Sad and Lonely game to play.
Next, to go with the "Natural" theme, the game designers decided to give the game a very old look by making the menu screens all grainy . You know, old projector showing showing a movie on screen grainy. It gets VERY annoying. Also, the manager's office during the franchise mode doesn't look like a manager's office of a Major League Baseball team's manager. It looks like an office of a class A minor league manager. If I recall, there is a friggin typewriter in it. Ok, so we are through the initial annoyances (which should be enough to deter you.), let's get onto the game play. So you start playing the game. Your batter steps into the box. The pitcher winds up. Here comes the pitch. And.......HERE IS DEREK JETER TELLING YOU THAT YOU CAN CHANGE THE WAY YOU BAT BY GOING TO THE OPTIONS MENU AND SELECTING EASY........strike one. You missed the pitch. Yea, you are interupted in the split second the ball is actually in play. Maybe they could have given you a...i don't know....tutorial if you want tips!
Ok so now you finally hit the ball (which is hard for the first hour until you get the hang of how to swing.), and it is right at any player on the field. You will not get a hit for at least 4 or 5 innings. Let's fast forward to that point in the game. You swing, you actually hit it, you hit it to the gap, this has double (possibly triple) written all over it. Your player gets to first base and STOPS! You start pushing button configuration from other baseball games you have played. No good. You start pushing random buttons at this point. Now the outfielder gets to the ball and one of two things will happen. A) Your runner continues to be worthless and stand at first or B) he'll finally get the memo from one of your random button pushings and run to second only to be cut down with no chance of making it there. My other major problem with this game is the sound in the game. When you are playing a game, turn on some music of your own. If you don't, you will start to lose your mind. I promise you. The crowd is not in the stadium. There are cardboard cut-outs of people with their hands moving. That's it. There will be no ambiance what-so-ever. Trust me! Plus, the commentary is good for 5 to 10 games before you start getting the same thing over and over and over again. And then over and over....wait, wasn't this a problem some where else in the game?
This game has countless faults in it. Too many for me to list. The half a point I have this game was for the mere fact that it is a baseball game and actually has baseball in it. Other than that, don't waste your time with this. Don't make the same mistake I did at the store. "Hey, a baseball game in the bargain bin. How bad could it be?" I wish someone had run up and punched me in the neck at that point because that would have been more enjoyable than this game.