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On the next episode of Wii, Nintendo continues to baffle third-party developers.

I wasn't looking for a fight with Carnival Games: Mini-Golf. I had no previous reason to be upset with the game. In fact, I wanted to like it a little-- so that I may be wrong about the notion that too many developers have tried to turn the Wii into a cash machine. Now I feel like a fool. There's almost something offensive about how little time was spent developing this game. And even more so, that it can be resold on eBay at practically retail. The Wii userbase is poisoning itself, because games like this continue an unsettling trend: if they call for shovelware, it will come.

The number of half-hearted examples Carnival Games: Mini-Golf presents in evidence of its poor quality are almost complimentary to anyone looking to accuse it as such. It would be easy to start with the looks, and complain about how aliased the character models are. Or for fun, the first culprit could be the accelerometer test, to see how easy it is to break the game. For the record, the Wii remote can be swished around any way you like until you've raised the strength of your shot to a desirable level. And strangely, this is far more effective than trying to assume the expected "golfing" stance which ought to invoke a much more effective swing and strength. Within the first few minutes of playing the game, I'd already broken it.

Players are offered the choice between a single-player exhibition which can be run through in competition with a computer-controlled character, or on your own. It's short and unsweetened. Multiplayer is no better, but at least this way there's an explanation for any stupid things your opponent does. I swear to God I watched the computer shoot the ball straight into the water at least four times. Someone should tell him that the game isn't that hard to play, because the target audience [drunk 20-somethings and young children] have played it better. You simply position your character by rotation and movement into the best position to get a hole in one and then fire away.

But wait! It's mini-golf! That means thankfully we should be able to look forward to some awesome stages! Wrong. That was dumb of you to think, look at the rest of the game. The dull gameplay should have lead you to expect that. In fact, the one place that Cat Daddy Games had an opportunity not to take a dump on the most marketable console was exactly where they did just the opposite. The static-image world map yields boring results in the tacky form of pirate, prehistoric, western, or any other typically-themed levels players could ever ask for! Why even bother driving to the nearest run-down mini-golf course when you can do it in the comfort of your own home.

The only saving grace in all of this is that the game never crashed or turned itself inside-out on me. I take that back, because Cat Daddy actually bothered to try and spice things up by having players tilt the remote in certain ways at times, by incorporating small mini-games into certain courses. And that's the only other compliment that I can give this game. Even the extra stuff is lame, like the tokens you can collect so you can buy stupid gear to make your character look worse than they already do.

At this point, you're only reading to see how much more personally I could take having to play Carnival Games: Mini-Golf; or you're in disbelief that the game you thought would be perfect for your shiny new Wii is actually not a game at all, but instead an exercise in how quick a buck can be made. If the constant flow of crap from low-end developers like this is any indication, it's apparently an overnight smash-hit sort of thing. I'd like to think I'm misunderstanding an honest attempt at a game here, but I have a strong feeling that this isn't the case. I mean, Wii Sports outdoes this retail game in every way and it comes free with your console. This time the score stands for something the developer has probably done to themselves.