Gutterball 2 Review

I never played a bowling game so I decided to give Gutterball a try.

From all the 5 alleys available: Lotus, Jungle, Iceberg, Wacky and Retro, I like most Lotus maybe because I am keen of Chinese/Japanese culture.

You need only your mouse to play it, no keyboard involved and I liked this because you can play it much faster this way. They have an easy to follow tutorial on how to play it and I first took a look at it because I had no idea how to play it. When you start, you position the bowl, then you click on it to start moving and then you drag the mouse down and then you finally release it as quickly as you can so you hit the pins.

Be careful to keep your ball on the alley! I had a problem with this because I played at first on the Lotus alley and the ball kept falling in the water. But after a couple of wet shots, I got the hang of it and managed to stay on track.

They have three game types: single player, player vs computer and player vs player. If you play against another player, you will have your 2 hits and then you can let your friend at the pc so he/she can have his/her strike. This is fun and addictive and seems less boring if you compete with a real person.

You can choose from various balls, with specific features: weight, speed, spin and looks.

The commentators are a blast. They are so much fun as they make fun of you if you miss. You can choose from: Master, Poogie, Bill, Louie and you also have a crowd that cheers after your hit or not :).

At the end of each round you will see a screen with all the alleys and the scores, strikes, spares, HP Hit % and Strike %.

Full screen option. At first, I played it in a small window because I didn’t know that you can make it fullscreen but after an hour of playing I took a break and looked in the menu and I finally seen the window size option.

The design and effects of Gutterball 2 aren't that smoking, but the weather had a nice look and I liked it a lot when it began to snow because I do miss winter.

A downside was the sound. It was not suited for such a game and it was annoying me so much that I couldn't focus on the game. It's nice that they had custom sound for each alley, but they weren't the best choices. It's great that you can turn all sounds and effects off as I sometimes play this game when my niece sleeps and I don't have to turn off the sound on my laptop.

Also, they could have added more alleys because after a couple of hours you get bored.

Considering the options available and the overall look, Gutterball 2 is an addictive 3D bowling game, but a bit pricey at $17.95 USD. Not to mention that you will have to pay an additional fee of $7.95 USD if you want to have the CD-ROM. The experience of playing it is nice, but there are a couple of free games that are almost the same.