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Rating: Average
Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey, Jr. is a
game that showed promise of rising above the current glut of
boring baseball games, but didn't quite realize that promise.
First of all, what's the deal with that title? Why the heck
wouldn't they just call it Griffey 64? Second of all, and
this probably shouldn't even be mentioned, but why does it
say "Only For Nintendo Sports" in the corner of the game
box? What, is Nintendo Sports a separate system that I have
to pay extra money for? Will the game also run on my
regular N64, or do I have to buy a "Nintendo Sports"? Maybe
they meant "Made By Nintendo Sports," and even that is
questionable since Nintendo didn't develop the game (Angel
Studios did). Well, enough ranting about that, on with the
review. The sound is annoying from the very first moment
you turn the game on. Griffey's annoying chants of "Call,
Call, Call Me Junior" at the title screen are just plain
pathetic. Is that supposed to be cool or something? Also,
the in-game commentator does nothing but call out the
batters' names as they approach home base (or this game's
case, magically teleport to it). Even this becomes annoying
and there's no way to turn the commentator off. Also, the
things the umpires say are ridiculous at times. When's the
last time you heard an umpire repeatedly say "He's in
there!" instead of "Safe"? And why is it that when a ball
just hits the corner of the plate for a strike, the crowd
gasps and boos even if the play was to the home team's
favor? Moving on to gameplay, the game only lets you choose
from 162 and 81-game seasons if you want the full set of
features. You can play a shorter season with 20-some games,
but for some reason the game insists that there be no trades,
free agent dealings, or even injuries in the shorter seasons.
The 81-game seasons would be bearable if you could simulate
meanginless mid-season games, but you can't. It's standard
fare in every other sports game, but for some reason this
game doesn't let you sim games and makes you play every
single game in the long, painful season. And where the heck
is the Create A Player feature? This is so standard in
sports game these days that there is simply no excuse that
it is not in this game. The gameplay itself is extremely
fast-paced, arcade-style action that holds the potential to
be very entertaining. The fielding control is great
compared to such horribly-controlling games as Triple Play
'98 (or Triple Play '99, same thing), but I found the
batting interface to be very frustrating after extensive
play. You have to quickly line up your batting cursor with
the pitching cursor, then move your eyes to the incoming
ball and swing at just the right moment. This would be
awesome if it weren't for one little thing. The pitcher can
move the pitching cursor as the ball is on its way to home
plate, which creates a frustrating situation for the batter.
You can't concentrate on lining up the moving cursors or
you'll mess up on the timing of the swing, but you can't
keep your eye on the ball the whole time or the pitching
cursor will move out of range and it will be a strike.
As promising as it initially appeared, Major League Baseball
Featuring Ken Griffey, Jr. is a very flawed game that will
leave gamers across the country wondering why on earth it
took Angel Studios over two and a half years to develop.
/85">
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com