Game Reviews

Polar Bowler

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Polar Bowler
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| Polar Bowler

There's an animation in Polar Bowler where it sort of looks like the titular Polar Bear is wiggling his fingers in the 'call me' motion.

It's unsettling - especially after you've just flung the massive white bear from a slingshot with little more than a patched up tyre inner tube between his endangered behind and the frozen wastes of the north.

Still, it's one of the quirks of a strangely balanced little game that builds on its basic idea of ten pin bowling colliding into a horizontal Angry Birds but never quite manages to get the blocks in the perfect order.

Sometimes it's too easy, sometimes it's too hard, and it rarely manages to sink its bear claws into you and drag you back for more.


I'm a cowbear, on an inflatable horse I slide

The game is all about catapulting a bear in an inner tube into some bowling pins scattered across a maze-like level.

You can tap on the screen to shift the bear left and right as he darts through the scenery, and equip different inner-tubes to add different powers to our ursine hero.

These include a rocket-powered inner tube that lets you speed up dramatically, a cowboy inner-tube that lets you hurl guided horseshoes at pins, and a balloon-based tube that allows you to pop a balloon, creating a shock wave that knocks pins down.

These are earned by smashing into crates, or you can buy them with the coins you collect from playing. You can also buy bundles of coins to fill up your coffers.

Everything is well put together, and while the presentation isn't exactly slick, it's certainly polished and buffed to a decent sheen.


Wouldn't the rockets just melt the ice?

The problem is, the game underneath just isn't all that entertaining. Sometimes it sparks into life, but there's always another dull-ish level waiting around the corner to spoil things.

There's nothing particularly wrong with the game - there's just a lack of inspiration in its mechanics and its ideas that leaves you feeling a little flat after a while.

Smashing into things is fun, and there's a strange quirky charm to proceedings that will occasionally paint a smile on your face, but it's not enough to make you come back for more.

Polar Bowler

There are moments here that are pretty solid, but Polar Bowler is built on foundations that melt down pretty quickly
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.