Game Review: Strike (Commodore 64, Mastertronic/MAD)

Tenpin bowling to this day is something I still enjoy, especially if I get a few friends together and have good couple of matches over ten frames.  I must admit I am not a fan of the bowling alleys where the pins are on a string – as that can stop some more wild strikes from happening on occasion. With that in mind, and to not spend as much money down the bowling alley, several games based on bowling were released, with Strike, even at the MAD price of £2.99, being very much the budget option for bowlers.

Spare or Split

The game loads with a nice enough loading screen.  However, the title screen shows the Strike logo at the top with a red bottom half with white basic Commodore font text showing the credits and options.  For one of the credits, a mess of characters shows on the screen, and the longer you play the game, the title game graphics seem to mess up even more during the scrolling.  You do have the option of a one or two player game, setting the controls for joystick or keyboard, and the relative skill level.  You can ignore all of that and press F1 to play with the defaults in one player mode – which saves time and effort.

Gutter Ball

As the game starts, you will note that there are no initial music or sound effects.  In fact, only when you successfully bowl a ball down the lane does the music start, which does seem like an odd choice for it to start then.  Why not on the title screen, or why not have some sound effects as an option, I wonder?   The game is presented with an isometric 3D view of the bowling lane, with an inset top left showing the end of the lane and the pins.  The view looks nice enough but having the option of a straight on view may have been useful.

To bowl, you move left and right to position your bowler on the lane so you are ready to throw.  You press up on the joystick to start your run up, and holding down the fire button starts the motion of the throw.  You need to let go of the fire button at the right moment, normally when the bowler’s hand is close to the floor, to release the ball and set it on its way.  If you time it too early, the ball goes nowhere but the floor, but time this too late and the ball will drop on to your foot without any points being scored for that go.  As per normal bowling rules, you have up to two attempts per frame to knock all the pins down.

Aiming for the Pocket

Most tenpin bowlers know that aiming for the pocket, between the 1 and 2 pins for left-handed players, and the 1 and 3 pins for right-handed players, is often the best way to score well.  The problem with the gameplay here is that because you cannot implement any spin on the throw and it is all down to timing just to release the ball, the balls mainly appear to go straight down one of the lines to the pins themselves, with the inset graphic showing the ball arriving and knocking down the pins.  You do not seem to be able to have that much control on the aim, meaning that when you do release the ball is it more luck than judgement to see what points you get.  Often, I ended up knocking 7 pins and having the 7 and 8 plus the 6 or the 10 as the remaining pins, meaning they were almost impossible to knock down.  Getting a strike was achieved, but it was not a consistent experience to say the least.

Scoring Stupidity

One fatal flaw the game has is that it does not do the tenpin scoring properly.  One example was that I went into the final frame with a spare, and then did a strike on the first bowl, meaning I got two extra.  I hit my foot with the first extra then scored 8, so that final frame would have been 18 points, and the spare counted as 20 in the previous frame.  For some reason I ended up scoring 28 for the final frame, which was clearly incorrect.   On another occasion the strike was  miscounted points wise but was then taken away even though I scored 8 in the next frame.  Clearly something was amiss here, and even more so when after a while I could not exit the game after bowling the final frame unless I pressed the RESTORE key to go back to the title screen, not mentioned in the instructions anywhere.

A Turkey of Bugs

Sadly, there are plenty of bugs in the game which really do interfere with the gameplay.  As well as the music not starting at the right time, the title screen progressively gets worse with a mess of graphics, and at one point flashing before it then exited back out of the game entirely.  Often when the game ends you cannot exit back correctly to the title screen, and on top of all that, there are also times when your character moves left and right on its own without you touching the joystick, and if often takes a few presses for you to reassume control.   It does not make for a pleasant experience during play and had more time and effort gone in, these could have been resolved and the gameplay suitably tweaked for more enjoyment.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Strike are very bland, with the tenpin bowling lanes in a sort of isometric look, with your bowler having some nice sprite overlays.  However, the animation (or should I say lack of) is poor, with hardly any frames as the ball is being bowled.   Also, the scoreboard graphics appear to be slightly out in terms of the colours for each frame, and the numbers and character set looks ugly too. The sound is a Jas C Brooke tune, which does sound like the bowling pins are being knocked over at first.  It is jolly enough, but can be a little repetitive at times.  The game did need the option of sound effects which may have been nice during play, but none exist.

Final Thoughts

If you have ever played Tenth Frame, you will know that a good tenpin bowling game was possible on the 8-bit systems.  Strike is not it.  In what was sadly becoming the norm for Binary Design C64 conversions (see also Feud and 180 for example) bugs crept into the game.  Here, some of those bugs are just awful with the title screen being a mess and being unable to exit the first game cleanly, as well as the music not starting correctly at first.  This just shows a lack of attention to detail and is unacceptable, even at a budget price.  The lack of playability really hits home as you will often land the ball on your foot, and the lack of any spin control means it becomes more luck than any skill or judgement, which is not really on either.  One for completists only, and if you do want a good bowling game, well Tenth Frame would soon be out on budget and a much better proposition.

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