[Gamers' Day 2007] America's Favorite Pastime
Screw the sims, we need us some arcade baseball, so we went hands-on with The BIGS.
Published: May 17, 2007
As good as Sony's own baseball games have been over the past couple years (and they continue to get better), we still aren't complete converts of the traditional game of baseball. In fact, we were much bigger fans of Midway's "let's take Blitz and turn it into a baseball game" approach with their MLB SlugFest series. Alas, when 2K Sports bought up the exclusive to the MLB license, that effectively killed Midway's baseball series, and, we thought, any future attempts at an arcade baseball title.
We love when we're wrong.
The BIGS is, if nothing else, a bit of a spiritual successor to SlugFest. It has score meters, turbo power-ups and everythingabout the game is over the top, right down to the ultra-burly real-life batters. But it's not SlugFest, and though we still pine for our dedicated "bean batter" button while on the mound, what we played of the game was actually -- gasp -- pretty damn fun, making all three major parts of the game, batting, pitching and fielding all equally rewarding while preserving the insanity of the tone of the game.
We'll start with pitching. As simple as pressing and holding the face button that corresponds to the style of pitch until a little pop-up meter fills to green, pitches are quick, easy to pick, and, if you manage to completely fill the meter (the speed of which is determined by your pitcher's confidence for each one), capable of rocketing across the plate at 150 miles an hour. If you manage to notch a strike, then you'll get a little bit of the turbo meter filled (and the more back-to-back strikes you can get, the more the meter will fill with each one).
If you're on the receiving end, the controls are even more simplistic, with a button for power swings and another for contact. Hold back and wait for balls to come in and you too can kick off a turbo hit for more juice. As the game progresses and either batters take their bases or pitchers/fielders bag outs, points are tallied, and if you can fill the meter all the way, you're given the option for either an insta-home run by pressing L1+R1 and connecting, or getting nothing but pure turbo pitches for a full at-bat.
As soon as a bat connects with a ball and starts heading for the deep seats, the fielding gets interesting. If you can manage to get to the fence and jump, it kicks off a simple mini-game where you just have to press the right buttons in the allotted time and you can rob a homer. Even if the ball was a good two or three stories up. Sweet, no?
Yes, yes it is, and equally cool with the extremely limited time we had with the Home Run Pinball Mode in Times Square. Just as the name implies, elements of a home run derby and a pinball table have been mashed together to help build your ability to plant a ball at taxis, smacking letters on a sign -- hell, you can even take out the New Year's Ball if you're good. It's similar to what was seen in MLB '07: The Show, but despite being out in the middle of the street, it's not quite as fantastical... if that makes any sense. We wish we could have had more time with the game, but alas, we had to move on lest we not see everything at the event.
We're going to have to snag a proper preview build of the game here soon, because what we experienced was an absolute blast, and this could well be the return of baseball games for people who absolutely detest baseball games.
We love when we're wrong.
The BIGS is, if nothing else, a bit of a spiritual successor to SlugFest. It has score meters, turbo power-ups and everythingabout the game is over the top, right down to the ultra-burly real-life batters. But it's not SlugFest, and though we still pine for our dedicated "bean batter" button while on the mound, what we played of the game was actually -- gasp -- pretty damn fun, making all three major parts of the game, batting, pitching and fielding all equally rewarding while preserving the insanity of the tone of the game.
We'll start with pitching. As simple as pressing and holding the face button that corresponds to the style of pitch until a little pop-up meter fills to green, pitches are quick, easy to pick, and, if you manage to completely fill the meter (the speed of which is determined by your pitcher's confidence for each one), capable of rocketing across the plate at 150 miles an hour. If you manage to notch a strike, then you'll get a little bit of the turbo meter filled (and the more back-to-back strikes you can get, the more the meter will fill with each one).
If you're on the receiving end, the controls are even more simplistic, with a button for power swings and another for contact. Hold back and wait for balls to come in and you too can kick off a turbo hit for more juice. As the game progresses and either batters take their bases or pitchers/fielders bag outs, points are tallied, and if you can fill the meter all the way, you're given the option for either an insta-home run by pressing L1+R1 and connecting, or getting nothing but pure turbo pitches for a full at-bat.
As soon as a bat connects with a ball and starts heading for the deep seats, the fielding gets interesting. If you can manage to get to the fence and jump, it kicks off a simple mini-game where you just have to press the right buttons in the allotted time and you can rob a homer. Even if the ball was a good two or three stories up. Sweet, no?
Yes, yes it is, and equally cool with the extremely limited time we had with the Home Run Pinball Mode in Times Square. Just as the name implies, elements of a home run derby and a pinball table have been mashed together to help build your ability to plant a ball at taxis, smacking letters on a sign -- hell, you can even take out the New Year's Ball if you're good. It's similar to what was seen in MLB '07: The Show, but despite being out in the middle of the street, it's not quite as fantastical... if that makes any sense. We wish we could have had more time with the game, but alas, we had to move on lest we not see everything at the event.
We're going to have to snag a proper preview build of the game here soon, because what we experienced was an absolute blast, and this could well be the return of baseball games for people who absolutely detest baseball games.
