Elf Bowling is pretty much a videogame version of a Saturday Night Live sketch: one joke that's just goes on for far too long, and you're just sitting there agonizing and hoping the horror will get better…or just cut to commercial.
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Now, some ingenious publisher has decided to take the games out of their five-year-old "download only" status, and bring the game to the handheld masses…for a price. It's clear that the team spent about as much time on the Nintendo DS version as I did in writing this review. Nintendo's seal of quality has really gone to crap if they let this one through without a problem. Asking me which Elf Bowling game in Elf Bowling 1 & 2 is better is like me asking you if you'd rather eat a spoonful of rat turds or hamster turds. They're both god awful and have no right ever being pressed to a Nintendo DS cartridge. Look, we can understand that some games are good in a bad way, and some nasty-looking games can fall back on its gameplay. But there are standards here, people.
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And then we've got Elf Bowling 2, which contains some of the worst sprite effects in any videogame featuring a first-person perspective published after 1989. The elves slide along the alley at a different speed as the scrolling of the surface. This lack of attention flew on the PC because it was free. On the Nintendo DS it looks absolutely retarded and the laziness borderlines on insulting
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IGN Ratings for Elf Bowling 1&2 (DS)
Rating Description
out of 10 Click here for ratings guide
1.0 Presentation
When you can't even quit the game without powering down the system, something's wrong.
1.0 Graphics
Chunky sprites and animations that bounce around for what would be considered "animation."
1.0 Sound
"Who let the elves out" and "Elf elf baby" not only date the product back to the last decade, they're almost embarassing to hear blurt out of the DS speakers.
1.0 Gameplay
A single Wario Ware challenge is more playable and fine by itself than the entire package that is Elf Bowling 1 & 2
1.0 Lasting Appeal
Try and finish a game of Elf Bowling 1 or Elf Bowling 2 without groaning. I dare you.
OVERALL 1.0 Abysmal