I love making bowling a family activity. I once had a large family with two sons and two daughters, so they would split into two teams: Dad and the sons and Mom and the daughters. The winner of each went on to face each other for bragging rights. I'll also occasionally have my Sim couples go out for a fun date night bowling. It's a great activity, but I do wish it was tweaked a bit.
Bowling is definitely harder to pull off with NPCs. Honestly, it's so frustrating that I only ever bowl if I'm controlling the entire group. The Sims want to socialize during the game, and it makes sense, but they just can't multitask at all. I only ever do the 3 frame games because I feel like the 5 and 10 frames last way too long in game.