The names
are those of old friends – Pablo Sanchez, Angela Delvecchio, Achmed Khan, and
Reese Worthington. With them, games like basketball, football and baseball have
been much more entertaining and enjoyable.
Along comes
the latest iteration in the Backyard franchise, Backyard Baseball 2007. As a
long-time fan of the Humongous sports games (and action games, for that matter),
there was a certain anticipation of light-hearted fun when the disk was put into
the CD reader, but it didn’t take long for that mood to turn.
Up front,
having played a variety of baseball games, from the massively multiplayer online
game to many releases (within the past several years) on a variety of
platforms, the most frustrating thing about BB 07 is the swing mechanics. Even
at the easiest settings, there is a tiny window in which to swing the bat to
make contact … a very tiny window. There also does not seem to be a monumental
difference which difficulty setting you choose, nor the power setting (between
power and line drive). In each of the games players, if the batter didn’t strike
out, he or she (player controlled) either hit a home run or popped out deep in
the outfield. Singles were a rare beast, indeed.
The
mechanics involve picking the batting power from power, bunt right or left, line
drive or (when activated) a special stroke that can cause mayhem for the
fielders. Then place the cursor over the area where the pitch will cross the
plate and try to time the swing to make contact. Therein lies the frustration –
the timing of the batting stroke.
The game is
rather simple, in and of itself. The modes involve pickup game, season game, and
mini games. The latter has two options – fielder’s challenge and home run derby.
Home run derby is self explanatory, but fielder’s challenge is – more or less –
the ability to load your team and practice fielding.
Rough
around the edges
There are no
graphics settings options, so the game comes with default settings and while
that will enable the game to play on a variety of machines, the edges of the
environments come off with jagged edges. The player models are fine, save that
they tend to look two dimensional when they turn to look at the camera while
taking their place in the batter’s box. The animations are also repetitious as
they step up to the plate. Generally the game is lush, and the fields – which
offer a nice variety – are bright and colorful. There is the overall silliness
that adds to the fun, with the assortment of special pitches and swings.
Yanked
foul
The
commentary is annoying. The announcer is not always describing what happens on
the field accurately. At one point he intones the hit ball is “yanked foul” when
it was actually down the line for a base hit. And it seems that at least 95% of
the batters, boys or girls, activate the hokey male voice that says “I’m going to
rock you like a hurricane.” This is not good, at all. There was once a time
when the commentary was cute, clever and fun. That seems to be missing with this
release.
The game
does track stats and you can enter the season and experience the range of
reworking your defense and batting alignment to find the right chemistry.
Part of the
charm of the game is that it not only features many of the backyard kids that
have been around for years, but it is also the only game to have Major Leaguers,
as players, in the game. This is because of the format. The players all have
diverse and light-hearted interests (Alex Rodriguez likes to play quarterback in
football), and the overall tone of the game is kept upbeat and fun.
It is just
that the mechanics of the game have a fairly substantial learning curve and that
may frustrate younger players.
The one
thing, though, about Humongous titles, is that they do not require an
install. They play immediately off the disk, create their own save file and you
can jump in and go from the moment you pop the disk into the reader. In some
ways, the two-dimensional versions of the game, so many years ago, was much more
intuitive and appealing to a greater number of players.
The game
itself is a combination of simulation baseball and arcade baseball. There are an
assortment of pitches that are cartoonish and fun, but you will need to
understand baseball strategy to get through the tough games.
Unfortunately, though, the game’s frustrations and repetitions make this a hard
recommendation.
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Gameplay:
4.5
The announcer
makes calls that don’t happen and there is a tiny window for the controls/input
devices to be realized in-game. This can make batting very challenging. There
seems to be little difference between line drives and home runs in terms of bat
power.
Graphics:
6.8
Diverse
environments but there are few options for graphical settings. The player models
are fine but there are general sharp pixilated edges to the overall look (the
dreaded jaggies).
Sound:
4.5
Albert Pujols
does the introduction but there is a sound stutter in the cutscene. The
commentary just does not feel as bright and fun as in the past when there was a
little girl (Sunny Day) and boy doing it all. The commentary is repetitious and
not very accurate to what is happening on the field.
Difficulty: Medium/Hard
The batting is
very reflexive and requires a lot of practice – more so than adult games.
Concept:
5.5
The game has been
updated but the gameplay mechanics feel like a step backwards.
Multiplayer: 7.0
Two players can
play on the same machine. A bit more fun than the game’s AI.
Overall:
5.2
The game just
falls a little short on several levels. The commentary and player dialogue is
repetitions and can become annoying and the control scheme is not that good for
the platform. This would be better on a console.
