Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If this is the true definition of insanity then Brunswick Pro Bowling, the latest from Crave Entertainment, should be renamed “Bowling in the Heart of Madness”, as the act of doing the same thing over and over again, just with wildly different results, perfectly describes this game.

Brunswick Pro Bowling allows you to step into the rental shoes of a made from scratch bowler and attempt to conquer the world of bowling with devastating hook shots and clutch spares. Along the way you can bump up your bowler’s stats, purchase new equipment and take on other bowlers in down and dirty bowling grudge matches.

You can jump right into bowling with a quick play mode, which provides a stable of preconfigured bowlers, all with different stats and different balls, and a selection of unlocked lanes all with different oil patterns. You can also choose to start career mode, which gives you a lowly made from scratch bowler just starting to compete in the league night matches at their local alley. It all certainly sounds like a good idea, until you get into the actual bowling.

Once you get your bowler suited and booted, you get to pick your bowling line in aiming mode. In an attempt to not recreate the aiming mode in Wii Sports, Crave opted for a less intuitive and less precise, albeit original, aiming scheme where the left and right arrows of the Wiimote’s d-pad is used to set the aiming angle. Holding the B button and twisting your wrist left or right sets the aiming position. The position setting is the biggest problem as it’s hard to get things precisely right as you end up turning your wrist left and right to get just the right spot.

Once you’ve gotten your aim set, you press the A button to enter into throwing mode. This seems like an extra, unnecessary step, and many the time you’ll forget it entirely, bring the Wiimote to your chest, and press the B button, a la Wii Sports, only to find your aiming line veer wildly left or right. Once in throwing mode, you bring the Wiimote to your chest and press the B button, then swing your arm back and bring it forward in a traditional bowling swing, releasing the button to release the ball. Keep the Wiimote level and you’ll throw a straight ball. Twist the Wiimote right or left and you’ll throw a hook ball.

Unlike Wii Sports, your bowler doesn’t move in real time with you, which makes for a somewhat jarring bowling experience. It’s possible that the developers planned on the player taking a couple of steps before starting their swing, as in real bowling, and the on-screen movement is lagging behind to allow the player time before swinging, but that seems an odd choice given the size of the average gaming hovel.

Once the ball is free to fly, it reflects nicely on the oiled lanes and gets some pretty good pin action. The pin action isn’t perfect as many times the in-game camera will cut away from a pin that probably would knock down another pin or two as it rolls around, and as a result you only get credit for the pins knocked down when the camera cuts away. Other times, you may hear the special strike crashing sound, and get credit for the strike, when there’s still a pin standing.

The biggest problem with the game is the complete and total lack of consistency. At any point, on any lane, you can press the 2-button on the Wiimote and see the lane’s oil pattern. Knowing the oil pattern should give you an initial starting point for aiming, with further adjustments coming as you see how the ball reacts. In Brunswick Pro Bowling, you may go into practice mode, find a great line and bowl in the190’s, only to practice another game with the same oil pattern, the same line, the same ball and the same stats and barely break 140. Where it becomes even more frustrating is when your 190 game is in practice and your 140 game is in a league night match. Moving to a preconfigured bowler with higher stats for accuracy and hook placement doesn’t change things either as two different games with the same equipment will provide two wildly different scores. Either the Wiimote motion detection is way to sensitive or something just isn’t working right.