Clean graphics and enormous depth of data collected for all the stat fiends. Plus a unique create a player mode.
Pros: Clean Smooth Graphics, Good player representations (for the art style), Simple intuitive tight controls, More statistics than you would ever imagine from a sports video game. Unique player creator mode,
Cons: Limited voice acting from announcers, So-so sound, No Wii-mote fuctionality in Main modes of the game, No online component.
Modes: Exhibition - (1-2 Players Simultaneous) - Quick game with adjustable features such as weather and difficulty. Wii-mote motion sensing available as a control scheme.
League - (1-6 Players, 2 at a time) - Create a league of up to 6 teams, Choose features like season length, type of controls for each team, weather, etc.
Practice - (1 Player) - Learn the basic controls of the game such as pitching hitting and fielding.
Home Run Challenge - (1 Player) - Pick a batter, select a pitcher and the pitch types, see how many home runs you can hit in 10 pitches. Wii-mote motion sensing available as a control scheme.
Success - (1 Player) - The game's "create a player" mode follow a kid through 3 yrs of college baseball dealing with practice, studying, part time jobs, dating and life's little surprises to try and make it to the pros.
Review From looking at this game on the shelf at the store you would peg it as an arcade style baseball game similar to Mario Superstar Baseball for the Gamecube. However, This game despite its cutesy graphics is the deepest and most involved baseball game I have ever played. The amount of detail put into representing the players (within the art style) is impressive, players have the look of their real life counterparts. Due to the simplicity of the character design, some characters look similar, but you'd be able to id many characters by their notable features (Manny rockin' his dreads). Similarly a lot of effort went in to giving each player his real batting stance (Like Jim Thome's one handed bat point) making the characters that much more real. Similarly all the major league parks have been accurately represented in scale and detail. If you know what a park looks like in real life, you'll know exactly where your playing just by looking at the stadium. The controls are very clean and intuitive especially with the classic and gamecube controller options as these are the controls I feel the game was truly designed for. The using the Wii-mote is an option in exhibition and home run Challenge modes but it is limited to the "swinging as a button press" style of control. This limited Wii-mote usage was disappointing to me as I long for a sports game (baseball and golf being the most natural) with one to one motion sensing. This game is very customizable. Control schemes for batting ad pitching have various options and levels of difficulty selectable for you to get just the right level of challenge (and balance out the game between levels of skill. There are also many different display options that can be customized. And for better or worse, all the abilities of the pro players can be customized at will with no restraint. So if you think one of your favorite players is poorly represented you can go in and boost his abilities. and if you don't want those changes anymore, there's a restore button to take it back to the original attributes. One other major trait which may or may not interest you is the mind boggling amount of stats this game collects. Most game will track stats in pitch count, era, batting average, and other standard stats. This game tracks for example, the location of every pitch you threw in a game, which ones were hit, where they were hit, what type of pitch it was what was, what percentages of pitch types you threw on the different strike counts. It is insane the amount of statistical depth this game goes into. This is not that important to the casual player and, luckily, is not forced on you. But it is readily available for all you stat heads out there that really want to dissect your performance after every game. Finally I would like to talk about the success mode in this game. This is the most unique and challenging "create a player" mode I have ever seen. In this mode you start as a freshman baseball player just getting to college. Your school only allows players to play for 3 years, requiring you to "focus on your studies" in your fourth year. It seemed odd and unnecessary to limit the length of this mode to 3yrs instead of 4 but it is what it is. Through this mode you have to balance practice, a social life, work and school to develop your players characteristics. Dating allows you to improve your motivation and receive stat improving items. Working allows you to make money to buy stat improving items, or presents for your girlfriends. Studying improves the information you receive and keeps you from flunking out. Finally, practice gives you experience points you use to enhance your abilities. The whole process is has random events (both good and bad) and a randomized "fate card" system used to vary your options in given situations. This adds much depth to the experience and gives the player a different experience every time. At the end of the third season if you have impressed the scouts enough with your performance your player gets drafted to the minors and you can now use the player in the other modes. This adds a good amount of difficulty to this mode as getting drafted is far from a sure thing. Although there is only a little playing baseball in this mode. This is a very enjoyable mode with enduring playability. All in all this is an excellent baseball game with a variety of interesting modes, but is limited by its half-hearted Wii-mote inclusion and lack of online play.