As it happens, the Wii simply can't compete with the dazzling depths and video resolution highs of modern baseball sims on PlayStation3 and Xbox 360 - and when it tries, it invariably ends up offering the red-headed stepchild version of otherwise resplendent ball game games.

So good: a cute, cartoony, proletarian mini-game collection with a baseball theme and cookie-cutter caricatures to match. Baseball Blast. Got it. Fair enough.

It's a modestly smart buy for Wii owners, particularly those who have been looking for an all-ages mini-game collection that doesn't suck. That's not to say Blast is amazing or anything, but at just $20 - the lowest price you'll find on any new Wii titles (not withstanding said same games, aged a few weeks and then moved into Walmart's celebrated "2 for $10" bargain bins), it's a fair price. And it doesn't suck.

Mind you, the lot of it is at its most engaging as a four-player party; it's unexciting, plodding stuff as a single player experience (also fair enough).

What's odd about Baseball Blast, however, is that there's not very much baseball in it. Of the 20 mini-games offered, only a handful actually have you swinging a baseball bat or pitching a fastball (with a reserved, karate-chop motion, as it turns out, unless you like breaking real things with your fake throw). But there's more off-topic exercises involving bumper cars, first-person target shooting, trivia, Where's Waldo-like puzzles and general rattle-and-wank mini-games than there are baseball skills drills.

Odder still is the fact that Baseball Blast is Wii MotionPlus compatible, so when swing and pitch games are offered - and you're appropriately equipped with a MotionPlus dongle, of course - there's actually some precision to it. Not much, mind you, not totally "1 to 1" realistic (there's water-down mandate to family-fun gaming, apparently), but certainly a step up from the basic wiggle 'n' twitch titles that saturated the mini-game genre.

Still, Baseball Blast could have done better as a $20 virtual batting cage game (with twenty different variations if that's all it takes to make it a "collection") if only there was a calculated focus in that area.

Instead, Baseball Blast only typifies the low-rent mini-game collection, though it does well to theme it with the favorite pastime and go for rock-bottom pricing out of the gate.