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I-play to launch Wii-style motion bowling mobile game

It's called I-play Bowling, and we've had a go

I-play to launch Wii-style motion bowling mobile game
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| I-play Bowling

There's something of a trend building around motion-sensing mobile games, either using accelerometers built into handsets, or using the phone's camera to track motion and turn it into game actions.

In recent months, we've reported on Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo's Chokkan games, looked at GestureTek's camera-based technology, and checked out motion-sensing Quake III running on iPod Touch.

Now I-play is getting in on the act, with its new game I-play Bowling. On most phones, it'll be a regular bowling game, albeit with the ability to customise your avatar, and compete in three tournaments against nine other characters.

However, if your phone has an accelerometer inside - for example, the Sony Ericsson W910i or K850i - you'll be able to play the game using motion-sensing controls, where you actually 'bowl' the handset, then tilt it to add spin.

If that sounds a bit puzzling, check this video shot from my point of view when I had a go yesterday:

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Not bad, eh? You don't have to use the bowling or spinning motion-sensing all the time - they can be turned on or off at will to suit your gaming location. It's all down to what I-play is rather grandly calling 'EyeMobile' technology. The publisher isn't the only one to be making use of accelerometers in this way - EA Mobile's Need For Speed ProStreet has a motion-sensing version for the W910i too.

It works well. My first bowl went wildly into the gutter due to over-enthusiastic tilting, but I was soon firing strikes down. We'll have a proper hands-on preview soon, so click 'Track It!' for an alert when we cover the game.

I should add, that music's getting turned off when we do review the game. Despite the slap-bass intro.

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.)