There was once a time when baseball videogames didn't feature real teams or players, and the thought of creating your own team, tracking statistics, or playing through multiple seasons (let alone in multiple stadiums) seemed like a pipe dream. Up until the mid-'90s, it didn't seem possible to include player trades in a sports videogame. How times have changed. In this week's episode of "The Late Show" we review Sega's "Home Run King."
Recent efforts, such as "Triple Play," "All-Star Baseball," and "High Heat," have taken console baseball beyond earlier efforts such as "Vs. Baseball" on the NES or "Tommy Lasorda Baseball" for the Sega Genesis. This is a great time for baseball titles on consoles, and the direction seems to be firmly set toward making the most realistic and accurate simulations of the sport possible.
This is all well and good, but aren't some gamers longing for the simplistic controls that made those early titles so much fun, when hitting consistent home runs was more important than which players you were actually hitting them with?
Sega's "Home Run King" recalls the early days of baseball videogames with a simple control scheme and basic features that make it easily accessible from the get-go. The gameplay is easy to grasp, but while good for some short-term fun, it ultimately falls short.
"Home Run King" features four modes of gameplay: exhibition, season, playoffs, and a home run derby, as well as licenses for every player, team, and stadium in the league. Though it isn't extensive in its modes of gameplay or statistics tracking and analysis, it definitely has a feel of realism and authenticity, down to appearances by team mascots. The emphasis here is on jumping into the game (although you can create your own players in the game's detailed editor) and hearing the crack of the bat.
The gameplay mechanics here are rather simple, and in many ways recall the less-intricate days of 8-bit and 16-bit baseball. This is a welcome change for gamers who think that recent baseball titles, while great games, require a bit too much work to bat, pitch, or field. Whether you're a casual gamer or a diehard, the controls are quite simple to master and make good use of the buttons on the GameCube controller.
Pitching is a simple effort, requiring you to push the analog stick in different directions to select your pitch while using a meter to control the power behind it. The same goes for batting, where you can guess the pitch that is being thrown and then try to whack the ball out of the park. (There are no complex angles to deal with. You just need to get the timing down.)
Fielding is straightforward as well, whether or not you choose for the computer to handle it. True to the title, you will find scoring to be much simpler than in other baseball games, and batting is by far the most fun element of "Home Run King's" gameplay. The AI puts up a decent challenge, but playing against an equally skilled friend can be quite a high-scoring affair.
From the opening cinematics, "Home Run King" is a fairly attractive game, with clean graphics and nicely animated action on the field. The players look and move realistically, with decent facial expressions and posturing, though you wouldn't ever mistake the on-screen action for a televised broadcast of a major league game -- except perhaps for the choice of camera angles, which can be perfect at one moment and confusing the next.
As a bonus, there are little nuances when the camera goes tight on a player, such as chewing gum and blowing a bubble, and while the animations lose their appeal after a few games, they are a nice surprise the first time you see them. The same goes for the game's weather effects, which add welcome variety throughout a season. Stadium and crowd graphics leave much to be desired, but they ultimately fade into the background.
Unfortunately, the game's commentary is pretty much a wash, suffering from the same repetitiveness and strung-together dialog that have plagued many sports games to come before it. The other sound effects, such as the crack of the bat, work rather well, as does the accompanying in-game music.
The game also suffers from the occasional slowdown, minor graphical glitches and jags, and what feels like pauses between each pitch or on-field action. This can detract from the otherwise fast-paced feel of the game. Once you're used to it, it isn't so bad, but for a game that's trying to capture an arcade-style feel, you'd expect a more consistent pace.
While "Home Run King" is rather basic, it could easily compete with the serious baseball simulations out there if it packed a bit more. And while it is an action-heavy, arcade-style approach to baseball, it almost doesn't go far enough with its fast-paced feel to truly personify a high-octane arcade baseball game. If Sega polished its simple gameplay while adding some of the extensive management features that baseball fans have come to expect, it could really offer some serious competition on the GameCube -- though Sega may well bet on the Xbox with its upcoming exclusive, "World Series Baseball."
If you love arcade-style baseball, you may find enough to justify purchasing "Home Run King," but ultimately any of the other simulation-heavy titles will better serve most casual and hardcore fans of the sport.
By: Devin