Sometimes there is simply no excuse for a game to exist. Enter AMF Bowling: Pinbusters. To say this game is not needed on the market would be an understatement and to say that it is nothing short of a travesty would be stating a fact. I really wish I could tell you that I have no idea why this game was made, but that just wouldn't be true. AMF Bowling: Pinbusters is here to cash in on the huge popularity of Wii Bowling by preying on the new 'casual' gaming crowd who sadly just don't know any better. It is one of a number of games that will inexcusably sell far in excess of what the product deserves and is testament to the ever-growing catalogue of simply horrifying Nintendo Wii releases.

Although the 'casual' gaming revolution may have many benefits - from the mainstream acceptance of the medium to the ever growing choice and diversity of the market - with it also come many negatives, and the biggest one is the Nintendo Wii's huge collection of sub-par, cash-in titles. These releases jump on the latest gaming bandwagon to cater to a new market that is only just beginning to find its feet and thanks to games such as AMF Bowling: Pinbusters, this teething process for many of those new to the medium could prove to be somewhat painful and largely off-putting.

You can understand the allure that AMF Bowling: Pinbusters has to the unsuspecting casual gamer - you have just cut your teeth on the hugely enjoyable but arguably quite shallow Wii Bowling and you're ready to move onto something with a bit more meat. To expect AMF Bowling: Pinbusters to attain the level of a more fleshed out rendition of Wii Bowling would be the least of most people's expectations - sadly however, it fails to reach even these most basic of requirements, instead adding up to nothing more than a poor man's cousin to a game that not only comes as part of a five game package, but one that is also bundled with every single Wii console on the shelves - as I've already said, there is no need for this game to exist.

The first thing that you will likely notice upon booting up Pinbusters is the severe lack of game modes available. A complete lack of online play is just about forgivable thanks to Nintendo's ponderous ethos when it comes to online gaming, but an absence of any kind of career mode isn't. Beyond the usual quick play matches for up to four players, there is a tournament mode along with a paltry collection of just two mini-games.

Tournament mode offers nothing more than a quick play match with a few basic knockout style screens that pop up between games. Here you can still have up to four players, but regardless of how many are playing, the game automatically boosts the total of players in the tournament to eight, filling in the gaps with AI opponents. The fact that you can't just have a game for you and three of your mates is quite mind-boggling, as the game forces you to play out the rest of the tournament against AI opponents whether you like it or not. Basically the developers have taken the most rigid of eight-player tournament templates and have failed to create any alternatives or options to give any freedom to this already most basic of game modes.

If you think that sounds bad, just wait until you get to the mini-games. With just two on offer, you would be forgiven for being disgusted by such a paltry offering, but after playing a couple of games, you may come to see it as a blessing in disguise. The slightly better of the two is a straight rip off of Wii Bowling's obstacle lanes, but thanks to the rather twitchy and inorganic control scheme (more on that later), along with the poorly implemented obstacles, even this most basic of mini-games borders on the unplayable. Then there is the pool mini-game. Don't get your hopes up however, as this isn't bowling on a pool table - it's simply a poorly positioned black ball just in front of the pins that you have to bowl towards with, you guessed it, a white bowling ball to attempt to get a strike. This lazy bringing together of two random sports not only doesn't make sense, but just doesn't work. Once again, the level of thought and design that has gone into this borders on the insulting, not to mention the fact that the god-awful game mechanics once again make this nigh on broken.

Complete lack of decent options aside, you would hope that the bowling itself would at least be reasonable. Once again, you would come away more than a little disappointed. First off, the actual bowling is based on fixed animations, making timing and judgement a lot more difficult and a lot less natural than it ever should be. As anyone playing this will surely have already spent time with Wii Bowling, this change from control-specific timing and sensor-based movements to canned animations and dodgy timing that doesn't match the throwing motion of the player will come across as more than a little off-putting.

Once you do learn to match your swing to that of the character onscreen, things don't get any better. The physics of the ball are extremely wayward, making it feel like the lane is home to a different gravity compared to the rest of the world. The overly twitchy controls also don't help matters either; beyond belting the ball down the lane with little finesse, all other options become little more than a game of chance. Even the slightest twist of the wrist sends the ball curling into the gutter time and time again; trying to spin the ball on an outside angle is simply impossible and if you are left handed then you're going to be sitting on the bench right from the off. Yes, that's right; no options for left-handed players here. Really though, you should consider yourselves lucky, as there are a million and one better ways of spending your time - one being to play that free copy of Wii Bowling that came with your console, funnily enough. I should also warn you that if you do by some miracle stick with this game, you can forget about your high scores, as Pinbusters doesn't even have a high score save feature. Honestly, there is no end to this game's audacity.

If there is a shining light to be found amidst this lazy mess of a game, it's that the pins react the way you would hope - even though the game does throw up one too many unlikely splits. Whatever minor saving grace that might have been is quickly expelled from the memory by the shockingly clichéd characters at your disposal, along with the complete lack of customization. From the Surfer guy and the Sarge through to the petulant rocker chick and 'gangsta' like African American, this game has eight of the most lazily created clichés ever committed to a videogame. To make matters worse, you can't use your Miis or even create your own characters. No, you have to put up with these boring, poorly animated cardboard characters from beginning to end.

The actual lanes are little better, offering a measly seven lanes to try out, ranging quite bizarrely from Malaysia to Brentwood Manor. Either way, all are poorly realised with little to differentiate them once you actually start playing. The only actual highlight is seeing the Bank of China Tower from Hong Kong turn up inexplicably amongst the Malaysian skyline! Usually, this would bring me back to the sheer laziness of development, but in all honesty, it was the one highlight of my time spent playing this game. The visuals throughout are poor and the audio design achieves little but the basics. The sounds of the pins sound right and the music on the Malaysian level is surprisingly pleasant. The same cannot be said for the character voices however; each character has a collection of three mind-numbingly clichéd catchphrases that they repeat over and over again, sending those few players who stick with the game for more than five minutes over the edge long before the paltry offering of game modes are extinguished.

AMF Bowling: Pinbusters is nothing more than a well packaged mobile phone game. It is short, poorly executed, unbearably lazy and has no place in anyone's collection. Wii Bowling remains the number one bowling game on Wii by a country mile, and with efforts like this turning up on the shelves, it looks set to remain that way for a long time to come. AMF is the very definition of exploitive, poorly developed software - it's a game that doesn't even deserve to exist, let alone become a part of your collection.

Reviewed by Liam Pritchard for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).