MLB’s Players’ Weekend returned last weekend after a four-year hiatus, and of course, it was just as good as I remember. This year, game developer Playground Productions uses the weekend to re-enter the field of baseball sims.
There’s hundreds of press conferences and conventions going on around the country for fans to get to know their favorite players better. There’s also a lot of events that players use to raise money for their select charities.
One of the biggest spectacles of the weekend comes from the players’ on-field attire. They get complete creative freedom to design their cleats, socks, hats and other small accessories. In the past, they could customize the names on their jerseys, but that has been done away with.
We saw so many intricate cleat designs, hat patches and chains, but there were also a lot of custom bats. Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals swung a bat on August 16 with the face of a simplistic cartoon character on it.
Most, if not all, baseball fans recognized the character as hard-hitting Pablo Sanchez from the 1997 game “Backyard Baseball”. The original game was released solely on PC, but later installments of the series were brought to the Wii, PlayStation 2, GameCube and even the iPhone.
Witt Jr. went on to crush a fastball to the cheap seats in left field in the top of the fourth inning against the Reds, which brought even more attention to the bat he donned that night.
It’s no coincidence that just four days later, the game’s developer, Playground Productions released a teaser trailer featuring most of the game’s playable characters returning to the field once again.
The final frame is a white background with colorful text reading “Backyard is Back”. Now, they didn’t just say that Backyard Baseball is back, so we could potentially see remakes of the other sports under the “Backyard” umbrella like hockey, basketball and football.
However, the only sport shown in the trailer was baseball, so that’s all we have confirmed for now.
In an identical situation to “College Football 25,” the last installment of the series was released back in 2015, and fans have heard nothing since. After years of public outcry for a new game, “Backyard Sports” is slowly building hype around its new generation of games.
I never played “Backyard Baseball” growing up, so I can see it from an objective and unbiased point of view. Therefore, I think it is an atrocity.
Yes, I understand the original was released in 1997, but there are hundreds of baseball games out there I’d play before this one.
It really boils down to the gameplay, which is unbearably slow in every aspect. Runners take up to seven seconds to move up 90 feet (or 60 feet, depending on dimensions), the ball moves in slow motion whether it’s hit, pitched or thrown, and it is just egregious to watch or play.
I think the game has a great concept, but if they want me to spend $30-70 on it, the baseball gameplay must get a monstrous overhaul, especially when all they’re going to do graphics-wise is make the 2-D characters run in 60fps.
I think it’s good that another company is stepping up to challenge “San Diego Studios” for their monopoly over baseball sims, so let’s keep a close eye on “Backyard Baseball” for now.
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