Indeed, there's a lot to keep you going in Rocket Bowl, but it's sort of a one-trick pony. There are a lot of courses, but not much overall variety from one to the next. There is some promise in the thought that D3 will release new, downloadable courses, but TeamXbox thinks it'll need some exciting courses to keep the activity level up. As it was for them, they enjoyed it, but it definitely had the feel of a game that'd be a fall back if you got bored of your main game-a "Hey, I haven't played Rocket Bowl in a while…you want to do it?" type of contest, even for only 800 Microsoft Points (about $10).
Justin Mette President of 21-6 and Lead Developer for RocketBowl answers a few questions about the game.
SBG:
"Traditional bowling scoring rules are (mostly) in effect here. Key differences are these: you've got three rolls each frame instead of two, and you can use your roll on frame 6 to go pick up stray pins from frame 2 or play ahead and knock over a few from frame 9.
At the end of the day bowling is more fun in person and zany miniature golf has already been done on the Live Arcade service (3D Ultra Minigolf). Forcing the two concepts together is entertaining for a game or two, but you probably won't be back for more."
Despite the things RocketBowl gets right, most players are more likely to pick up on this thread of general lack of ambition over anything else. The basic mechanics take some interesting directions within the confines of a bowling game, but the game's actual content is just an afterthought, offering only the bare minimum and lacking the depth to keep anyone outside of the devoted from coming back.
