I’m a big fan of bowling. You’ll find me in weekly bowling leagues and sporting a greater than 200 per-game average in real life. When motion controls hit the scene with bowling games in tow, I was pleased. Early titles such as Wii Sports bowling hit the nail on the head and were expanded further with Wii Sports Resort and a few other third party titles. Fast forward a few years to the release of the PlayStation Move and Brunswick Pro Bowling as a launch title. You would think that an extremely precise motion controller with a full retail bowling title would provide even a modicum of fun, but you would be dramatically wrong. This is the worst bowling game I’ve ever played.

First, I’ll tell you what the game includes. Various single player modes exist, such as leagues and tournaments, where you can build up your character or play with a pre-existing one. Up to four players can roll locally or you can hop online to expanded multiplayer action (good luck finding a game, though). That’s all I can say positive about the game. Yes, you read that right.

Now, onto the bad. Virtually every part of Brunswick Pro Bowling fits into this category. For starters, the menu system is confusing and poorly structured and it’s a pain to navigate with the Move controller. You can use a DualShock3 with the game, but that only gets you better menu controls. Another big negative even prior to gameplay is the fact that the game does not auto sync/calibrate the Move controller. Every other Move game available does that at startup, but Brunswick Pro Bowling skips this step. You’ll get a flashing white globe on the Move controller until you hit the Select button and calibrate it yourself.

Once you actually get into a round of bowling, the game takes an even further turn for the worse. Brunswick Pro Bowling sports the absolute worst motion controls I have ever experienced. Positioning your bowler and shot is cumbersome and throwing the ball is a mess. As a pretty good real life and experienced video game bowler, this isn’t my first rodeo. I know how to throw a bowling ball. But in Brunswick Pro Bowling, no matter how hard and fast I swing the Move controller, I can’t throw the ball faster than a two year old.

Swinging your arm faster or slower seems to have no impact on how well you throw the ball, which takes the entire point of motion controls out of the equation. And forget about putting spin on the ball — it’s almost impossible to do with any regularity. I tried re-calibrating the Move controller and even using a different one, then moved myself around the room and even moved the PlayStation Eye camera. Nothing fixed the issue. Using the DualShock 3 to bowl is even more of a chore, so don’t even bother.

Brunswick Pro Bowling is absolutely the worst game I’ve played in 2010. I had high hopes for the title, but it was all shattered by horrible gameplay mechanics and abysmal motion controls. Pack-in games have shown better controls than this. High Velocity Bowling, a PlayStation Network downloadable title, works better with the Sixaxis controls. I’m giving the game one star since it technically boots up without crashing, but there is no fun to be had with Brunswick Pro Bowling. Don’t even pick it up off the store shelves.

[A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]