Super Baseball 2020

"Now I don't care how good games get in the future, this is the best Baseball game there is."

A long time ago I rented this game. I would then be hooked straight. Me and my friend Jason would play countless hours of this game. Many hours of bashing the controller while our jaws hung open from the pure mindless-ness.

First off, this game is unique. So many new ideas make Baseball seem... exciting? I've always thought watching Baseball was like watching Paint dry. Why? Because you know exactly whats going to happen. Here new ideas make it much more interesting.

Concept: It's baseball in the Year 2020. Your players have muscular enhancers and jetpacks to make the game more interesting. The teams can be very different. Some have only Men, some only woman, some only robots (and one female named Replica, a referance to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.)

Gameplay: 10/10
This is where the game is at it's strongest, new fresh ideas. Ideas like jetpacks, I mean c'mon, it's jetpacks it must be good. The best idea was the use of money. Good plays get you money to spend on upgrading hitting, running, throwing and pitching ability. The coolest thing about the Money part is, the more you please the crowd, the more money you get. So while just standing under a ball will get you 800 bucks. Jumping 40 feet in the air to catch it nabs 1000. And the hardest, and most dangerous, is getting out of position, waiting for the ball to fall, and using your pack to jet on the ground to catch it. It requires precise timing and gets you 1500 bucks. While all these tricks here are cheap ways of getting money, you can also use the jump and slide to save yourself. Like catching a home run ball before it goes out, catching a bunt by sliding to it, stuff like that.

Graphics: 7/10
Hardly impressive, and almost no great colors. The SNES was a color machine that could pump out beautiful shades. Most notible is probably Harvest Moon. But anyways nothing here is THAT impressive. But points still go to it for jiggle effects on the women's part. And the animations are so cool you just want to swing so you can see your guy swing.

Sound: 7.5/10
While I didn't even remember the techno music after all these years, once I booted it up again it all came back to me. The sound effects are much better than the music trust me. And it even has some Voices, and impressive sound effects on the part of the ball. The cheers are right on mark.

Control: 7/10
Nothing too special. Usual D-pad = Base setup. The most annoying part of this game is moving your places. Say the bases are loaded, and you hit a ball heading into the bleachers. Now the ball bounces back but it takes time, which makes it the ideal place to hit a ball. But your players don't move until the ball hits the ground to make sure you don't get another out. So you tell the guy on third to go home, and on second to go to third. But since you pressed third the guy running home turns around so you have to press home again. Same thing when you press 2nd for your guy on 1st. So annoying.

Diffuculty: 10/10
This is my favorite Area of the game. Scoring is VERY hard to do. And it's often hard to get 1st base once in an inning! Also the team strategies. Like once I played a team that didn't score at all until the 7th inning. Then they scored a whooping 7 runs (but I won with my 9.) I saw the strategy, my players were tired by the end of the game, but theirs were fresh as daisies because they hadn't been trying the first part of the game. Pretty smart.

Pros and Cons:
+ Best Baseball Game Ever.
+ Nice sound effects.
+ GREAT concepts.
+ Refreshing idea.
+ Great Difficulty.
- Subpar Graphics.
- Subpar Music.
- For some reason, averages don't change no matter how many more points you score.

Overall: 10/10.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/02, Updated 09/06/02