This baseball game has accurate 1993 teams, players, and stats; that's why I bought it. It doesn't keep stats for the current season, though, and you can't rename players or teams. You can play a single game, a whole season, either LCS, or the World Series. Each of these options can be you vs. the SNES, you vs. another person, or the SNES vs. itself (the better team generally wins) Also, if you choose the entire season option, you can skip ahead, at any time, to a chosen date (all intermediate games will be played in seconds by the SNES) At any given time during a whole season, you'll be at a given day; you can look at all the scheduled games for that day and check off the ones you actually want to play. With the push of a button, all non-toggled games are played automatically, then the ones you marked are played, by you or by the SNES (you can actually watch it run both teams if you want - each given game lets you choose who plays which team) This way, you can play each and every game in a whole season, or you can skip games you don't want to play; you can also play any given game you want to, on any given day.
For example, I'm running my season with the Braves, but if I choose to have a hand in the outcome of, say, a Giants game on any given day I'm up to in my season, I can. Or a Blue Jays game, or whatever... The game uses passwords rather than a battery backup.
Batting is fairly straightforward. If you crowd the batter's box, you'll probably hit a foul (the manual claims that you can get hit by pitches, but I haven't had this happen yet) and if you back away from the box, you'll probably miss if you swing. A chart included with the game gives ratings (on a 1-8 scale) of each player's power, accuracy, running speed, and fielding. If the player is a pitcher, he'll have stats like throwing power, accuracy, etc. These stats never directly appear in the game, but I'd assume the SNES uses them every time action occurs. You can let the SNES handle batting for any or all of your nine batters, if you want. I didn't notice any apparent advantage to this option, though.
Baserunning is automatic, until you reach first base. Then you have to manually move your runner(s), and it gets tricky if you have more than one. Stealing is pretty easy to master, but only the fastest runners seem to steal with any consistency. I've never seen the SNES try to steal a base on me. One bad point is that all runners who are theoretically forced to run (i.e. runners at first, or first and second, etc.) will go ahead and run, even on a fly ball. You have to make them go back, or else they tend to get thrown out. A note here: sometimes the SNES makes its runners run on fly balls, but forgets to send them back.
You can throw fastballs, changeups, and curveballs in a variety of combinations. I've found that the SNES _always_ takes the first strike, provided that it's not a fastball right over the plate. At first, I had trouble striking out SNES batters, but now I've become fairly proficient at it. Any time a pitcher tosses a strike, its speed is shown; this way you can tell when a pitcher is getting tired. A note: the SNES has never walked one of my batters...but I'm not the most patient of batters. Another note: if you give a SNES batter the same pitch twice in a row, he'll usually hit it pretty hard. They're not stupid.
You can set each of your nine fielders to field for themselves (SNES control) or under your control. I've found that the only way I can avoid getting creamed is to let the SNES do the fielding. If you do it yourself, you have to use a little radar screen; you do gain the power to control your own plays, though (you can jump and dive for balls) but I don't think it's worth it. It's just too hard to have the right fielders in the right place at the right time. You can choose one of five fielder placement schemes, any time you want (double play depth, bunt, etc) A note: even if the SNES fields, all it does is try to catch balls for you - you still have to make the throws to bases.
You can opt to use a DH in single games (even in the NL) if you don't want your pitcher to hit.
Most, but not all, of the teams' home cities/states/whatever are accurate.
The stadiums are all the same, but crowd noise seems to happen at the right times (cheers and boos!). Whichever team is the home team gets billboard announcements whenever they hit a home run, turn a double play or triple play, or record a strikeout. I bet there's one for a grand slam, too, but I haven't seen it yet.
The umpire can make the following calls: ball, strike, out, safe, walk, foul.
You can insert pinch-hitters, runners, or relief pitchers anytime you want. The billboard lights up to tell you this, too. I once had Sid Bream pitching for a few batters.
Batters who can switch-hit will automatically face a pitcher from the more advantageous side.
The players' colors (black, white, etc.) are accurate, but their heights and builds don't seem to be (hmm, I haven't yet taken a look at Cecil Fielder...)
The SNES neglects to tell you the name of the pitcher you're facing; you never know who he is until you're pitching to him for the first time. Similarly, you don't get to see your opponent's lineup if it's the SNES.
When a batter comes up to bat, the results of his last at-bat are shown; sometimes the SNES says that he got a single when he didn't. This doesn't get recorded in the hits column, but it's still a bug.
home runs: 455' (Otis Nixon!!!), 435' (Ron Gant)
other hits: triples by Deion Sanders, Ron Gant, and Otis (these
guys are the only Braves with enough speed to turn
doubles into triples - the SNES fielders are pertty
efficient)
offensive: 6 runs on 12 hits, vs. the Cubs
pitching: 2-hitter (Pete Smith; I had a no-hitter going into the
9th, but I wanted to see if he could finish it w/o
relief pitching) fastest pitch: 96 mph fastballs from John
Smoltz and Mark Wohlers and a 103 mph fastball from Duane
Ward of the Blue Jays
I like it. What's important to me is accurate teams, stats, and capabilities; this game has all that. Its fielding is not perfect, but I don't think it's worse than any other SNES game. The batting and pitching are pretty good, and it's hard to score too many runs against the SNES. There could be more features (28 real stadiums comes to mind) but all in all, it seems pretty complete to me. I'd recommend it to people who want a baseball game that's faithful to real teams, players, and seasons.
On another note, the box claims that there are secret powerups, but I haven't found any yet.
This review is Copyright (C) 1994 by Thomas Miller for Game Bytes Magazine. All rights reserved.