Virtual League Baseball

Virtual Boy

Review by Matt Paprocki

 

Baseball

Graphics: 6

Sound: 6

Gameplay: 7

Overall: 6


Baseball fans, this is it: The one and only US Virtual Boy baseball game. While it's not groundbreaking in any way, it still plays a decent game that's good enough to kill about an hour or two.

The title screen gets thing going on a high note with a nice CG cinema, one of the games highlights. Selecting from a rather small amount of game modes, gamers can tackle an exhibition game, all star, or go all out in a race for the pennant. Picking from a variety of fantasy teams, players are allowed to edit their rosters and starting line-ups. A password will save progress in the pennant race, so be sure to have paper handy.

The actual gameplay is very simplistic. Batters have the option of swinging high, low, and in the center. Pitchers have a little more control, but it's almost exactly like the many 16-bit baseball games. The batter/pitcher interface looks quite good giving players a good sense of depth and milking the 3-D effect to the fullest.

Once a ball has been hit, the fielding rears its ugly head. One screen depicts the entire field and the fielders are so small, it's hard to tell that their actually people. It's even harder to gauge the depth of the field, so trying to tag out a runner is an exhausting experience.

Next to Mario Tennis, this is probably the most common Virtual Boy game out there. It's not a bad game, so the fact that it sold well could be due to the gameplay, but it most likely flew off store shelves for the promise of 3-D baseball. If the fielding was fixed up and the batter/pitcher interface made a little deeper, this game coulda been a contenda. Side note: Be sure to check out the back of the box. It could easily hold the world record for the most fragmented sentences on a product.

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Last updated: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 02:36 PM