Recently a friend sent me a wedding present, which happens to be around 40 SNES games, most of which I did not already own. I won't go into the specifics of some of the rarer titles I was sent *cough*I now own Hagane*cough*, but several of the titles were sports games. That being the theme for this month's Together Retro, I decided I'd sit down with one in particular that I doubt was going to get much attention.
Brunswick World: Tournament of Champions
Yes, a bowling video game released in August 1997.
Brunswick World isn't the flashiest sports game. By the time of its release, its graphics were horribly dated. The music is limited, the character customization options are pitiful, and there aren't too many options beyond, well, bowling. But what you do get are training options, the choice of exhibitions or league play, and statistics for some of North America's top bowlers.
The statistics are actually what caught my eye. Yes, it features mini bios of some of the top bowlers of the 1990s. It also features their average point distributions (they tend to range around 210-220), a breakdown of tournaments they've played in and awards, including leadership roles in the bowling players association, and most interestingly, their winnings are included. You can actually see what a professional bowler could hope to pull in during any particular year. It isn't a lot compared to something like basketball, but having a top year in multiple tournaments could apparently net you in the $200k slot in the mid-80s.
As for the actual bowling, it plays surprisingly like a golf game. You must select player position and angle of approach as well as overall power and ball spin using rising and falling meters. It takes some getting used to, and I'm generally terrible (it took me a few runs to make it to 135, my best score so far), but it also feels so incredibly familiar. While at one point I was actually a pretty decent bowler and regularly reached the 150+ range, I was never anywhere near professional level and have only ever reached a 200+ game once...and that was easily over 20 years ago. Getting to play things this way is actually not so bad. I will probably go back to Brunswick World over the month, especially since I don't expect too many of you guys to go check out bowling games.