AMF Bowling Center

AMF bowling centers offer multi-lane ten-pin bowling for all ages, plus food and beverages. Bowling may be purchased per game, per hour, or as part of a birthday party or corporate event package. Most locations offer Xtreme Bowling at certain hours of the week, when a bowling center's regular lighting is dimmed, black and strobe lights are turned on, and the music is turned up. Many locations support bowling leagues.

The AMF brand for bowling centers originated with centers owned by the American Machine and Foundry Company. The brand is currently used:

The AMF brand (as well as the QubicaAMF brand) is also used for pinsetters, automatic scoring equipment, and other bowling equipment. Because many of the AMF-branded bowling centers were acquired from other parties, some centers use by bowling equipment manufactured or distributed by other companies such as Brunswick Bowling & Billiards instead of AMF-branded equipment.

AMF Bowling 2004

AMF Bowling 2004 is a bowling video game released exclusively for the Xbox in the US on December 1, 2003. Titled "PBA Bowling 2004" in its early development stages, the game was also slated for a Playstation 2 release. The game has similar graphics and gameplay to Bethesda Softwork's previous PBA Bowling 2001 and its predecessor PBA Bowling 2 for the PC.

Reception

AMF Bowling 2004 received mediocre to poor reviews from critics. GameRankings and Metacritic both gave it a score of 48% and 48 out of 100 respectively. Hilary Goldstein, writing for IGN, called it "a budget title with no frills, weak animations, terrible character models, and a lack of visual pop." Russ Garbutt of Xbox Nation magazine said that the game's physics and sound effects are realistic, but complained about "the pseudo-honky-tonk music, which makes players feel as if they're in the middle of a hillbilly bar or, alternately, the eighth circle of hell" and called the visuals "yawn inspiring".

References

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American Machine and Foundry

American Machine and Foundry (known after 1970 as AMF, Inc.) was once one of the largest recreational equipment companies in the United States.

The company was founded in 1900 by Rufus L. Patterson, inventor of the first automated cigarette manufacturing machine. Originally incorporated in New Jersey but operating in Brooklyn, the company began by manufacturing cigarette, baking, and stitching machines. AMF moved into the bowling business after World War II, when AMF automated bowling equipment and bowling centers became profitable business ventures. Bicycle production was added in 1950. The company was once a major diversified manufacturer of everything from tennis racquets to research reactors for the US' "Atoms for Peace" program. AMF became a major part of what would soon be called by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower as "the military-industrial complex" after WWII.

In the late 1950s, the company's vice-chairman was Walter Bedell Smith. He was a formerly a US major general, Eisenhower's wartime chief-of-staff, and Harry Truman's Ambassador to the Soviet Union. He later became the fourth Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Bowling

Bowling refers to a series of sports or leisure activities in which a player rolls or throws a bowling ball towards a target. It is one of the major forms of throwing sports. In pin bowling variations, the target is usually to knock over pins at the end of a lane. When all the pins are knocked down on the first roll, this is a strike. In target variations, the aim is usually to get the ball as close to a mark as possible. The pin version of bowling is often played on a flat wooden or other synthetic surface (which can be oiled in different patterns for different techniques), while in target bowling, the surface may be grass, gravel or a synthetic surface. The most common types of pin bowling include ten-pin, nine-pin, candlepin, duckpin and five-pin bowling, while in target bowling, bowls, skittles, kegel, bocce, carpet bowls, pétanque, and boules, both indoor and outdoor varieties are popular. Today the sport of bowling is enjoyed by 100 million people in more than 90 countries worldwide (including 70 million in the U.S.), and continues to grow through entertainment media such as video games for home consoles and handheld devices.