ForeVR Bowl Review – Get Some Balls

Developer ForeVR released its first game back in May of 2021. It has since been updated for the Oculus/Meta Quest 2. We have been chunking our balls down the lane for several days and are now ready to give our final verdict. Is the game ready for the masses, or is just a gutterball of a tragedy?

Read on to find out.

 

Developer ForeVR started out in 2020 with a group of video game veterans that wanted to take real world games and recreate them in VR. ForeVR Bowl is their first foray into this genre, and it’s a much better game now than when it released back in 2021.

ForeVR Bowling Review – Practice Required

When we first started a game with ForeVR Bowl we didn’t fare very well. Quite a few gutter shots, no strikes, and just an occasional spare made for an underwhelming experience. Breaking 100 was a triumph in the first couple of games. As we moved up the ranking system and unlocked more and more bowling balls, and practiced our throwing technique, we found that our scores started improving dramatically. Practicing throwing really is the only way to improve your technique, but unlocking better bowling balls is the key to higher scores.

The basic bowling balls you start with are not very good, but you unlock much better ones just by playing through the game using them. Each of the unlockable bowling balls have varying stats that make them much more effective. The fire ball has an impressive launch speed and slams the pins with a massive force that, when lined up properly, will almost guarantee a strike. Other balls have things like gutter avoidance built in, or even a slowed down spin rate for better control. Immediate on-screen feedback showing your launch speed and spin rate, as well as release point, will also assist you to being a better player.

ForeVR Bowling Review – Hand tracking

ForeVR Bowl does a really good job of tracking your hands and body within the game space. We did find that setting the floor level in the Quest’s Guardian playing area about a foot above the actual floor helped those of us that are on the taller side. Once we found the proper release point for the actual bowling, and made sure to follow through with our throws, our game improved dramatically and we find ourselves hitting higher and higher scores.

Developer ForeVR did an excellent job not only with the gameplay of ForeVR Bowl, but also the gaming environment. There are multiple bowling venues that you can play in, and all of them are nicely detailed and very polished. The technical aspect for oiling the lanes also makes an impact on gameplay, and the physics behind that seems to be spot on.

ForeVR Bowling Review – In conclusion

ForeVR Bowl might not be a fun game for the first ten minutes or so, but if you can learn the mechanics and get past the short learning curve (and get some new balls), it becomes a very enjoyable experience that can be shared with others in a pass the headset mode, or even played online with your Oculus Quest friends and family in multiplayer mode. There’s also leaderboards and ranked matched for those of you that really want to get serious.

Developer ForeVR continues to listen to players of their games and are continuously working on any problems that might pop up. ForeVR Bowl is a family friendly VR game, that is well built and well designed, and should lead to hours of fun and entertainment for all.

9


ForeVR Bowl review code provided by publisher and played on an Oculus/Meta Quest 2. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean

Louis Edwards

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