Unfortunately, the Last Great Baseball Game

Author's Rating:

Pros: -Great and easy hitting/pitching interface

Cons: -Bugs that can start fights with your friends

The Bottom Line: 
If you have been looking for the special baseball game, your search is over.

Author's Review
Ken Griffey Jr.’s Major League Baseball is a classic baseball game for the Nintendo 64. I have played it with my friends for about 4 years now and we never get enough of it. We have bought other baseball games only to be disappointed. The mechanics, the options, and even the difficulty just weren’t worth it and only lead us back to this game.

Gameplay

Like every other baseball game, you play by the normal rules. 9 innings of baseball with 3 outs per inning. Every Major League team is included, and this was the first game to have Diamondbacks and Devil Rays so fans of those teams will be pleased. Every team has their roster as of 1999. This means that certain players who now are terrible are still in the game and ruling the league. The game plays simply like this, you pitch the ball from your pitchers pitches. Most pitchers have 4 of them. Some examples of these are Curveball, Slider, Fastball, Changeup, Super Fast, Super Change, Knuckleball, and Cut Fastball. Others are included but much rarer than these ones. You have an arrow in a square on the screen that represents the strike zone. The batter has a circle of which shows how good he makes contact. You move your arrow and push A to pitch the ball. After you pitch, you can move the ball a certain amount depending on the pitch. For example, you can make a Curveball sink and go to the side a little, and you can make a Slider cut across the strike zone. The hitter has to move his circle and swing or bunt the ball when it crosses the plate. Depending on how well the circle covered the Arrow depends on the amount of good contact he put on it. A partial hit makes for a ground ball, popup, or foul. A full contact makes for a base hit or home run. In the game every player has his attributes. They vary how well they perform on the field. These include:

Speed
A player with high speed can beat out many plays from the infield. They make routine plays into base hits since they are fast enough to outrun a throw to first or whatever base the are headed towards.

Arm
A player with high arm attribute has a very high velocity when he throws the ball. A high “Arm” player can due many things that a low arm player can’t. A good Right Fielder can throw out a player at First from the outfield. A high Arm catcher can catch anyone stealing.

Defense
Like in real life, mistakes are made. In baseball terms, errors are committed. The higher defense skill your player has, the less likely he is to commit an error, a mistake that can cost you a game.

Contact
A player with high contact skill can make hits easily. Partial contacts with their circle can still get them a base hit. This is very useful because this skill changes the size of their circle that they hit with.

0-6= Small circle
7-9= Medium Circle
10= Huge Circle

Power
The amount of power that your player has determines how hard he hits the ball. Low power players rarely hit a home run, although it does happen. High power hitters go “yard” all the time when they get a good enough hit.

These attributes set teams apart as well as players. Only a few people have the Big Circles, such as: Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza, Paul Molitor, Ken Griffey Jr., and Sammy Sosa just to name a few. They are very rare and great to have on your team. They make base hits very easy to make and some of them make home runs very common.

There are also different ways to play the game. The different options of which to play under include:

Exhibition Mode

This is a basic single game that is just that, one game. You can play with 2 players or just one vs. the computer. This is rather fun if you just want to play a single game with a friend or you want to warm-up before playing in a Season Mode game.

Season Mode

Season Mode is just like every other sports game season mode. You pick a team and play their season with them. Up to 4 players can participate in a Season, each with their own team to control. I have played numerous Seasons with some friends. It is very fun since every once in awhile you get to play each other and see how your team adds up. There are a number of options at the start of the Season that allow for interesting gameplay. The Draft option is when every team is stripped from their players and you draft like in the MLB Draft. This allows for the “stacked” teams to be put back in the bunch with the rest of the teams. Although this takes a rather long time, it is really fun. A season is the normal 100-something games and takes a long time, but it is great once you hit playoffs against your friends and finally the World Series.

World Series Mode

The most common way to play against my friends would be World Series Mode. In it, you pick a team from the American League and a team from the National League and duke it out in a Best of 7 series. It makes it so you can play as crappy teams in the Series and always be playing your friends, unlike Playoff Mode. You can play as the two best teams in the game: Mariners and Red Sox. Or, you can pick some of the worst teams in the league: Expos and Devil Rays.

Playoff Mode

In this mode you can play with up to 4 players all with a different team and play through a playoff setup. You can pick the other teams involved and try to get to the World Series and be the Champion. This can be fun since you can play with 4 of your friends but I still always pick World Series Mode.

Home Run Derby

I have yet to come across a Baseball game without this option. In it, you select a Player and the number of “Outs” allowed (a non-homerun) and play. Here you can see who the better home run hitter is: Griffey or Bonds? This is fun but isn’t something to play everyday.

What sets this game apart from other games is the simplicity of play. In other games, the hitter doesn’t have a circle to hit with; he has an oddly shaped oval. The pitcher pitches outrageously fast to the point where you don’t even see the ball go by. If you can’t see it, how are you going to hit it?

There are some minor flaws to the game however that might start some fights with your friends (from first hand experience). Sometime, when you get thrown out trying to steal, he looks safe by a mile. This can cause some yelling and even throwing of the controller, so beware! Also, there is a homerun hit that comes up when the ball is going to barely go over the fence, making it so your player can jump and reach his arm over and catch it. Sometimes that ball is too far to do that though and makes it so you get a home run some of the time. However, there is a bug where if you stand next to where the ball is just going over your player with walk through the wall and you will always catch it. There have been many cheating accusations where I come from and it leads to some tempers flaring, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Graphics

The graphics of this game were great at the time of its release. Yet, since this was about 5 years ago, they are now outdated. However, they are not bad to the point of annoyance when you play the game. In fact, they are one of the more tolerable Nintendo 64 games out there. Since I am used to playing high definition PC games or XBOX games, I am normally annoyed by choppy old graphics but this one seems to not get on my nerves at all.

However, to be past this, the players are not rendered all so great. The teams all do have their stadiums however. Some of the stadiums are rather pretty and fun to play on with a short fence and easy home run hitting. Others are bright astro-turf with long fences making home runs very rare.

Sound

Like every other sports game, this game has announcers. Some games, they are used for information of what’s happening. Others, they are used for comic relief. This game seems to right in the middle of it. There is the occasional joke that you can hear if you listen closely, while there is also the serious announcing of your player. However, there is only one song on the entire game, one that is heard in pause and at the main menu. It isn’t a bad song or at least it doesn’t get on your nerves, so I guess that’s a start. There are many Ken Griffey Jr. voice comments on certain plays. For instance, if you make a diving catch, you will hear him say, “What a great play!” or, “What a one-handed grab!” These can be interesting and aren’t overused like other voiceovers that games have.

Conclusion

This game is a gem in the world of Baseball games. It is the last simple hit/pitch game and the only one to make the entire game easy and fun at the same time. It is complex enough to allow strike outs to occur and yet not so hard to make hits a special occurrence. I would recommend this game to anybody with a Nintendo 64 who has been searching for a baseball game that is actually fun, not a pain.