The game starts out with a nicely rendered scene where Barney is driving over to pick Fred up from work so that they can make their weekly bowling practice. However, the evil Mr. Slate (that’s Fred’s boss) has other ideas about how Freddie Boy is going to spend his time, and tells Fred that he can’t go anywhere until he completes the digging of a monumental trench. Just when all seems lost, out of nowhere pops up Fred and Barney’s little acid flashback friend "The Great Gazoo", (or as I like to call him, the Yoko Ono of Bedrock. The Flintstones TV show really went south after the addition of this little green fairy). Gazoo’s voice is, Harvey (are–you–SURE–he’s–still–alive?) Korman. Gazoo proceeds to help his "dum dums" out by turning the complete city of Bedrock into a number of trenches that strangely resemble bowling lanes. Gazoo announces that bowling practice will now consist of bowlers flinging themselves through these newly–formed trenches while in something that resembles half of a giant coconut. Each of these trenches contains 10 pins. Run into all of them and you get a strike for that "frame".

In Flintstones Bedrock Bowling you’re given the choice of playing as Fred, Barney, Pebbles (let the sun shine in), Bam–Bam, or Dino. I personally preferred playing as Barney, as the little squat guy’s laugh always cracks me up (a HEE HEE HEE, a HEE HEE HEE), however it really doesn’t make a difference who you select. You must also select a difficulty level to play; easy will have you going through the trenches at a speed that would have Cecil Turtle wondering what was keeping you; while Medium and Hard difficulty levels speed the pace up quite a bit and offer more of a challenge for the older crowd.

The object of the game, in addition to knocking down as many pins as you can, is that your bowler scores points by running over gems and other special power–ups such as the Great Gazoo himself. Also, collecting three dodo birds will result in extended play on a lane, which is a necessity if your goal is to run over all 10 pins. Without collecting the three dodo birds, your lane will end prematurely and you’ll lose your chance for a mark. If you’re good enough to capture all three dodos for four lanes in a row, you’ll gain access to some bonus courses. One is located in Barney’"s swimming pool (didn't know the little guy was such a jet setter!), and another one is located in something like a roller–derby arena, complete with a charging bull to keep things interesting.

The control scheme of Flintstones Bedrock Bowling is just about as simplistic as it comes — all you use are the left and right arrows (or the analog stick) to move your character left or right during his or her descent down the trench, and the X button serves as a turbo button. This is obviously a game that was meant to cater to the younger sect, so it is kept as simple as possible. Game play is surprisingly fun for the first couple of hours; trying to get every singe pin and bonus item can get a little bit addicting (and frustrating) for a while. The 12 courses (err, lanes) are well designed and are quite different from one another. Voice acting is another strong point of the game. Fred and Barney sound like their TV counterparts, and Harvey ("Don’t get saucy with me, Bernaise!") Korman does a great job bringing everyone’s least favorite alien, the Great Gazoo, to life by consistently referring to your character as "dum dum", resulting in the funny little outer space malcontent, M.C.

The graphics are a bit "pixelicious," and can make it difficult to discern things such as pins and power–ups from things like rocks and other obstacles. This causes some problems during game play, but it isn’t so bad as to ruin the game. What causes bigger problems is the "one trick pony" nature of this title once you’ve played the game and experienced all there is to offer. So while Flintstones Bedrock Bowling is definitely a good rental title, it’s probably not a title that would justify a full purchase.