The ages ranged from 4 to about 80, so we had a "grownups" round first, then a kids round. Most had never played a Wii before. The Bowling game is a little trickier than some of the others to master, because you have to hold a trigger button on the controller, swing it like a bowling ball, and then release the button during your swing as if you were releasing the ball. Physical assertiveness and timing are important to success.

The younger to middle-aged adults generally learned how to play gradually, and did moderately well, relying a lot on luck. Most of the 'senior' adults though, to be honest, failed miserably. (No offence guys!). Most struggled to remember which button to press, and ended up pushing others at the same time (perhaps down to issues of dexterity and their first use of a totally alien device); nearly all took a long time to understand how a gesture with a controller bore any resemblance to bowling; they also struggled with complete dissociation between gesture and screen (much akin to the trials and tribulations of technophobes learning to use computer mice, I suppose!); and finally, coordinating the hold-and-release of a button with a physical gesture was impossible! Some released the button too late in the swing, and others simply didn't release it at all. Some also mentally separated both parts of the action.... press-then-release the button, then swing, or vice versa. It was... 'interesting'!

The really young children, on the other hand, had a wonderfully natural absorption of the entire concept. It took them a couple of attempts to figure out how to hold the controller (their small hands making it particularly difficult), but admist their 'creative' gestures, they absolutely thrashed the adults! Most of them don't have games consoles at all, and yet their natural curiosity discovered and learned things like pushing the directional pad to alter the trajectory of the ball before the swing.

One child was the exception to the rule though. He understood what he was supposed to do quite quickly, but could not master the skill to the same level as the others. I surmise that his natural shyness resulted in reduced physical confidence, causing him to sub-consiously dampen his gestures in ways which adversely affected their effectiveness.

Anyway, it was a fun night, and we had plenty of laughs. It ended with a quick men vs. women round, in which the men beat the women 124 to 97! :-)