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When I was younger, I worked in a bowling alley. The job gave me a chance to improve my own game—what else are you going to do when you’re in an empty bowling alley other than roll a bunch of practice games?—but also be entertained by how others bowl. Everyone’s style was different, but they all had one thing in common: contorting their bodies in some telekinetic attempt to influence the ball’s movement after it rolled off their fingers. While those ministrations were always for naught, D3Publisher’s forthcoming XBLA entry will enable you to do much more than just wave at your ball toward the pins.

Rocket Bowl, as you could probably surmise from the title, gives you a power-packed sphere, so you can literally pilot it around the lanes. Not only can you use the Left Stick or Bumper buttons to steer the ball slightly, but you can hit the X or B Buttons to fire a rocket and make the ball angle sharply left or right, respectively. This Rocket Boost is limited—your “starter ball” only enables you to blast it off once per shot—but as you earn money through successfully scoring and achieving victories, you can purchase any of the other 14 balls (using the in-game currency), which provide multiple Boosts per shot.

A well-timed Rocket Boost can aid your scoring.

If you think of Rocket Bowl as a traditional bowling contest, the concept of rocket power will probably seem to be a power-up with little need beyond a single course correction on the lane. However, you need to consider this game as being more a bizarre mix of bowling and miniature golf, because no two lanes are the same, and many of them have extreme contours and hazards that make the ability to navigate your ball quite beneficial.

Adding to the “bizarre” categorization is the fact that each collection of lanes are relatively open—again, much like a golf course—so if you happen to have an errant shot miss the desired pins, you can potentially continue to steer the ball, within the shot timer, to hit another lane’s pins. This “Wild Shot” capability is part of what makes Rocket Bowl so…well, wild, because any other-lane scoring you do gets tacked into that pins’ frame, leaving you another chance to hit the pins on the lane you’re supposed to be shooting at.

The ball influencing also comes in handy for pulling down bonuses. Scattered around each course are “Star” icons, as well as power-ups, such as one that adds to the number of Rocket Boosts you can fire on that shot. The Star icons are turned to currency at the end of a match—but you only collect the Star points on a particular shot if you hit at least one pin, which makes the Wild Shot concept even more important.

Once the ball hits pins, you can’t control it anymore, but given the contour of the lane or the slick in-game physics, you may have the ball or a knocked-down pin come back and take out other standing pins. While the prospect is like the pin action in a real-world game of bowling, the goofy lane designs make where you put the ball important—and that’s not always in the traditional pocket just off the head pin. For instance, if the pins are on a steep slope, you might want to tap one of the back pins so it causes a domino-tumbling effect on its neighbors. Only playing a course a few times will give you the best strategy on how to play each lane—yes, just like the holes of a golf course. And there are often multiple lines you can put the ball on to get to the pins, in order to make the best shot, but also collect the most bonus icons.

Success on a particular course of lanes will unlock the next one, and Rocket Bowl offers ten sets (as well as a “standard” indoor lane, if you want to engage in some traditional bowling action). We can also imagine that D3 might choose to offer new lane collections as for-purchase downloadable content after the game is released.

The single-player side of the game offers three modes: Free Play is you against the course striving for the best score and, hopefully, some a cash return at the end. Those earnings might be enhanced by the Mini-Striker minigame that comes after a round’s conclusion, where you have to wager how many three-pin strikes you’ll make in a timed segment (with your wager multiplied by the number of strikes you had added to your total, but the wager times the number of misses being subtracted). The Challenge Mode pits you against that lane’s AI “professional,” while Tournament Mode sets you up against five AI bowlers. Both of the AI competition modes offer you other ways to earn money—and they can be quite lucrative if you’ve honed your game.

There’s also a multiplayer component, which enables gameplay between up to four bowlers on the same system or via Xbox Live.

Some “lanes” offer multiple paths to the pins.

After playing some games of Rocket Bowl, I got right back into the competitive swing I exercised when I worked at the bowling alley as a kid. Best of all, I didn’t have to flail and twist in hopes of getting the ball to move off of its current path, which was a perfect, considering I was comfortable in my chair as I played.

Finally, for those achievement pursuers among us, Rocket Bowl’s dozen milestones are listed at the end of the preview. While there’s always a chance there’ll be some changes to them before the game is released, it looks like a diverse list for players to start planning out.

Rocket Bowl doesn’t have a set release date at this point, but D3 has said that it looks to be on track for a late-February or early-March posting to XBLA. We’ll give you the final date when D3 and Microsoft pass it on, as well as offer a full assessment of the game in its final form.

Achievements

First to First—Awarded for achieving 1st place in a Tournament. (10 points)

300 Club—Awarded for getting 300 points in a game. (25 points)

Star Power—Awarded for collecting every star on a course. (15 points)

The Locksmith—Unlocked every course in the standard game. (10 points)

The Ball Hog—Bowled with every ball in the game. (10 points)

Filthy Rich—Earned $100,000 in cash. (15 points)

The Journeyman—100 multiplayer games completed. (15 points)

The Power Saver—Competed a game without using any Rocket Boosters. (25 points)

The High Roller—Earn at least 50 in cash in an Xbox Live game. (25 points)

The Streaker—Get First Place 5 times in a row in Xbox Live games. (10 points)

The Super Streaker—Get First Place 10 times in a row in Xbox Live games. (15 points)

The Invincible Streaker—Get First Place 25 times in a row in Xbox Live games. (25 points)

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