Customer Reviews

Fast Lanes Bowling

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

To be honest, owning a bowling game wasn't that high on my "must have" list, but I got this game as a stocking stuffer this year and was surprised at how much I find myself playing it. It has essentially become my new "solitaire," letting me play when I am bored and want to kill some time without getting into a 5 hour marathon. The production values are surprisingly good, particularly for a bargain priced game. The graphics, sound, and physics are all very well done. I kind of wish there were more "arcadey" (is that a word?) style modes of gameplay, but that might just be the console owner in me talking. Internet play might be fun, too, though bowling isn't exactly a head-to-head sport. You could practically play by e-mail, now that I think about it. A word of caution, though. The game can be very tough, and the need for accurate timing on the controls is a must. I find that if I have too many programs running on my computer it can cause the game to stutter a bit, making for missed throws. If you have a beefier system than mine (1 ghz, 256k of RAM, Geforce 2MX), you shouldn't have much trouble, if any. Overall, an excellent value, particularly if you like video game bowling.

This is by far the best bowling game out on the market right now.
It plays just like the real thing with the added benefit of some crazy and fun environments.

If you are even a little interested in bowling I highly recommend buying this game, you won't regret it.

I would have to agree with the advertising claim that this is a very realistic bowling game. It truly is!!! The 3D graphics of the bowling ball rolling down the lane and pin action is truly a work of art. I suspect a high end PC, with a high performance processor and sufficient memory is essential to get the most out of this game's graphics capability.

Unlike most other bowling games, this one is more for adults, although school age children should enjoy it as well. It is a bit too difficult for younger children.

I was able to install it on a new Windows Vista PC, but the CD-ROM must remain loaded in order to play the game. That is really the only fault of this game. Inspite of this downfall, I have a hi-res widescreen display, and Fastlanes Bowling supports it in a full 1600x1200 maximum (native) resolution mode. Lower resolution displays can be set up too for older PCs with VGA or SVGA monitors.

This game (first released in late 2003) is currently available at incredible bargain basement prices, and therefore a terrific value. It is definitely worth its original (suggested retail) price of $19.99; at a $1.99 it is a total no-brainer.

As to an earlier reviewer's criticism of no documentation, it can be found on the CD-ROM in a subdirectory called "manual". Although the criticism is well deserved because there is no link to a help file or the instruction manual in the main menu of the game application. I have yet to figure out how to use the "accuracy" and "strength" controls, but the defaults seem to be already set to my liking.

All in all, this is really a well designed premium quality, casual PC game, and I highly recommend it notwithstanding the instruction manual issue.

This game has alot going for it. First off let's get one thing straight. This is a 170 mb download or 2mb with the cd-rom. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 is a 2.5 GB game to put that in context. Even so this game manages to provide excellent graphics and a realistic bowling interface. Is it as good as Brunswick Pro Circuit Bowling 2002(BPCB2002) ? Yes, by a factor of 10 ! The graphics,camera angles,avatars and gameplay are superior. FLB uses minimal system resources so most computers should be able to play it without breaking a sweat. In Fast Lanes you CAN'T save your in process tournament progress like you can in BPCB2002) but stats are kept (at least up to 27 games) I don't know what happened there. You can view your bowler's stats by pressing esc when your bowling avatar is standing there and then left mouse clicking on stats. I've had no success at transferring FLB to another computer and the disc must be inserted only to start the game. You can then remove it. I like the night time regular bowling lanes and the moonbase lane on FLB. The 3 available female avatars are quite fetching but you can't play dress-up or feature/body change like Tiger Woods 07/08 which would have been nice but then remember just 170 MB. To put that in context High Heat Baseball 2002 is over half a gigabyte(660 MB) and that was almost a decade ago ! There is alot to recommend Fast Lanes Bowling and alot of stuff I could have definitely lived without. The graphics are great, the camera angles are fantastic and randomized, you can speed through the animations by hitting the space bar, the interface is challenging and fair. The same as BPCB only the meters move faster and at randomized speeds. Challenging and Good! The game uses up minimal computer resources and the bowling physics look real. I could give a hoot about oil dispersion; a thing BPCB makes such a big deal over. I don't care about all the casual elements of this game. What a waste of extremely valuable programming space. If I were designing this game I would have focused in on stats, in tournament saves, avatar creation and dress up instead of bowling off desert island piers with nothing for the pins to reverberate against. There are other casual bowling games out there (Gutterball 2, Shrek 2 Ogre Bowler) that serve the casual arcade bowling crowd. They don't have what this game has realistic bowling physics ! Update, I tried the download from gamestop on my Emachines T-3256 (2002) computer and could not get the game to visualize so it's possible that may have been a Vista version (T-3256 running XP Home SP2). Also if you control just two avatars the stats go beyond 30 games so I would recommend not playing 3 or more if you want long term stats to be saved.

Game is not what I expected. I am still disappointed with it, but I am getting to use the product to a degree. There is no help files of any kind, so any questions I have with the options menu and others go unanswered.

The game appears good but it contained absolutely no instructions and it has been very difficult to fabricate my own.

this game is pretty fun. the physics are awesome, very realistic. the modes are good, golf is really fun. the tournaments are hard unless the cpu has a bad game, since its hard to get above 200 in this game. i think my highest score was 236. avg in this game is 170. its alittle hard since the accuracy and power meters go so fast.

I received Fast Lanes Bowling and after two days still cannot get it to work. The "read me" instructions have lots of suggestions for what to do if it doesn't work and I've tried everything that I know how to do. I get the first screen but when I choose "play" all I get is "out of range" and no picture. I don't know what kind of video and sound card I have or how to download driver updates. I give up and chalk my loss up to just being plain ole dumb. I give it no stars.

I would love to give this product a good review or any review. But I still haven't received it. I originally ordered it in March of this year, it was automatically cancelled because I didn't respond to a back order notice, so I reordered it in May and keep getting notices that it's on back order again. It was supposed to be a birthday gift for my granddaughter in April. NOW, I'm hoping to give it for Christmas. The product may be good but the supplier isn't!