Yabba Dabba DUMB! Review

Yabba Dabba DUMB!

This is more of a warning than a review, as I wouldn’t want any of my loyal “fans”

(if you can call thousands of daily hate letters “fans”) to think that I condone

such gaming or endorsed this product in any way. Consider this my disclaimer:

I hold no responsibility for your actions, and cannot in any way be found liable

for the purchase of such dreck as Bedrock Bowling.

Sure, I’ve played bad games in the past, especially in the early days of the

Playstation when everybody was jumping on the 32 bit bandwagon. But Bedrock

Bowling is a real piece of work. The idea of incorporating the Flintstones

into a game is fine, and bowling games, when well executed, can be really fun.

However, Bedrock is NOT actually a bowling game.

Poor Fred wants to go practice his stroke after work, but evil Mr. Slate has

other plans for him. He has to finish clearing out the gorge by tomorrow, or

he’s fired! (Sounds familiar, but change clearing a gorge to reviewing some

cruddy game like this one.) What’s a caveman (or reviewer) to do? Well, lucky

for Fred, he has a little green buddy named Gazoo to help him out.

Gazoo has a, ahem, brilliant plan: He turns the streets of Bedrock into tracks

that contain ten randomly placed pins to be collected on the way down. He then

proceeds to materialize what he calls “shells,” half-round stone balls that

act as vessels for sliding down said track, knocking down pins and collecting

gems and dodo birds (go down a track in a balling bowl? Go figure). Hit all

ten pins and it’s a strike…other than that, there is no reference to bowling

scores or any other aspect of bowling at all. The only way this game comes close

to holding the title “bowling” is that 1. There are pins involved and 2. You

need to drink a lot of beer to enjoy it.

You can bowl, or rather, be bowled, as Fred, Barney, Bamm-Bamm, Pebbles and

Dino. They aren’t different from one another. I was hoping to see a brand new

rendering of Betty Rubble, but no such luck.

The

graphics are effortless, meaning that there was no effort put into them. I know

that the Playstation can draw a circle…I’ve seen it with my own eyes. But

for some reason, the closest Bedrock Bowling gets is somewhere around

an octagon. The textures are bad if not quite horrid. Really now – at least

make an attempt to salvage something from a project that somehow actually made

it from the idea stage, through beta-testing, and on to store shelves.

Control in this game doesn’t seem to matter much. I just sat the controller

down once and let the game play itself, and believe it or not, gems were collected

and pins were knocked down. When you are steering it yourself, you will find

it to be sluggish and unresponsive.

The game’s only saving grace is the intro movie, which is funny the first two times you watch it. Of course, this is hardly a reason to buy (or even rent) a bad game. And if you really want to watch a funny FMV, check out the Summoner video in our downloads section. Besides, it’s free.

There are a total of twelve courses available – that’s it, no other levels,

no added gameplay stages, just nine courses over and over again. My wife and

I sat with this game for a little over half an hour and finished it three times.

Yes, finished it. There is no progression, no characters to unlock, and the

three “hidden” courses are too simple to achieve and are really nothing more

than bonus rounds.

I suppose you could make an argument that this is a game for 5 or 6 year olds,

that children will find the lack of difficulty and familiar cartoon characters

pleasing. But anyone over the age of 7 will quickly want to ‘bamm bamm’ the

game against the ‘wall wall.’

I think the only good that came out of playing Bedrock Bowling is that

I am now able to warn you to avoid it at all costs. I almost regret the valuable

time lost that I could have spent scrubbing the toilet or getting that unrecognizable

stuff out from the back of my fridge. Please take my advice and spend the money

you were going to put into this game and do something cool…like take a game

reviewer out to lunch.