Well it’s bowling but with a battle element. You go head-to-head with fellow Earthlings first to be chosen as the best bowler on the planet. Then you represent the planet in a galactic tournament. The prize? Your planet not getting eaten by the Dark Queen. A flimsy premise to say the least. I mean honestly, hyper-powerful galactic Queens like to bowl?

Anyway, the storyline aside Galactic Bowling gives you some fairly standard bowling game features like placement left/right on the lane and angle. Once the ball has been thrown you can tilt the iPhone to spin the ball. Not the ideal way to implement spin in a bowling game really. In fact, I never used it and just shot straight balls generally resulting in 8-10 pins per throw.

The battle part of my description comes in the form of powerups that help you to throw your opponent off their game and hopefully land them in the gutter. There are all sorts of super moves and whammies that will help you win. But your opponents have them and will use them as well.

There are also a series of special balls and will affect the result of the throw in various ways depending on which special ball you’re using.

The graphics in the game aren’t all that spectacular and seem grainy with jagged edges at times. They’re not bad, it’s just that I’ve seen better. The soundtrack consists of blaring, generic rock tunes that might remind you of many bowling allies in the 1980s themselves. 

Overall I guess there’s nothing really wrong with the game, it does play as advertised. It’s just that I found myself having no interest whatsoever in playing it. That means either I have no love for bowling (which I don’t really) or that the game just didn’t seem fun and interesting to me (which it doesn’t). SO that being said, you might like it. the great thing about iPhone apps is that there’s generally a free or Lite version that you can check out before you play. That’s what I’d suggest you do with this one.