Jun 08, 1:40 pm
Being from the fair green isle of Eire my favourite things are of course shamrocks, potatoes, and drinking. I got to indulge one of these fancies last Sunday and better still I got to mix it with my fourth favourite thing, gaming!
It came to my attention by way of a blackboard above my table some prior evening, that the Kings Arms (a little pub near Tower Bridge in London) has a Wii bowling tournament every Sunday. Not wanting to pass up a bit of healthy competition I decided to get a team together and join in the arm swinging action. After days of hardcore practice, and several moments that reminded me why the Wii strap should always be worn, I had a team of hardened bowlers ready for the challenge.
So we donned our matching shirts (ok maybe I am fabricating the truth a little now), filled our pockets with beer money, and marched to the Kings Arms. Upon arrival we realised that the blackboard had changed. No longer were they running a Bowling tournament but it simply read:
This was but a minor issue and we got ourselves a rather nice table around the projector and managed to play for almost three hours. People were amazed by our pro bowling skills and I even got to help a nice lady get a strike when her boyfriend was beating her just before we left. Ben Talbot from OXM was even convinced to come along and join the Nintendo fun, but don’t tell anyone!
I have two thoughts about this experience; one is that the Wii is really good fun, and bowling in a pub with all your mates is excellent. The second is that it’s sad that such an event was clearly not getting enough attention to run as an organised tournament. I was all geared up to battle for glory against pub-going strangers, and I hope that one day I still can.
This sort of venture is putting the fun and social face on gaming that it deserves, and from a female gamer point of view it was great to see that the people playing just before (and after) us were evenly male / female weighted. So take this as a scolding to all those who didn’t go to their local pub Wii bowling and thus let down the valiant battle of social gamers. Next time I am in a pub and someone produces the Wii motes I want to be flooded by a crowd of hopefuls!
This one is most certainly going to be a strike!
