Hardball! was one of the first baseball sim type games in existence. It was also the first to have gameplay set up similar to they way it still is with current baseball games. Obviously, there is only so much you can do with a joystick with one button, yet the game worked extremely well. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the current games, which use a dozen or so buttons. But as with most games of Hardball!'s generation, much of the fun was in the simplicity. Hardball allowed you to select from a variety of pitchers, who each had their own lineup of pitches. Or, you could put someone who isn't even a pitcher on the mound, and throw nothing but "fat pitches". You could also control the direction of the pitch. Throw it inside, outside, high or low. Likewise in batting, you control where to swing at the pitch. And when fielding, you just run into the ball and then use the stick to control where you want to throw it. Doesn't sound to complex or exciting by today's standards, but what it does have that new games don't is the pick-up-and-play ability that lets anyone jump right in and have fun right away.
NB: This review is based on the Atari XL series and not the C64. Let's face it: Sports sims are hard to make. There are so many 'human' elements to program that any console games will have troubles replicating it. Now... Read Full Review
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