MLB Dugout Heroes – PC – Review

As a
self-professed baseball aficionado, when a new Major League game is released, it
receives a bit more critical attention than other sports (it should be noted
that before joining the ranks of video-game journalism, there was a rather
lengthy stint working in mid-sized newspapers – including close approximately
eight years as a sports editor). There is something so fundamentally simple and
complex about the sport that it is compelling.

The pitcher
selects a pitch, tries to hit a location. The batter challenges the pitch and if
successful moves onto the basepaths. The outfielders have to watch the runner,
determine the best strategic location to return the ball. It’s one-on-one
challenges, overall strategic play within the teamwork concept, and can turn on
an errant hop.

Everything
but the last holds true in MLB Dugout Heroes, a free-to-play massively
multiplayer online game from GamesCampus and Wisecat. Ok, the free-to-play genre
has often meant shallow and repetitious gameplay, and while baseball is somewhat
repetitious, it is also situational, which means a variety of options are
available with almost every pitch thrown.

But the
developers behind this game had simplified it a lot. It’s one human player
against another, with a Major League roster (featuring the real players, though
some of the character renderings are not close, but not to worry – and this will
be explained in a bit), but you don’t have to position fielders to make the
play, the AI does that; all you do is pitch and determine what base to throw to
if the ball is hit successful, or hit and decide if you want to go for extra
bases or steal a base. It’s actually a very fundamental game on several levels.


You pick a
team as your game team, then go into a lobby that is separated by your team
ranking (yes, as you play you accrue experience points and raise from rank 1 to
2, et cetera), get into a game that can run three or five innings (other options
include extending the game if there is a tie at the end of the pre-determined
game length) and play ball.

It’s
actually all very easy to jump into and play. You can call a time-out to
substitute players – who will wear down through successive games, and pitcher’s
arms will become wearing making you keep an eye on your rotation and innings
pitched by your relievers … you know, just like the real game.

Teams don’t
actually play in their home stadiums, and the default seems to be AT&T park (Ok,
the park itself is nice, but if you hit a long ball and see the water beyond the
outfield fence, there are palm trees sticking up out of it … if that is indeed
supposed to be water). There are only three parks used for the all of the games.

Batting is
handled through the mouse. You can alternate between the normal swing, or a
power swing, and you can bunt. You then use the mouse to align the bat with the
pitch location (you have to move the bat once the pitch is on the way and try to
make that contact point) and use the mouse buttons to swing the bat at the ball.
Once on the basepaths, the keyboard comes into play. Q and E are the ways to
advance or retreat runners when the ball is in play, and stealing is a keyboard
driven combination.


For the
defense, the mouse is used for pitching and the keyboard for the location on
throws for hit balls. You use the mouse, as the pitcher, to select the pitch and
its location, and then use the mouse buttons for the pitching meter. The first
meter (all benchmarked with mouse input) is the power, while the second is
accuracy. If the ball is hit, fielders automatically move on it (they can make
diving stabs) and you use the WASD keys to determine what base to throw to. The
Q and E keys are used for cutting off the throws.

It’s that
simple, and that means that just about anyone can jump into this game and play
it.

Graphically
the game takes on a bit of a cartoon look with cel-shading on the characters.
The animation itself is smooth and though the characters bear a little
similarity to their big-league counterparts (beard or no beard, hair color),
there may be height and weight differences, but that’s about it. Still, these
graphics won’t challenge a high-end graphics card and the game plays very well.

Actually, in
all the games played, there did not seem to be a lag issue that made the game
unbearable. In fact, every game played was smooth and enjoyable.


The audio,
though, is borderline terrible. Chris Yamauchi and Jonathan Stypula provided the
play-by-play and commentary and if you are a baseball fan, watch games on
television and are used to professional baseball broadcasters, turn the sound
off. Their banter not only can be way off base, but it is not even in the
ballpark (pun intended) in terms of baseball. Things like “the crowd excitedly
cheers as the batter steps up to the plate” just sound like it does not belong
in an MLB venue, while more or less stating the obvious.

Like some
other FtP (free-to-play) titles, MLB Dugout Heroes has a micro-transaction model
in place. As you play and accomplish tasks, you earn nuts, which can be
exchanged in the game store for players and minor buffs. The bigger buffs,
though, will cost you Campus Credits, which is the cash-driven element. You can
buy credits in the ratio of 1,000 credits per $10 spent.

MLB Dugout
Heroes is a simplified baseball game that does have some flaws, but these are
mostly attributed to the way the game has been simplified for any user. The
players met in competition all seemed nice enough and the games ranged from
extremely tactical, with base stealing and such, to blow-outs – both for and
against this gamer. Still, this is an entertaining game that transcends the
flaws and provides nice little forays into the world of baseball.


Review
Scoring Details for MLB Dugout Heroes

Gameplay: 7.5
The game elements
are easy to understand and use and the AI seems decent enough to render out a
solid and enjoyable experience. There seems to be few problems with
synchronizing with another player or with lag during the game itself.

 


Graphics: 7.8
A bit on the
cartoonish side, but vibrant and the animation is really pretty good.


Sound: 6.0
One wonders if
the announcing team has ever watched a televised baseball game. The banter can
be off-base. 


Difficulty: Medium


Concept: 7.0
The game has been
simplified almost to the point where it would drive a baseball die-hard crazy,
but generally speaking, the dev team did a nice job making this game accessible.


Multiplayer: 8.0
The community, as
it stands at the time of the review, seemed like good gamers out for an
entertaining day at the park. The conversations had were friendly and
good-natured.


Overall: 7.5
This game won’t
turn the MMOG market on its ear or advance the baseball video-game genre. What
it does do, though, is provide an accessible and entertaining game that can be
played on lower-end systems, with players hopping in and playing for short
periods here and there. What else is there to say but this is nice little bit of
fun.