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Wii Suck @ Video Games - Episode 3 - Brunswick Pro Bowling

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jul 12, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.018

TL;DR

Poor Man's Pinball reviews Brunswick Pro Bowling (Wii 2007), finds it disappointing despite Brunswick's real-world credibility.

Summary

The Poor Man's Pinball Podcast hosts review Brunswick Pro Bowling for the Wii, a 2007 game developed by Crave Entertainment. Despite high expectations based on Brunswick's real-world bowling expertise, they found the game to have clunky controls, poor character customization, and slow animations. The episode features user reviews (one very positive, one very negative) and ends with a randomized selection of next week's game: Lego Pirates of the Caribbean.

Key Claims

  • Brunswick Pro Bowling was released on August 22nd, 2007

    high confidence · Host states release date explicitly during the show

  • The Wii catalog is approximately 38% bowling games

    low confidence · Host admits immediately after: 'It's a lie.' Self-contradicted as hyperbole

  • Brunswick suffered a cybersecurity hack

    medium confidence · Host mentions: 'Brunswick just suffered like a hack. They just got like, they had a real problem there' — mentioned in passing without specifics

  • Wii Sports Bowling was well-received and fun

    high confidence · Both hosts agree: 'It was so fun and so dumb' with general affirmation

  • Brunswick Pro Bowling requires both players to share a single remote in two-player mode

    high confidence · Host explicitly states: 'you play a two-player game, but you don't each get your own remote. Why would you not have your own remote?'

Notable Quotes

  • “Brunswick just suffered like a hack. They just got like, they had a real problem there. So although we're going to trash your game, sorry about that Brunswick, because you are a good company.”

    Host (Crap Bruce Alley) @ ~6:00 — Acknowledges Brunswick's real-world business while previewing criticism of their game

  • “The Wii is known for simple controls. Anyone can pick this up, anyone can do it, and you're bowling. You're just hucking this thing at the screen.”

    Host @ ~14:30 — Establishes expectation that Wii controls should be intuitive, making the game's clunky controls a failure

  • “I don't want normal people in video games.”

    Host @ ~20:00 — Commentary on the game's character customization being too realistic/boring rather than fun

  • “Brunswick Pro Bowling is a fan-freaking-tastic bowling game if you understand bowling beyond throw it that way really fast”

    Windy City (user review, May 2008) @ ~27:00 — Contrasting positive review praising depth for serious bowling enthusiasts

  • “Very poor game, no ball control, the ball will roll without any movement other than pressing B and dropping arm to start bowling. Looking for a refund.”

    Kobe S (user review, February 2008) @ ~28:30 — Harsh negative review citing core gameplay failure (lack of ball control)

Entities

Brunswick Pro BowlingproductCrave EntertainmentcompanyPoor Man's Pinball PodcastorganizationWii Sports BowlingproductBrunswickcompanyGlennpersonCrap Bruce AlleypersonLego Pirates of the CaribbeanproductWindy CitypersonKobe Sperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Hosts repeatedly criticize Brunswick Pro Bowling's clunky and unintuitive control scheme, especially given the Wii's reputation for simple, accessible controls

    high · Multiple explicit statements about controls being 'a mess,' 'clunky,' and failing to live up to Wii standards

  • ?

    product_concern: Game features slow, odd animations including character models that are unresponsive and lack personality

    high · Hosts note animations are 'slow and odd' and the character creation results in generic-looking people rather than fun or silly characters

  • ?

    product_concern: Two-player mode requires sharing a single remote, unusual design choice that limits multiplayer accessibility

    high · Host explicitly asks: 'you play a two-player game, but you don't each get your own remote. Why would you not have your own remote?'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Despite Brunswick's real-world credibility and the hosts' initial excitement about a bowling game licensed by an actual bowling company, the game dramatically underperformed expectations

    high · Host: 'I really thought this is gonna be awesome, and I had bad news for you' paired with final assessment comparing to harsh user reviews

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast includes user review readings and a randomized game selection mechanism (drawing from a jar) for next week's episode

    high · Hosts read two contrasting Metacritic user reviews and conduct a randomized selection for next week's game

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.070

0:00
I will be back with more of these in the near future. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. C Crap BruceAlly. We're here to talk about the Wii game du jour and pick out next week's. But first, some exciting news. It's not Wii related but that's okay. But it's super exciting! It is super exciting. I finally procured the Futurama game for PlayStation 2. I know everyone. It's not Wii. It's okay. This'll be a light... I guess we're gonna talk a lot about other video game stuff but focusing on the Wii. I was looking for this forever. I went to the MGC Midwest Gaming Classic going, I'm gonna buy this game cuz there's all these dealers and I asked everyone and nobody had that game. Cash in hand. No one wanted our cash. I have a feeling it would be like $700. I'd be like, no, that's not true. So I've been watching and watching. There's this one floating around that's a little janky and it's been there for a couple of like a long time. Pract thing I'm not going anywhere just get coughing Happy I'm not going anywhere broadband I am Cynthia ș. You know why we made it be a success so special, so a nice person. No but no here is a translation. Chief Schmutzy has given this all to the producers of lower reflects, one of the rasturtube.ac prosecutors. cảmстр yeux. Alif done this and the other are now publishing each other. I'm Kamishana Colgate and I'm Ramp paceLady with Mar tala warrior and I'm C Barexpensivein the morning and you're like hey crapper Sally I need you to do me a favor Can I borrow up?
2:05
Crap Bruce Alley gets up about 645 so at 630 I was asked to do a favor to send somebody 220 dollars you are You're the accountant you're the key Sure. Dun pc eleven year old granny sighs
2:48
C 있으 dass mich dabei für olduğunu, Need это für mich getan undhibiert東部сы diese Spare selfie Game. I have a moment foryu Nós Gracias for you to the person who was very decent to deal with cuz I was on the list at the local Retro game and they're like those go for like what they say to add you to 350 years 370 endode like 288 level game. véritwele ich nichtполundert am Lagerhehe, Me da gekosttert war das 370 ,, colleagues oud 제가 bar겠습니다. oh my I didn't think it was 280 but it was smelly.I did not think this was 280 but it was expected it was, it was more.Oh it was like higher they had the other end was a 3 也有. Cab 밝 Kennethoy____ This is a bit moody and jumpy but that's the first thing. I don't mind it. I love Futurama so it's worth it. It plays. I'm happy. Jump across to the thing, fall down. Go back around, back up. Jump across to the thing, fall down. About six times before you actually jump across to the thing and then keep going. That's part of the charm of PS2. Not really but it's, I love it so I'm happy. Yes. Now, more important news. Yes. What happened this week? So, on our last show, we gave out our email address. The official We Suck at Video Games email address. Which is wesuckatatvideogames at gmail.com. Now, we is W-I-I. So, wesuckatvideogames at gmail.com. That's the first show that I have an email for. Yes. You know that? And we have a number one fan. Oh my god, fan number one. So when we went off the air last week, we each said who we thought our number one fan would be and... You can tell by the excitement who was correct. Craft Bruce Alley was correct. Exactly. Our number one fan is Glenn. Yes, skater Glenn. Skateboarder Glenn? Glenn Wechter damn near killed her? I don't know, whichever you want to go with. Maybe he'll chime in and let us know. Glenn, let us know what you want us to call you on our show. Clen the Intern on Ordo Vallaudi, he's Clen the Intern. I don't know. He's a cool dude. Let's see what he wants to be on We Suck at Video Games. It doesn't have to be Clen. You can just make up a name. Yep. We'll let you know next week, hopefully. I'm Foghorn Leghorn on the other show. Why? Who knows? Doesn't matter. It was a bad joke, but I ran with it. Why not? Exactly. So thank you very much for the email, Clen. It was awesome to actually see it. And I was like, oh, cool. C Prab
5:50
Mainframe That was a unique need responses from MLG Weekly at the beginning of the video manter It actually yes anyway so that good so fun times thank you very much Glenn it was it was great to see the email and hey don send us hate mail but if it send us email if you want to now on to this week show we we picked what did we pick last week last week we prick we last week we picked Brunswick Pro Bowling Brunswick Pro Bowling now neither we have had we have no history with this game whatsoever I gonna start by reading The back of the box is made in USA
6:18
Brunswick Pro Bowling for the Wii is it was pretty it was by Crave Entertainment Which they've done a lot of stuff. I had to kind of like look up what they actually did that I would know And it's just like a ton of stuff. I don't know nothing like jumped out like razor freestyle screw scooters and
6:38
They did just a lot Chapter 11 spending time doing your homework Just like at the lanes, you control the direction, speed, and spin for maximum results and higher scores. Strike up a game with friends and family or enter a tournament in the career mode. With Brunswick Pro Bowling, it's all here, except for the rental shoes. That's the 11 different environments to choose from. We'll touch on that. Realistic physics. We'll touch on that. Timeline changing lane conditions for the player to master during the course of a match. So they're kind of saying it has like wear as most of them do. Career mode work your way from an amateur to a true professional Brunswick Pro Champion. More on that later. Brunswick, authentic Brunswick bowling products to improve your character's performance. Now, I will start by saying the place I work also does a lot of cyber security stuff. Brunswick just suffered like a hack. They just got like, they had a real problem there. So although we're going to trash your game, sorry about that Brunswick, because you are a good company. This game though, wowzers. Glenn had predicted my score and we didn't write down our scores, did we? Well, the first games that we played, I did write down the scores. You did? What was my first? Your first score was 116. Oh, see he said 163, I underperformed. What did you, you had like a 220 or something. No, I had a 124. So, we were drunk, and that's good. Because if you're playing Brunswick Bowling, it's better if you're drunk, because you just don't want to remember it. This will be a fairly negative review, I'm thinking. But as we go into it, what happened? We had no history with the game whatsoever. So we also, this was released on August 22nd of 2007. So where were you man? August 22nd 2007. I think we just had gotten another exchange student at that time. Wow. Who was it? Maybe Sarah. Sarah? Yeah, maybe. We have a, we've had a numerous exchange students from Japan and one from Vietnam. So, okay, the top song, what was the top song? Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston. I've never heard of that in my life nor have I- You did last week when I wrote it down. And I never heard of Sean Kingston. Luckily Booz wiped that from my memory. I have a memory kill switch. Now what was the top movie? Oh, this one was a good one. Well, funny. Ha ha. Talladega Nights, The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. It almost fits the Brunswick Poll Polling, doesn't it? It does, right? C Barbedingtin' is not a very fun fact at all. The headline for that day was, 14 U.S. Soldiers Die in an Iraq Helicopter Crash. That was not a fun fact. My fun fact was that the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 30 to 3. It was the most runs in history. Sorry about your luck Baltimore Orioles. They were probably wishing they were playing Brunswick Pro Bowling. Nobody's ever wished that. So we had some beers while we were doing the show last week and then we were excited we're like alright bowling and then we went cuz no the Wii is very bowler friendly bowler heavy there's probably probably 38% of the catalog for we had some sort of bowling in it. Wow that's a big percentage. It's a lie. This is the most ridiculous game ever. WeeSports had Wii Bowling and everyone in the world loved Wii Bowling. Wii Bowling was a really good game. It was so fun and so dumb. They just had all these different things that were cool. Let's not talk about that one now. Let's wait until we get it. This one is not that. What happened was I expected a lot because I'm like, Brunswick? Come back talented players placed on theication the Yeah well Brunswick brought their balls to the game Wow that sounded bad Well yes but They brought their bowling balls to the game and put like their name on it and that about as far as it went See this, the controls. Oh, that was the... First off, so you play a two-player game, but you don't each get your own remote. Why would you not have your own remote? I don't know. Also, good luck with those controls. Even the controls to assign your player characteristics in each one. It's just a clunky mess. The controls were a mess. Yes, very bad. And one of the things that the Wii is known for is simple controls. Anyone can pick this up, anyone can do it, and you're bowling. You're just hucking this thing at the screen. And to the point that we were like, maybe this is broken. Let's go upstairs. So because like downstairs was the retro pit. Now upstairs we have the Wii U, and I was like well maybe that the bigger environment will make it better. It didn't. It seemed a little better. Not much. Not. I think that was the beer that the beer wore off and now that's why it was a little better. But the I really thought this is gonna be awesome, and I had bad news for you. We had Brunswick Cosmic Bowling out there. Oh sweet! Not really. Well maybe they fixed it by then or maybe a different developer. I don't know I didn't look at it because we're kind of doing this one game at a time. Yep. You know, so we start and then immediately I try to get you to play or try to have you put your name in, but then you wiped mine out. Yeah. And then we had to restart it and then we did this. And then like the bowling part of it. And now we have we also have what is it, Namco Rock and Bowl, which is an arcade bowling game. And it's really good. With a rollerball. Beших of 의� rede nerede Sophантy piñetř —ち Σ 别atte moneyscreening 32.330痛 Kong ascending12.59 You know what I mean? You're gonna have one shirt, you can choose between three colors, you're gonna have two hairstyles, you can choose between two hairstyles. Oh no, there were three hairstyles. Sorry, yes, three. And four colors of hair. Bad, bad, and bad. Yes. So there was like, you couldn't be silly. No. Like not even the dumbest, I made the dumbest one I could and it was like, eh, I've seen that guy at the quick trip. You know, it's not, and I didn't laugh, because he looks like a normal person. I don't want normal people in video games. To- no间for ultimate hope forever, Defrist To- no�kt o¡½ג ЭI oʻoo £ò tiden ʰä今天ений è phenomena to- no゚§ ξç å textbooks iffoémonon the eddy r
15:43
O e o e o e o raphit+. The animations were slow and odd as well. Yeah. Like the other thing with especially with Wii bowling and that's probably because it's those it's not a person. It's like that stick figure kind of Wii looking thing. So there's no it does the same motions, but you don't notice it because it's you're too is he laughing and having fun. These like you push the button and hold the button and then he like moves and then you swing and then it like sits and thinks for a second. Thank you, Andy! Thank you! Thank You! Thank you! Thank You! Thank you! Oh's Here! OH'S HERE! Oh's Here! OH'S HERE! Oh's Here! OH'S HERE! Incoming It was the 2007. It was. I can't blame John. But it was like a square on his chin He just came back from a rock and nickel back concert and he was ready to fight To Us R Las h plague wrestles in Bus moi dun bases lan kou accuracy hob and ley did co-produced smiles property it was just the mail character but within female me it was the late in one of our board hold where with halin john but they're also wasn't the want pink How funny... What a delight... Yeah... It's a long story.... Yukor Ukrainianевичuensismo NorwegualMIrangleost deliveryte нрав선�ilitiesbernyamw farkiwis fasealog Witọgw restraintviehrelicza and beggin at Jinp Listen Loaded.
19:18
. You can figure it out from there. Alright, so Windy City wrote in May of 2008, I'm not a gamer. Up until last year I hadn't played a home video game system since Sega Genesis in 1992. I am a bowler. Not a pro, but enough of a fan to own several bowling balls and understand the difference between them, as well as the lane conditions and other aspects of bowling. I ended up bowling, I ended up playing Wii Sports bowling at my nephew's and fell in love with it. Yeah, that's what happens. I was very excited to hear about the Brunswick version when it came out. Brunswick Pro Bowling is a fan-freaking-tastic bowling game if you understand bowling beyond throw it that way really fast or twist the heck out of it so it sweeps from one side of the other lane and back. You can't just drop the ball in in the same spot and expect the same results. I enjoy this challenge. What I dislike is the inability to bowl in a multiplayer way in career mode. There should be a way for multiple players to participate in a tournament or even occasional league night. It takes a little while to get used to the intricacies of the remote action, but you can still roll a 200 game or close without understanding it completely. Oh, on a side note, Pinbusters is by far the worst bowling game I've ever played. Oh no. The action is a joke and the character asides are really annoying. So, Windy City gave this a 9. That's not a terrible one. Let's see what Kobe S said. Kobe S, February 29th of 2008, gave it a 0 out of 10. Very poor game, no ball control, the ball will roll without any movement other than pressing B and dropping arm to start bowling. Looking for a refund. Company should be ashamed of putting out such trash. So I guess I'm leaning a little bit more towards Cody but without so much visceral. I'm glad Windy City liked it. Good for you, Windy City. To each his own. I don't do with ease what you will until we get an email from them saying cease and desist, but I'm like, well, it's on the internet. You wrote it. You can't unwrite it. I'm going to try and pick shorter ones next from going forward. Okay. That one was pretty tough to get through. Plus I can't read English anymore. Alright, so we're running long here. It is your turn to pick. Alright. So, reach into the rabbit jar, the rabbit cup and tell us what we're going to be playing this week. Let's see, are you all ready? Woohoo! Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Craft Bruce Alley might like Lego games. Well, you can't really die very much. Well, you can. You just blow into Lego pieces. And it just respawns and off you go. Yep. Well, there you have it. Play along at home. Pirates of the Caribbean, does it say any longer name or is it just... Nope, that's it. Okay, so we're both gonna say give it a pass, give the Brunswick bowling a pass and Metacritic was a 4.5 out of 10 score, so they kind of fall in line with what we're thinking. Alright, so gear up, next week it's gonna be Lego mania running wild on you brother. I'm Mal with me as always, Craft Bruce Halley, and we'll see you next week We'll see you next week for more We Suck action.