Back in the American 1950s bowling alleys - along with bubblegum and convertibles with fins - were the gleaming future. Almost 60 years on, they evoke little more than the greasy whiff of the nearby burger bar, and that's before you press your feet into a pair of moist rental shoes and slide your digits in to the germ-ridden finger holes of a heavy ball. It's expensive, uncomfortable and, for those lacking in the metronomic-talent required to be a star, not a huge amount of fun after the first twenty minutes.
Welcome to the exotic locales and glorious selection of global stereotypes of AMF Bowling Pinbusters!. It promises to bring some glamour back into bowling. But delve deeper and you'll be met with a generally sub-standard game that's framed by simplistic controls and slow-paced gameplay - although, at least you can choose to play it outside the olfactory radius of a burger bar.
IGN dreaded booting this one into their DS after the torment the Wii version of AMF Bowling: Pinbusters gave them back in 2007, but luckily this one – produced by a completely different team – isn't nearly as bad. It is sad to say it doesn't get much better on DS, but it's not unbearably awful in portable form.
Presentation - 4.5
Graphics - 5.5
Sound - 6.0
Gameplay - 4.5
Lasting Appeal - 5.0
Overall -
Shaun Curnow writes:
''You'd think that having a game dedicated to the sport of ten-pin bowling would give plenty of opportunity for a decent career mode, unlockable lanes and characters. At the very least, scores of minigames. No such luck here. That you're treated to the same 'Game Over' screen at the end of a tournament whether you win or lose is evidence enough that this is an epic failure. Start adding the appalling ball physics, offensively generic and stereotypical characters (who come with about three utterly infuriating lines of dialogue), no option for left-handed players and absolutely no content to encourage long-term play and you're left with an utterly pointless, lazy excuse for a game.''
Ellie Gibson writes:
''Hello, readers. Welcome to the latest in our series of Wii Roundups, or as I'm campaigning to have them rebranded, Why Roundups. As in, why did anyone make these games, why would anyone buy them and why do they always land on my desk? The pile is now so big my desk resembles a stall at a jumble sale. If I half-close my eyes I can believe I am in a church hall, surrounded by clothes that smell of sick and dead people's jigsaws.
So what's in store this month? There's a contemporary Sonic the Hedgehog game which is as good as most other contemporary Sonic the Hedgehog games, a pisspoor bowling "sim" and some rubbishy old Star Trek tat. Plus two Japanese fighting games I barely understand and care even less about. Let's go!''
