given the way that the meters move around, one spinning around in a semicircle and the other one being a power meter. If you can find the strike zone, there is no reason to deviate.

17:34 Stick with, at least for the first frame, right? The frame where all 10 pins are down there. You, once you know where that is and what meters those were, there's no randomness, maybe for better, right? The betterness of the game. There's no randomness in that. It's going to perform a strike every time. I know through own experimentation that that is true. And therefore, that also makes for a really boring,

18:00 like practically solved game in a way that like, you know, a computer could solve this game and just stand in the right spot, max out his power, get the spin to be the maximum. And all, every time, it's going to be a guaranteed strike. A little harder for the player, but essentially in that kind of thing, you're just playing one of those carnival games where you like, you know, just hit the buttons at the right time. This is a reflex test rather than a bowling game. Yeah. And I think that that's why they felt the need to make it like, to make these meters going so fast and make it so it's like so hard to just, to like, to get the power you want and get the curve you want because they needed to make up for the fact that like,

18:37 there's no real challenge once you figure it out. Like, it feels like, and you know, that turns out to just not be fun that way. It doesn't feel like bowling, but who knows? I might still vote it essentially. You don't know. Well, they did do at least the bare minimum for this kind of game. And they included some nice animations when you get strikes and spares, especially if you do like multiple strikes. You get that turkey. Yeah, exactly. You get a turkey. And I believe like if the fifth one or maybe the fourth one, it's also the peacock.

19:13 Yeah, I think that's what it's called. You get cheerleaders at some point too. Right. So, I mean, that's nice, right? At least they, you know, they decided to have some fun with this game. They, I thought based on the, everything other than the animation makes me think that they're being incredibly serious about the bowling aspect.

19:30 Yeah. I mean, it's, but it's like every bowling alley that like I was, went to as a kid, like half of them, I don't know why I said every and then half of them, but it would have some animation after you get a strike on the screen. So maybe this is trying to like capture that. Well, it depended how, how recently they had the whole thing renovated because, you know, some of them still had the overhead projectors back in those days. So they didn't have any of those animations.

19:54 You know what I'm saying? Well, I think back then they used to just release a turkey onto the alley. Yeah. You know what though? Speaking of real bowling alleys, there's also no like neon light dark mode or disco ball or anything. You know, I don't know. Those things are kind of fun. They should have at least included another lane that was- Just like inverted colors on the NES. Exactly. I guess you could do that.

20:21 Just something to make it feel more fun. Maybe, you know, you can order, you can go to the concession stands and order a pizza and that like affects your stats. But it specifically states that it's very bad pizza. Right. Yeah. Also, like maybe you could have selected, well, similar to, okay, we address this very quickly, but the player that you choose, you get to choose between, I think, four different types of player.

20:47 The only thing that changes is whether they're right-handed or left-handed. There was certainly more that could have been done there alone, right? But then you could also have some fun with like the shoes that they wear, right? Bowling shoes is something, right? Maybe, I don't know. Sean, you watch a 30-minute video on bowling. Do the shoes matter or is it just all the same shit? No, not really. At least they didn't go over it. I'm imagining it like Tony Hawk where you can like pick your wheels like you can like select your shoes.

21:12 No, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like to make this more of a, like a fashion thing where you can, you know, pick a shirt and like facial hair and squeaky shoes. Like that'd be cool if you can make it squeaky. How loosely you want your shoes tied and how tightly and that like affects like how much you slip down a lane.

21:32 That does simulate like just forgetting to let go of the ball and going down with it. That would have made it fun. What's funny is if you're not good at this game, they have a pretty damn high score requirement just to get on the board for the high scores in this game. Most arcade games will at least allow you to play somewhere on the board with mediocre scores just this way you feel like you've done something and then, you know, eventually you want to work up to first place. But in this game,

21:59 all three high scores are just 200. Most people never bowl 200. Yeah, and the fact that this is actually based off of a real score and not just a whatever number that from pickups and shooting stuff and that this is a score in the actual game of bowling, I've never bowled a 200.

22:17 And I guess like I probably, I probably did when I played this game, but like that's silly. I didn't even when I played this game, I could, I could not get a strike for the life of me. I would get every, all but one pin, almost everything. I got it spares, a lot of spares, but then I got a strike I think on my last frame I played. Joe, the tip is you, if you're a right-handed bowler in this game, go over to, go to the middle and then go to the second dot to the left. That's how I, that's how I real bowl.

22:51 And that's what I was doing. I know, I'm just saying and then, and then curve the ball on the control completely to the right at the maximum and throw the ball like at least not maximum power, I mean that'd be great if it was, but like, you know, anywhere in the final three and I can almost guarantee I think I wasn't curving completely to the right because I didn't really realize that that was the best until this conversation.

23:13 Right, right. That, that is the best and that's what I'm saying. That is not, that is not clear to me at any point that like that would be the best. Why would you want to curve all the way to the right? Spin should have been something where it's like you want to get close to the center but not dead on, right? Like you, they should have made it like really tricky to get the right amount of spin in this. Instead, they're rewarding you for going like so far to the polar opposites.

23:39 Also, one last, uh, great. Yeah, you can't change your angle or anything when you're, when you're bowling but you also can't change anything once you decide where you want to be. There's, there's no like stepping out and repositioning yourself or taking anything back. Like once you've, once you've selected the control and you're on the power meter, it's like now you're, you can't go back to the control. You know, not, not really a real problem. That's a balk in real bowling, you know, they don't let you get away with it. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, it's like, I don't know,

24:12 a game that, uh, barely has any options to begin with. Feels like they should have at least given you, it's not like you're like frozen in, in your space once you've decided that you want to be there. They should have let you back out from at least the first thing. I could understand being able to like abuse the control system. You would just constantly back out until you got the one that you wanted. I'm going to say that this is a simulation of, you know, because in bowling, you're not just standing straight in front of the thing, in front of the lane, and then, like,

24:42 flat-footedly throwing the ball down. Maybe this is simulating the decision-making of that walk-up, you know, that, that three-stride movement. Uh, that first stride is determining your power, that second stride is determining your spin, and, uh, that other one is just there because there's no other variable. Yeah, it's like making bowling turn-based, like, you have to, like, do each move, like, all right, I'm in my walk now, and then you gotta think about, all right, what next, all right, how much power?

25:10 Yeah. Joe, one tip I forgot on the how to bowl a strike every time is that it does matter what ball you choose because that is the only thing they decided to give any kind of stats to. Screw the players, it's the ball that has the stats in this one, and that is, again, just the weights. However, you know, like a seven-pound ball and a 15-pound ball have big differences. The seven-pound ball will give you a large curve but only a little bit of power and vice versa for the 15-pound. So I found myself in that 11-pound range because you basically just get the best of both worlds. You get a moderate amount of power and a moderate amount of curve. You don't even have to think about it anymore. I've always described myself as a medium person, so it fits.

25:56 And that's championship bowling. There's no sequels and spinoffs? No, there are sequels and spinoffs, but I was just trying to say, like, that's the game because it's important to note that the long play on YouTube that we always link in the show notes is five minutes and 59 seconds long, and this episode is already, you know, five times that. So, we have a problem here when it comes to even the type of game they made. There should have been more modes. There should have been more to it, I suppose. The fact that it is just 10-frame bowling and, you know, once you score, once you have your score, it just takes you to the high score screen and, you know, sure, you might get over 200, probably not a real game, but might get it here.

26:44 That's like, that's it. Now you just get to put the name that you, you don't even get to put the name in at the high score, you had to put it in earlier, so even the satisfaction of like typing your name in the high score is removed from you and instead you just go right back into this again. So let's say, even if this was a good bowling game, the content in here is worth about six minutes. Well, I mean, this is just what we do, Mike. Like, we talk. We talk for a long time. We talk a lot. And you asked us to review this game. Did you have them yelling at us? I didn't mean to yell at you. I mean, I didn't mean to yell.

27:21 To be, I mean, to be fair, I think a lot of, a lot of this episode was also anecdotes. So I think that was good content. Yeah. Great. I'm glad we're reviewing the episode inside of it. Probably means I should move on to the next section, which is the sequels and spinoffs. You'd be very surprised to learn that they never made a sequel for Championship Bowling. However, I took it a step further and decided, well,

27:46 did they make any other games by any other developers or publishers and also call it Championship Bowling? And that happened. So let's take a look at the other Championship Bowling games that were released that are definitely not by the same developing team or publishing team or have any relation to NES Championship Bowling. Okay. Championship Bowling on the Sega Genesis.

28:10 This game includes three different play modes. So they are listening to this episode. They went to the future. They heard us and then they went back in time to correct things for Sega. And their modes are standard bowling, which you can imagine is the normal 10 frame, spare mode, where a handful of pins are just kind of placed all over the place and the goal is to pick up a spare based on where those pins are. Okay. And then bonus mode, where specific pins are worth different amounts of points and you score points not like a normal frame. Okay. I mean, that at least, like, even that spare mode, like, where you're not trying to emulate the exact same thing over and over and your targets are randomized, like, that sounds more fun.

29:01 Yeah, it gives you, it gives this, like, a little more, like, playability, which is weird to say about a bowling game that takes five minutes. Like, well, there's no replayability to this. But, uh, I'm also noticing, because I'm just watching a video of it, this Genesis game, uh, has a lot of interesting character reactions in the middle of your, of your bowl.

29:22 Like what, Joe? Well, we got, uh, this girl rolls the ball, puts both hands on her cheeks, like, Home Alone style, like, and, and mouth wide open, and then as soon as the ball goes down, as soon as it hits the pins, she's just back to, like, a regular smile again. Okay. So, there's, she's uncertain, and she's terrified. Yeah, she's terrified, and it looks, I gotta, I need a little more data, but it looks like no matter what happens, she just goes right back to smiling.

29:48 The other championship bowling game is championship bowling for Xbox, the original Xbox. I don't, I didn't dive too deep into this to find out what they do differently, although they do have this bowling, this ball animation that shows you all of the meters inside the ball as it spins around, and that's very hard to describe here, but basically, like, you choose your power, you choose your aim, and you choose your spin all on the same meter. It's, it's pretty crazy, and requires a lot of precise timing, so I give them credit for at least coming up with a different kind of meter system, that's unique. That is unique. However, I chose this game because this has

30:30 the equivalent of those wacky animations that play in real bowling alleys, you know, like when you get a strike, and then it shows, like, the craziest 3D animations that were made, like, you know, on, like, the same machines that they made early Pixar films on. Pins, that's what this, it's like pins and balls at, like, the Revolutionary War, and, like, the ball, like, muskets down at four pins or something. And this has the same graphical fidelity as those. This looks really cheesy on the original Xbox, and, uh, clearly,

31:01 um, yeah, I just think, like, the people who made this were a lot more focused on the bowling part of it than they were on the graphics, so, take that as a plus or a minus, honestly, you know, maybe you could have a good time with that based on that knowledge. Also, just wanted to mention, as I was looking through bowling games, and obviously we talked about Wii Sports, I feel like it's also worth mentioning

31:20 Bowling, um, PlayStation 1. It's just called Bowling. There's no fun title. The cover art is just a picture of ten real pins. Wow. There's no, there's no character to choose from or even see. It just shows you the ball, and then you go into a first-person view afterwards. It's just hilariously low effort. Yeah. Uh, just the idea of, like, photorealistic pins on a cover and being, like, bowling. You know exactly what you're getting. Um,

31:52 can I go back to this Xbox version real quick? I have a question that you might not be able to answer, but I'm, again, just watching a video of it, and there's, you know, behind the pins, there's a big sign that says Hightower Lanes, and above that sign you can see a little bit of out the window. And out the window, it looks like in every, every time someone's bowling, there is a, a fucking chopper, just like, like, right outside of the window, like, looking in at you. Like an animated helicopter, like, watching this bowling. Like a helicopter with the same graphic fidelity as the rest of the game,

32:30 facing the window, like, just kind of, like, hovering back and forth, watching, like, right outside, like, it will crash into the window if it goes a foot forward. Is, like, That's terrifying. Do we know if there's, like, a story reason for this helicopter?

32:45 No, that's just, that's that location. You're in, you're inside of a skyscraper bowling, and so that helicopter is just circling the skyscraper. Oh. You could also choose to play at a church, and there's a nice stained glass everywhere as the background. These are very strange location choices. It's like, there was one lane,

33:04 and it was just completely, it didn't have to do with the theme of the bowling alley. I mean, even being in a skyscraper, I think it's very weird to have a helicopter looking in that close to you. Well, how else? Yes, I mean, How else are they gonna illustrate that you're in the air? That's true. Or like, hi, you know? Think about it. There's only one question left on my mind, and it has nothing to do with helicopters. That is, whether championship bowling will be on the Essential Games list.

33:37 Sean, your vote. So I came in here pretty confident of knowing like, what my opinion would be after I played this game before I even like, turned it on. And you know, sometimes that can be like, considered arrogance, but it's also just correct. And I think that's a no. So, Joe? So, I've been keeping this very secret, but I will now reveal that I am voting this no. That wasn't even a sentence, but I'm not voting for this to be on the Essential Games list. And you know, maybe if they added some helicopters, I would be a little more likely to, but even the manual that was clearly made in Word, or in Notepad, and Notepad,

34:28 is not enough to turn this game around for me. I also vote no, but as a complete sentence instead of what Joe did. It wasn't even worth a complete sentence. Here's the thing. Bowling games are an uphill battle. I think Sean said that right early on, and it's true. Oh, it was Joe. Okay, never mind. Sorry. Sean's never said anything mentioning again. Yeah. Look, bowling games, any game really, right? All these NES games have a lot going against them in the year 2022. You can't just offer us,

35:03 you know, one mode and have it all be the same thing and have it just be pressing, you know, pressing buttons to get meters to move to then experience bowling animations. That's the issue, right? Is that it's not even like we're bowling. we're just watching someone bowl based on three inputs that we happen to press. That's not going to get on the essential games list and it didn't. And it's done. It's done, but the podcast is not done. Next week, Cybernoid, the fighting machine. I don't know. What do you guys think? I like it. No idea. Cybernoid?

35:43 Cybernoid, the fighting machine, most likely not a bowling game, so that's something to look forward to. Well, with a name like that, I'd be pleasantly surprised with the bowling game. Just like that would be bowling. That would be wild. Yeah, that might be what bowling needs. Not even bowling games, just real bowling. We need like cyborgs, battle bots. And if you don't want to wait until next Friday to hear from us again, you can talk to us directly on our Discord. But there's a catch. It's only for Patreon subscribers, patreon.com slash nostalgia.

36:16 Honestly, $1 will get you in. We're not trying to be exclusive about this. $1, and you can have access to the Discord, and you can go on the Essential Games list channel inside the Discord and tell us how wrong we are about everything. Literally just write the longest post you can imagine. Everybody else who's a patron gets to read it to and agree with you as you yell at us

36:39 basically for a dollar. You get to, you know, like think about how many people in your life would you give a... Right. How many people in your life would you give a dollar to just to make them cry? Now you can do it virtually. Yeah, and if it does make him cry, we have like a gentleman's agreement that he will record himself crying and post like a little like gif of that in the Discord if you've actually made him cry. In the Discord and also on LinkedIn. Yes, on his LinkedIn specifically. he'll make that his profile picture. Okay. Okay. Thank you.