Entertaining, yet unimpressive iPad bowling

Strike Knight is a free, ad-supported pinball-shuffleboard game from the makers of the classic Paper Toss. In terms of gameplay, you pretty much get what you pay for--but the execution is fun and funny, with great attention to detail.

The interface puts you in a bar, complete with the hubbub of background noise. You're looking down the length of a realistic shuffleboard-bowling game, on which you're trying to slide a metal puck to knock down bowling pins. The details of the interface are convincing and entertaining (the crowd and an animated "Strike Knight" on the back-glass react to your successes and failures, for example), but the physics of the game are almost laughable if you're looking for a faithful shuffleboard simulation. As an arcade game, the action is fun: you tap, slide, and release the puck to shoot, and you try to time your shot to match a moving bonus indicator. Pins fold upward when they're hit, so there's no pin action--which is fine, but then there's very little subtlety (and, in some cases, little logic either) to the way you shoot the puck, and the way it interacts with the pins. The iOS has seen some excellent shuffleboard simulators, but this isn't one of them.

As a free app and time-waster, Strike Knight looks good on the iPad and is reasonably fun--and its ads are relatively unobtrusive. But if you're a shuffleboard fan or looking for replay value, look elsewhere.