Previews

Midnight Bowling 3D

Ace ten-pin sim given a three-dimensional makeover

Midnight Bowling 3D
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| Midnight Bowling 3D

There are many mobile bowling games, most of which are mediocre. Gameloft's Midnight Bowling, which came out last year, is one of the better examples, with a sassy bar room setting and array of colourful characters.

The publisher has spent the last few months producing a sequel in glorious 3D, which will be available for high-end Symbian handsets. Midnight Bowling 3D will also offer a better view onto your game in progress, with eight different camera angles to show off your perfect strikes (or dreadful gutter-balls).

It's the game's characters that benefit most from the 3D overhaul, however, and Gameloft has been putting a lot of effort into getting them just right.

"When designing characters for our games, we focus on giving them a strong personality so that players will identify with them," says Charles Revillion, the man who knows such things at Gameloft. "We also make sure that each character is very different from the others in terms of performance and also attitude, so that each offers a unique user experience."

You can choose as play as one of four characters in Midnight Bowling 3D. Lee is a vampish brunette with big boots and a predatory air. Rock is an athletic-looking chap in preppy casual wear. Moses looks like Rio Ferdinand after a rummage in Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen's wardrobe. Finally, Nico is a Winona Ryder lookalike in a series of revealing outfits. (Okay, so we've got a bit of a crush on Nico.)

It's not just about short skirts, though. The characters have different celebrations when they score a strike, for example, and different expressions of frustration when they mess it up, but they also vary when it comes to playing styles, which influences how you should approach the game.

"If you play with Lee, you might find it easier to bowl a strike by positioning yourself on one side of the lane and adding a lot of spin to the ball," says Charles. "But you might also want to play with a more powerful character that can bowl a strike with a very fast, strong, straight shot."

The only downside to Midnight Bowling 3D being a Symbian game (apart from needing the right handset to play it, obviously) is that it's not always easy to get your hands on them. "Symbian is still supported by only a few mobile operators, which is the main issue for us as the operators are still the main distribution channel for mobile games," Charles explains.

Even if the guys at Gameloft don't persuade said operators, you can be sure we'll do our damnedest to point you in the right direction. So if Midnight Bowling 3D sounds like it could be right up your alley, either click the 'Track It!' option above or slide back this way in May.

Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)