And I dont even like baseball!
American baseball has always been one of my favorite MS games. The weird thing is I don’t really like baseball! I know virtually nothing about it. I could probably name less than 5 players but for some reason this game has always been lots of fun to me and my friends. It is very easy to play with an excellent control system, attractive graphics and some of the catchiest MS tunes you’ll hear.
The graphics are really well done. The game has two views the pitching view which is behind the batter and this view stays as you swing at the ball. Once a ball is hit or the pitcher tries to stop a steal it switches to an overhead view which looks very clean and simple with nicely detailed characters but not that horrid kind of detail where everything ends up blurry its just crisp graphics that look very pleasant. The crowd are the only weird looking thing with them basically consisting of a bunch of green and red flashing squares. Odd looking crowds were par for the course in the era of gaming though and it doesn’t detract from the graphics in the slightest. The overhead view has some nice details like dust clouds, animated team mascots and pitchers throwing balls around to warm up. Another nice touch is that if a baseman catches a ball at almost the exact time a runner slides into the base a super detailed close up freeze frame appears to show if he was safe or out. Very cool. This also happened when somebody hits a homerun out of the park there’s a close up of him running into home base and of the scores. There’s also a stat screen between innings with the team lineups, scoreboard and a big screen with cheerleaders or fake advertisements on just to ad a bit more flavor. Also rarely for an old game the frame rate is rock solid and never dips.
Sound wise the game is equally well done. The sounds are crisp and realistic. Fastballs make a whooshing sound as they scream towards home plate, a bat connecting with a ball has that trademark echoing PING and there is even some voice acting with the umpires shouting safe or out. The music like most master system games is very catchy and god to listen to it random changes each time you go to the batting view and all of them are bright happy tunes that you wont get sick of.
The gameplay is excellent and fun. The first thing that stands out is the control. Not only is it very responsive it’s very well designed. When you’re batting the 2 button swings. Holding up or down allows you to swing high or low to create a grounder or a flyer. When your pitching you press 2 to pitch and you can curve it with left and right throw a slow ball with up and a fastball with down
When fielding No matter where you are up, down, left and right throw to the respective base no matter where you are it’s the same with the players on bases. This is a really well through out system that makes it very easy to react quickly with fielding.
The batter view is well balanced to be fair to both pitcher and batter and yopu can also edge of bases and run for it after the pitcher pitches but before thwe batter hits. Fatigue is also simulated with pitchers pitching slower and slower as they get tired. You are able to replace your pitcher with out of four relief pitchers . He even rides out to the pitchers mound in a little car! You can also pinch the hitter to swich him with one of your reserves if you like, though the pitcher seems to be the only player to model fatigue, other players don’t seem to get tried.
The gameplay is just simple and fun
There are 26 teams from the A and N leagues. Dunoo if they are real or not I’m not a fan :P. I’m also not sure if the player’s names are the real ones. The teams differ in colors too obviously but I’m not sure if these are the real colors. Feel free to contact me if you know for sure.
Even tho there are no stat tracking or other options American Baseball is just a lot of fun to play and if you enjoy master system games like I do then you should give it a go!