MLB Slugfest 20-03
Midway's take on baseball is absolutely hilarious, but not in the way you may think.
Published: June 26, 2002
Midway's sports games do seem to have a knack for hooking me, at least slightly. Blitz certainly did it, despite me hating football games, Red Card did it, despite me liking soccer sims, and to an extent Slugfest 20-03 does it, even though I loathe everything about baseball with all of my being. Slugfest couldn't make me like either the real-life or digital versions of America's supposed favorite pastime, but it did keep me interested for longer than the .2 milliseconds I usually care to invest in most baseball games. How, you may ask? Well pull up a chair and read on…
Most of my hatred for sports games in general comes from the fact that I suck at them. Even games like basketball -- which I'm fairly decent at, being a 6'2" white guy with bony elbows and plenty of body mass to keep me going when I drive into the lane – end up becoming a fun game show called "watch how long it takes for Sam to break his controller in half and spew endless cuss words as he storms off into his room," which is needless to say infinitely amusing to past roommates. With Midway's games, however, I don't particularly suck. I'm no pro, but I can hold my own. This grand tradition of arcade gameplay equality didn't quite hold up for Slugfest, as I repeatedly lost by a margin of at least 10 points, but I had a whole hell of a lot more fun while I was doing it… for a while at least.
Like most of Midway's sports efforts, Slugfest straddles the line between all-out arcade game and so-so sports effort. It has enough of the real game to nab licenses for player, team and stadium names and likenesses, but otherwise doesn't try to replicate the game in anything more than the basics. The core sport hasn't changed, it's just made more xtreem, and usually with the addition of a turbo meter that adds some over-the-top enjoyment to otherwise mundane moves. The problem with baseball is that the entire sport is mundane, and adding a turbo meter, while certainly cranking up the xtreem meter, doesn't do a whole lot to elevate the basic idea. Basically, the turbo meter is at the heart of Slugfest's xtreem strategy. Allow me to elaborate.
Slugfest still plays almost exactly like the regular game of baseball, but it's faster in almost every respect. They've done away with anything past the 7th inning stretch, and have jacked everything up with the turbo meter, which is filled completely for both sides at the end of each inning. The meter is exhausted when running while fielding, pitching, batting and running bases. It's refilled when a base is taken, stolen, a strikeout our any other out for that matter is logged, and after a homerun or RBI. Because of this, you must use the meter sparingly, dipping into your turbo stash more conservatively than in previous Midway sports games, and thus preserving the more strategic feel of the game of baseball. But it doesn't seem all THAT extreme, right? Well, for the most part, you're right.
There are a few things that keep the game interesting, namely the fact that the turbo ratchets up any one of the four pitches a couple notches; fastballs are faster, curve balls more curvy, sinkers heavier and sliders more slippery. Batting is the same way; normal hits are a little more powerful, and power hits are a little cleaner. Ordinarily, the normal hit is less likely to sail out of the park but is more likely to drop into a gap depending on player stats (more on those in a bit), while a power hit will move the ball farther, but must be hit more precisely if it's to be made into a base worthy hit. While running – either during fielding or while running bases – turbo can be munched steadily (and quickly) to help move your player along, and while running bases can be applied to a more powerful slide in an effort to keep the defender off base. In fact, the one area where Slugfest deviates from the real game most is in tags.
See, when you screaming towards the base, you have the option of attacking the defender, at which point he must physically tag you. Forced outs still apply, but if it's mano-a-mano, you have the opportunity to kick him off base. Likewise, once you're successfully on base, you can consume a little turbo and throw an elbow in the general direction of the baseman's nose, hoping the impact will dislodge the ball, after which time you can choose to scream towards another base for a steal, or stay put and enjoy the view as he scrambles to pick up the ball. If you're feeling like a simultaneous rumble, you can clear out the bases, letting all of your team do the dirty deed at the cost of lots of turbo and a very real chance of multiple stolen bases.
If you haven't guessed by now, the scores in Slugfest can get quite high… or they can stay reasonable, the mystery of which I have yet to solve. See, near as I can tell each of the eight players on a team depend mostly on their stats, made up of batting (controls how well you can place a hit and how likely you are to drive to a hole), power (how strong the hit is and how powerful you are when clearing out against a baseman) and speed (the obvious fielding and running factor). However, there also seems to be a quite a bit of luck (usually poor in my case) that makes for high-, low-, or blowout-score games, never a little of all. Or maybe it's just me. In any case, the player stats do tend to reflect the real-life players' abilities. No player is ridiculously weak, but you won't see, say, the Mariners' Ben Davis blast one out of the park every time up to the plate.
Even with all the turbo enhancements, though, this is still baseball, and if you don't particularly like the game (as in my case), it probably won't convert you. I can, however, see how it would make fence sitters quite happy, as it plucks spirits from both the arcade and sim bars and mixes them in to a syrupy sweet cocktail that could have you hooked faster than you can say "White Russian." Mmm… White Russian…
Like all other current Midway sports games, Slugfest uses RenderWare as its base, and as a result, the game's quite a looker. Of all Midways sporting efforts, this is probably the prettiest thanks to the fact that there's usually very little happening on screen at once. Everything, and I do mean everything is drenched in high-res ultra-sharp texture work that's fantastic. The modeling of the players isn't stunning, but the uniforms and general likenesses helps keep the generalized player body type from becoming too lookalike. The fields are an eyesight and a half, with clean mowed patterns when there's real grass present and plenty of particle effects during homeruns or tickertape after a game winner.
Again, maybe it's just the nature of baseball and its slower pace, but thanks to a camera that stays closer and the fact that there's usually far, far less players on screen than in other sports games, I was able to really appreciate the quality of the motion captured animations, from the way the players fought momentum to head back to base after overrunning it on the way to the next or the absolutely hilarious animations after a bean ball (which, by the way, is always an option when you're pitching, just press the circle button and pick where on the body you want to hit – the place you tag could affect that player's stats for the rest of the game). From the animations as the batter steps into the box to the fancy no-look catches on pop flies to the between-the-legs or behind-the-head catches by the pitcher when the catcher returns the ball, the game drips with quality animation, and it's all tweened fantastically with no pop or sudden starts. The only real complaint I have is the occasional instance of slowdown (which is rare) and the frequency of some animations (like the aforementioned ones for the batters as they come to the plate).
Without a doubt, though, Slugfest's crowning achievement is the audio. It is absolutely, positively stunning, and I'd be hard pressed to find a better example of not only quality writing but a mix of subtle and flat our humor in a game. In very atypical Midway fashion, the more subdued aural cues speak just as strongly and drip with just as much attention to production as the stuff you'll hear often (VERY often, in fact in the case of the commentary, which unfortunately is recycled far, far too much from game to game). The color commentary and back-and-forth between the announcers is the best I've ever heard in a sports game, bar none, though not necessarily for anything other than guffaws. Oft times the comments didn't really apply to what happened on screen, and the same pool of comments were used in every game, which forced them to lose some of their luster a bit after repeated hearings. Still, from the hilarious dialogue while the game loads to the comments after a big play, I've got to wonder if I'll ever hear another game with such unexpectedly great speech.
Luckily, the effects hold up just as well. The ball whooshes as it flies past the plate, snaps when it hits a glove, and rewards you with a bat-shaking crack when struck properly. Crowd noise – especially the hilarious effects queued when the ball flies at high speed into the stands or from random stadium announcements or just general people ("Hey! Hey look at me! I'm stupid!") – is top notch. Everything about this game's audio is superlative. The only cautionary advice I can offer to anyone working at Midway is to not get stuck in the familiar Midway rut of doing something to death. This was a successful formula for baseball; that doesn't mean it'll work in every other game. Learn what worked about his and don't force it on any other games, rather build on what you've done well here in the next game, and for the love of God, record more dialogue, it truly was brilliant.
Again, this is a tough score for me, and one of the main reasons why I don't normally review sports games. Midway sports games are arcadey enough that a sports game 'tard like myself can still enjoy them, and for that reason, I usually like to take a crack at them. My seething hatred for baseball may have proven too powerful, though, as even the xtreem touches that were tossed into Slugfest 20-03 couldn't make it interesting for me to play for any extended amount of time.
Does that mean anyone not into baseball should say away? Of course not, since I represent quite possibly the most extreme end of the spectrum. Everyone else who has a passing interest in the game should at least check it out, but don't expect a High Heat or Triple Play here. There's no serious franchise options, no create-a-player or create-a-team, and nothing of extended value beyond the arcade mode Quickplay and Challenge modes for multiplayer games and Season and Tournament for single-player. Still, if you're looking for something easy on the sim side and heavy on genuinely funny comedy, and can stomach the crack of the back and the roar of the crowd, you'll probably find something entertaining in Slugfest.
Most of my hatred for sports games in general comes from the fact that I suck at them. Even games like basketball -- which I'm fairly decent at, being a 6'2" white guy with bony elbows and plenty of body mass to keep me going when I drive into the lane – end up becoming a fun game show called "watch how long it takes for Sam to break his controller in half and spew endless cuss words as he storms off into his room," which is needless to say infinitely amusing to past roommates. With Midway's games, however, I don't particularly suck. I'm no pro, but I can hold my own. This grand tradition of arcade gameplay equality didn't quite hold up for Slugfest, as I repeatedly lost by a margin of at least 10 points, but I had a whole hell of a lot more fun while I was doing it… for a while at least.
Like most of Midway's sports efforts, Slugfest straddles the line between all-out arcade game and so-so sports effort. It has enough of the real game to nab licenses for player, team and stadium names and likenesses, but otherwise doesn't try to replicate the game in anything more than the basics. The core sport hasn't changed, it's just made more xtreem, and usually with the addition of a turbo meter that adds some over-the-top enjoyment to otherwise mundane moves. The problem with baseball is that the entire sport is mundane, and adding a turbo meter, while certainly cranking up the xtreem meter, doesn't do a whole lot to elevate the basic idea. Basically, the turbo meter is at the heart of Slugfest's xtreem strategy. Allow me to elaborate.
Slugfest still plays almost exactly like the regular game of baseball, but it's faster in almost every respect. They've done away with anything past the 7th inning stretch, and have jacked everything up with the turbo meter, which is filled completely for both sides at the end of each inning. The meter is exhausted when running while fielding, pitching, batting and running bases. It's refilled when a base is taken, stolen, a strikeout our any other out for that matter is logged, and after a homerun or RBI. Because of this, you must use the meter sparingly, dipping into your turbo stash more conservatively than in previous Midway sports games, and thus preserving the more strategic feel of the game of baseball. But it doesn't seem all THAT extreme, right? Well, for the most part, you're right.
There are a few things that keep the game interesting, namely the fact that the turbo ratchets up any one of the four pitches a couple notches; fastballs are faster, curve balls more curvy, sinkers heavier and sliders more slippery. Batting is the same way; normal hits are a little more powerful, and power hits are a little cleaner. Ordinarily, the normal hit is less likely to sail out of the park but is more likely to drop into a gap depending on player stats (more on those in a bit), while a power hit will move the ball farther, but must be hit more precisely if it's to be made into a base worthy hit. While running – either during fielding or while running bases – turbo can be munched steadily (and quickly) to help move your player along, and while running bases can be applied to a more powerful slide in an effort to keep the defender off base. In fact, the one area where Slugfest deviates from the real game most is in tags.
See, when you screaming towards the base, you have the option of attacking the defender, at which point he must physically tag you. Forced outs still apply, but if it's mano-a-mano, you have the opportunity to kick him off base. Likewise, once you're successfully on base, you can consume a little turbo and throw an elbow in the general direction of the baseman's nose, hoping the impact will dislodge the ball, after which time you can choose to scream towards another base for a steal, or stay put and enjoy the view as he scrambles to pick up the ball. If you're feeling like a simultaneous rumble, you can clear out the bases, letting all of your team do the dirty deed at the cost of lots of turbo and a very real chance of multiple stolen bases.
If you haven't guessed by now, the scores in Slugfest can get quite high… or they can stay reasonable, the mystery of which I have yet to solve. See, near as I can tell each of the eight players on a team depend mostly on their stats, made up of batting (controls how well you can place a hit and how likely you are to drive to a hole), power (how strong the hit is and how powerful you are when clearing out against a baseman) and speed (the obvious fielding and running factor). However, there also seems to be a quite a bit of luck (usually poor in my case) that makes for high-, low-, or blowout-score games, never a little of all. Or maybe it's just me. In any case, the player stats do tend to reflect the real-life players' abilities. No player is ridiculously weak, but you won't see, say, the Mariners' Ben Davis blast one out of the park every time up to the plate.
Even with all the turbo enhancements, though, this is still baseball, and if you don't particularly like the game (as in my case), it probably won't convert you. I can, however, see how it would make fence sitters quite happy, as it plucks spirits from both the arcade and sim bars and mixes them in to a syrupy sweet cocktail that could have you hooked faster than you can say "White Russian." Mmm… White Russian…
Like all other current Midway sports games, Slugfest uses RenderWare as its base, and as a result, the game's quite a looker. Of all Midways sporting efforts, this is probably the prettiest thanks to the fact that there's usually very little happening on screen at once. Everything, and I do mean everything is drenched in high-res ultra-sharp texture work that's fantastic. The modeling of the players isn't stunning, but the uniforms and general likenesses helps keep the generalized player body type from becoming too lookalike. The fields are an eyesight and a half, with clean mowed patterns when there's real grass present and plenty of particle effects during homeruns or tickertape after a game winner.
Again, maybe it's just the nature of baseball and its slower pace, but thanks to a camera that stays closer and the fact that there's usually far, far less players on screen than in other sports games, I was able to really appreciate the quality of the motion captured animations, from the way the players fought momentum to head back to base after overrunning it on the way to the next or the absolutely hilarious animations after a bean ball (which, by the way, is always an option when you're pitching, just press the circle button and pick where on the body you want to hit – the place you tag could affect that player's stats for the rest of the game). From the animations as the batter steps into the box to the fancy no-look catches on pop flies to the between-the-legs or behind-the-head catches by the pitcher when the catcher returns the ball, the game drips with quality animation, and it's all tweened fantastically with no pop or sudden starts. The only real complaint I have is the occasional instance of slowdown (which is rare) and the frequency of some animations (like the aforementioned ones for the batters as they come to the plate).
Without a doubt, though, Slugfest's crowning achievement is the audio. It is absolutely, positively stunning, and I'd be hard pressed to find a better example of not only quality writing but a mix of subtle and flat our humor in a game. In very atypical Midway fashion, the more subdued aural cues speak just as strongly and drip with just as much attention to production as the stuff you'll hear often (VERY often, in fact in the case of the commentary, which unfortunately is recycled far, far too much from game to game). The color commentary and back-and-forth between the announcers is the best I've ever heard in a sports game, bar none, though not necessarily for anything other than guffaws. Oft times the comments didn't really apply to what happened on screen, and the same pool of comments were used in every game, which forced them to lose some of their luster a bit after repeated hearings. Still, from the hilarious dialogue while the game loads to the comments after a big play, I've got to wonder if I'll ever hear another game with such unexpectedly great speech.
Luckily, the effects hold up just as well. The ball whooshes as it flies past the plate, snaps when it hits a glove, and rewards you with a bat-shaking crack when struck properly. Crowd noise – especially the hilarious effects queued when the ball flies at high speed into the stands or from random stadium announcements or just general people ("Hey! Hey look at me! I'm stupid!") – is top notch. Everything about this game's audio is superlative. The only cautionary advice I can offer to anyone working at Midway is to not get stuck in the familiar Midway rut of doing something to death. This was a successful formula for baseball; that doesn't mean it'll work in every other game. Learn what worked about his and don't force it on any other games, rather build on what you've done well here in the next game, and for the love of God, record more dialogue, it truly was brilliant.
Again, this is a tough score for me, and one of the main reasons why I don't normally review sports games. Midway sports games are arcadey enough that a sports game 'tard like myself can still enjoy them, and for that reason, I usually like to take a crack at them. My seething hatred for baseball may have proven too powerful, though, as even the xtreem touches that were tossed into Slugfest 20-03 couldn't make it interesting for me to play for any extended amount of time.
Does that mean anyone not into baseball should say away? Of course not, since I represent quite possibly the most extreme end of the spectrum. Everyone else who has a passing interest in the game should at least check it out, but don't expect a High Heat or Triple Play here. There's no serious franchise options, no create-a-player or create-a-team, and nothing of extended value beyond the arcade mode Quickplay and Challenge modes for multiplayer games and Season and Tournament for single-player. Still, if you're looking for something easy on the sim side and heavy on genuinely funny comedy, and can stomach the crack of the back and the roar of the crowd, you'll probably find something entertaining in Slugfest.
