A perfect game in Wii Sports Bowling isn’t just achieved 10 frames at a time. You can hone your rolling skills in the three Bowling mini-games in the Training section of Wii Sports. Not only do the mini-games give you a fun challenge, they give your bowling fundamentals an excellent workout.

What kind of workout? Read on to learn about these unique challenges and a few tips to get you closer to the gold and platinum Training medals.

Picking Up Spares
The concept of the first Training exercise, called Picking Up Spares, is easy enough: simply knock down a couple pins, make your spare and move on. Except that these aren’t your ordinary spares. Sure, some of the beginning spares are some of the more common ones you’ll find in bowling. But as the lane numbers get higher on their way to 20, the spares demand more and more precision to convert.

The tougher spares contain ‘sleeper’ pins – pins that are positioned directly behind another pin. To pick up these pins, you’ll need excellent precision and the ability to throw the ball straight. The other major challenge you’ll face comes from picking up splits. Thankfully, you won’t see your first one until lane 11. If you fail five times, the game ends, and you need to make each spare before you move on to the next lane.

Lofting
If you’re having trouble rolling the ball straight, try lofting the ball. Instead of rolling on the lane as soon as you release the ball, a lofted ball is lifted into the air, and when it hits the ground, the impact deadens most of the ball’s spin.

To loft the ball, you need to follow-though more on your throw. Every time you roll the ball, you create an angle with your elbow. When lofting the ball, you’ll want to create a right (90-degree) angle with your elbow. Once you’ve created that angle, release the B Button. This is a process that you’ll need to perform quickly as the quicker you jerk your arm up, the more pronounced the loft which should send the ball past the first set of marks on the lane. This technique becomes important when you play the Spin Control Training mini-game.

Power Throws
The second Training game, Power Throws, takes a standard pin setup and super-sizes it, adding a new back row of pins in each stage. By the time you get to the 10th stage, you’ll be throwing at a whopping 91 pins. You get one throw per stage and get one point for each pin you knock down. If you get a strike, you earn double the number of pins for that stage.

Most importantly, there is no gutter in this mini-game but instead a bumper that pins bounce off of, giving you some crazy pin action. Because of this, you don’t actually have to throw the ball hard – as the mini-game name implies; you simply need to hit the pocket and let that pin action do the rest.

Bumper guide
As the pin triangle keeps growing, it becomes harder and harder to line up your shot to aim for the red head pin and pocket. Luckily, there’s a trick that will help you hit the head pin and pocket each time. On the bumpers, there are white Wii Sports logos. What you can do is aim your shot just past the first logo and roll the ball directly at the bumper. Your ball will ricochet off the bumper and head directly to the pocket. If you aim at the right bumper, you’ll want to put left spin on the ball and the opposite for the other bumper. This technique doesn’t guarantee you a strike, but it does give you a great chance.

The 91-pin secret
You can get a strike on the last stage without even hitting a pin, but it takes some skill – and a lot of guts. If you can manage to roll the ball all the way down the lane on top of the bumper, you will hear a click and then an explosion, which knocks down all 91 pins.

To give yourself a chance at this skill shot, you need to know how to loft the ball. When the frame starts, press the A Button and move the aim two clicks to the right. Then, press A again to switch to directional adjustment. Move your Mii all the way to the right, next to the bumper. (Do the opposite of these instructions if you’re left-handed.) Finally, loft the ball. The loft makes the ball land on the bumper, and if you threw it straight, it will roll all the way to the end, giving you the bonus. However, if you don’t throw the ball perfectly, you risk getting no points for the final frame.
 
Spin Control
In the final Bowling Training mini-game, you only need to hit one pin per lane. However, to get to that pin, you’ll need to navigate around barriers that force you to change your approach toward a pin.

You’ll need to employ straight, spin and loft if you plan on clearing all 20 lanes. For the first six lanes, a straight ball will get you where you want to go, but after that, to clear the remaining lanes you’ll need a combination of spin, loft and possibly magic, especially once you get to lane 16 where you need to perform a precision bank shot off a barrier. When you fail five times, the game is over.

Ride the gutter
On several shots, the only way to get past the barrier is to ‘ride’ the gutter. When you ride the gutter, the ball will roll straight down the edge of the lane and then halfway down the lane curve toward the pin. To ride the gutter, aim at an angle where the ball will miss the final barrier. Then move your Mii to a point next to the gutter until the red directional line touches the gutter (most likely this will be at the foul line). Now, you’re lined up to make your shot. Roll the ball and put a major amount of spin on it. Your ball should roll on the edge of the lane and then break back into the pin after the last barrier is cleared.

Coloured balls
Just like in the main Wii Sports Bowling game, you can change the colour of your ball in the Training mini-games. At the moment when the screen goes black before the game begins, you can press a direction on the Wii Remote’s +Control Pad to use a different ball. Right gives you gold, Down is green, Left is purple and Up is blue. Plus, if you earned Pro status in Wii Sports Bowling, you’ll throw the Pro ball in the Training games.

Let’s Roll!
Now that you’ve sharpened your techniques and performed some serious skill shots, you’re ready to take to the lanes and earn your Mii a spot in Wii Sports immortality with a perfect 300 score!