Simply the best and most fun baseball game for the Nintendo DS
Lets start with the sound.
*The music is ok and is not annoying(not yet at least).
*The basic sounds like hitting the ball and the ball hitting the glove are good.
*The announcer says the position,number and name of each batter.
*There is nothing said when getting a hit or anything like that. Just the basic out,safe,foul,strike,ball.
The graphics.
*Simple...they do the job but nothing flashy.
Practice Modes.
*Batting practice- You get 10 pitches and get points for hits and it tells how far your hit was. On the right side it shows your history, for example miss,foul,3BGO(3rd base ground out),RF H(Right field hit) and so on.
----- To hit you use the directional buttons to move your batter around and to move the "sweet spot" inside the strike zone. You press B to swing and if you want to power swing just press the Right button or Left button to switch back and forth from contact to power. When the pitcher throws you will get a glimpse of where the ball is going and can adjust ...but you have to do it fast.Overall the hitting is pretty easy and most of all fun.------
*Pitching Practice- You get 10 pitches. You pick your pitch by moving the directional buttons. Press B to throw. There is a kind of small circle slowly moving around the strike zone and if your ball goes through it you get points. If you repeatedly tap the throw button you can throw a faster pitch(I think only in a match game)
*Baserunning - Very simple just move your players around the bases and learn how to bring them back to a base. No point system here.
*Fielding Practice- This is pretty fun just like the batting and pitching practice is fun. You control the batter and the fielders. You can adjust the hitting strength,how high and low you hit the ball and the direction. Basically this really lets you practice trying not to let a ball get past you, jumping for a ball,diving for a ball. You can also throw the ball to a base to get the runner out. Again no points are given in this part. Its just real good for getting all kinds of balls hit to all parts of the field and it really helps your defense.
*General Offense and General Defense - You either hit or pitch n' field and you do not change sides or score points.
HOME RUN
*10 pitches and it tells you how far your HR is. It keeps the top 5 scores and each one says what your farthest homerun is. Its easy to hit HR's. More could have been done to make it funner , but it's just a basic Home Run mode.
Playoffs- You pick your team and then pick the other 7 teams. I haven't actually played this mode or the Edit Teams mode.
There are hint screens in the game to let you know what buttons do what for fielding,hitting,pitching,stealing,bunting and so on. This helps so you dont have to keep looking at the instruction booklet.
*There are only 4 ballparks to choose from. But it has all the MLB players.
*After a game there are detailed stats to look at for your batters and pitchers.
*You can set how many innings you want to play in a game. You can turn designated hitter on and off. Errors,extra innings,mercy rule and wind on and off.
*Your batting,pitching,fielding and baserunning can be set to manual or have the CPU help you.
Overall the game is very fun. But I know me and pretty much everyone else wish it had a season mode.
It does have download play...so I can play a game against my wife even though she doesn't have the game. I have tried to go into online play but I guess not many people have it yet. But I'm sure in a couple of days I'll start finding some matches and thats where the real fun begins. In my 2 matches (3 innings each), I lost 3-1 and the next game I lost 4-3. I had it on novice the easiest level. I've played Home Run 3 times and my records are 7 HR,another 7HR and 4 HR's....you can pick anyone you want to hit with. There are 5 CPU difficulty levels. Hope to see you online for a game soon!