Arcade Bowling

Enjoy skeeball in the palm of your hand with Arcade Bowling, an iPhone app designed by Pitfall creator David Crane. Just like the real deal, the game challenges you to roll balls along a ramp into various holes worth 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 100 points, the goal to wrack up a high score before running out of turns. It's fun, simple to play and a shining example of why the iPhone succeeds as a gaming device. Too bad it lacks one very important feature.

To play, simply place a finger at the bottom of the ramp and flick upwards to roll the ball. Thanks to the iPhone's touch controls, you're able to roll it as fast or as slowly as you want, and you can guide its trajectory by physically tilting the device. Regardless of how you play, the game should run smoothly without any hitches.

Arcade Bowling comes with two modes, Classic (a quick game with nine balls) and Progressive. You'll get the most bang for your buck with the latter since it tasks you with beating progressively higher scores.

Past that, there's little else to come back to and therein lies the problem. David Crane, for whatever reason, failed to insert an online leaderboard into his game. This turns what could've been one of the iPhone's most addictive apps into an impressive tech demo that's worth a couple minutes of your time per day. You still have the option of posting high scores, but after 15 minutes of rolling balls, you'll easily knock the pre-programmed leaders off their perches.

As much as we dig Arcade Bowling's controls, we can't justify spending $1.99 for a game that only records offline scores. It's a well-designed and enjoyable app, but it needs additional features to compete against the iPhone's best.