My head is buried so deep in my hands that I can smell the faint aroma of soap. I shake my head from left to right, disagreeing strongly with the next thing I have to review. Bowling. Oh cruel taskmaster, haven't I been punished enough this month without having to review a bowling game? I mean, bowling in real life is tedious, please don't make me score a simulation! Let me get one thing straight, I only go bowling occasionally for one reason and one reason only - to see those pretty ladies arch their backs, stick out their perfectly formed buttocks and throw down a bowling ball. If they get a strike, I'm then treated to the whole group of pretties jumping up and down in glory. A group of angels jumping up and down - a display more spectacular than a view from my window on Bonfire Night. So I do like bowling then, although admittedly for all the wrong reasons!

Her victorious jumps for glee are quickly dampened by the view of my eyes latched onto hers. Her friends wonder why she's suddenly stopped cheering, it quickly dawns on them that it's my fixation that's caused the sudden standstill. Then all her friends stare at me with blank expressions. They don't know whether to give me the daggers, the evils, or the come and buy us a drink stare! To confirm, they all look back at the one I'm looking at. And she gives the go ahead. She tells the pack with only a small glimmer in her pretty eyes, a miniature facial expression, only a tiny twitch. They're all looking at me once more, the stare of 'come here.'

I walk over, slowly, but not too slowly because I don't want to prolong the process or give them time to notice some intolerable defect, cosmetic or otherwise. I pull up the only spare chair left on this crowded perfume-smelling table of six; smiles are exchanged, almost scripted, in an anticlockwise fashion. She's about to open her mouth, the one that I looked at, the one that's brought me here - a deep breath in slow motion before opening her mouth to make her mark in real time. "I'm-" "-about to make the biggest mistake in my life," I interrupted. "This would never happen in a bowling simulation!" The girls looked at each other puzzled. "Trust me, if I could stay, I would." I stood up, rushed out of Hollywood Bowl and quickly arrived in my bedroom, where I powered up Black Market Bowling for the second time that day. A quick check of the modes revealed that this game didn't have parties of attractive ladies, no bouncing breasts of celebration and no silk-like asses in sight. Determined to find at least one advantage of computerised bowling over real bowling, I pushed on.

Competition mode, the main mode here, is home to three sub modes, which all sport the same unimaginative gameplay engine. Bowling for points, bowling against somebody, whatever the mode maybe, it doesn't change the system that Black Market Bowling seems to like. On the ally, with a red arrow, select where to throw your ball. Then select spin, select power and bowl. In amazement, watch your ball either successfully knock down the majority of the pins, or none at all. In ever more amazement, watch the pins fall unrealistically to the point where I can't say the gameplay is even slightly involving in the slightest of slights.

In addition, select your character from a small cast of uninventive 'skins'. It feels like skins, because this character plays exactly the same as that character, despite the game telling me that this character definitely has more power than that one over there! The attributes simply don't contribute to the gameplay in the slightest. Still optimistic, I play on all six bowling allies against six different 'skins' that surprisingly have their own phrases. Well, I'm wrong to pluralize the word 'phrases' there, because it sounds like they just say one thing for losing and one thing for when they're winning. Technically that's two phrases, but I look at it in the light that it's actually just one phrase for two separate categories! But I digress. The bowling alliess are more or less the same, they do exactly the same job, there's no special advantage or disadvantage for bowling on any one. However, the music and graphics change to fit the mood…

Uptown Heights, a posh bowling ally, has the worst music I have ever heard in a game, period. It has classical music. Classical bloody music. While I'm not knocking this type of music, I am stressing that you don't want to be putting this stuff in any type of game. So soirée, not today, not tomorrow. A bowling sim, suicidal in its own right, with classical music makes you wonder why they didn't supply a gun with this game so you could put yourself out of your misery. [Or better yet, shoot the game! Ed] Some music for more lively allies is a little better but only by a cockatoo's hair, mind. In favour of the game's graphics, the characters (or should I say 'skins') look quite good close up and the allies are reflective and polished enough to achieve the realistic status. Then again, there's plenty more for your eye to enjoy at the real bowling ally!

Man has never craved for a bowling game in the past and, more than likely, man will never crave for a bowling game in the future. There is not a single advantage to playing a bowling game over the real thing, especially when it's as shallow and uninteresting as Black Market Bowling. If you really must have a bowling game, then check out Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, which comes bundled with a great range of mini-games, bowling included.

Anyway, with the review out of the way, I was straight out the door without even grabbing my coat and I ran through the pouring rain back to that very ally where I met those girls. To my surprise, they were sat around the same table, except that sixth seat was taken by another bloke. I knew that hairstyle but I just couldn't put my finger on it. "Geoff?" I asked tentatively. He turns around with that Steve Coogan grin on his face. Holding the edited copy of this very review, he opens his mouth only to clarify one thing. "You really are an idiot, you know!" he said, looking around the table. "I spend five minutes in the toilets and you think you've pulled!" Obviously not what I was expecting, to be honest I was hoping he'd come out with more along the lines of a moral for this situation. I guess the moral of this tail is that bowling is one of the things you can only experience in real life and that if you are going to walk over to a group of pretties, make sure your editor hasn't momentarily departed from the group of pretties for a toilet break. Just give it five minutes.

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).