Bases Loaded

"This Game Is LOADED with tons of Fun Factor"

Well Since this is a baseball game I am not going to give you categories like story line but I am just going to give you a straight over review.

Introduction
You got your All - Star Baseball , World Series Baseball , High Heat Series , Home Run King and than you got your Major League Baseball series. All these games are mad on the future consoles with the high graphics of Playstation2 , Game cube and The X - Box. While these are the future consoles of the gaming world it is not a bad idea to look back to the beginning , of the gaming when you was just a kid and picked up a game boy for the first time to go anywhere and play anywhere. Certain games were classics that you could not forget , some were games that changed your gaming experience and that you forgot over the years and the others well............. you want to forgot how bad they were but you just can’t. So what category does Bases Loaded fall into? Read On and you will find my point of view.

Bases Loaded was first introduced on the Game Boy in 1990 by a gaming company un - commonly know as Jaleco. It was published by the world famous Nintendo. This game did not have ANY hype when it was near release my friend’s did not even bother to give a chance and check it out. When I brought this game over to my friend’s house he played it for a few minutes and I can still remember him loving every minute of it even though he lost pretty badly to the computer. My other friend’s started playing it and loved it too. Since we all could not play it at one time we used to share and play one game each to see who got the most runs in he game to see who wins. I still play this game by myself and even bring it every where I go to kill some time. I enjoyed every minute of playing this game.

The Review

When The Game Boy was Released it came with some great titles like Mario , Metriod , The Final Fantasy Series and other great games coming along from the launch and the death of the game boy. One thing that I have notice over the years of the Game Boy it was lacking quite a few sports titles and the ones they did have were not even mediocre gaming experiences . The sport games that came out for the Game Boy lacked the fun factor found in sports games for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I would often wish that when I would go on vacation to just play normal baseball game without all the glitches , bad game play and other things that would take my interest away from the game itself.

The first year of the Game Boy was mainly a disappointment in the sports category department offering only a handful of sport game titles that would only be fun for the first hour or so. I continued to buy the sport games and trading them in when I did not like it. After returning a few baseball games over and over in the beginning of the Game Boy I came upon one game that would not only change my handheld gaming experience for sport games but for my whole sport games that I will ever play.

When I picked up this game for the first time and actually popped in the cartridge to my mint condition Game Boy I thought it was going to be yet another flop and disappointment in the sports department of the Game Boy. Wow, was a wrong this game craved ever need that I have ever wished for in a baseball game. It showed me what a baseball game was all about.

The name of it this great game was Bases Loaded. perfectly named because this game was loaded with so much fun factor that I still play it today. The games graphics are actually pretty good for the generation it was introduced in. The players animations were perfectly done . The players moved well with the graphics as well. When you hit a foul ball you can literally see the ball making a dent in the grass where it hit. Also when you hit a Home Run or a foul ball you will see the crowd cheering up and down raising there hands enjoying the love of the game. When you hit a home run a little animation pops up. The animation just shows your team mates congratulating each other because your team hit a home run. One other animation that a did not notice for a while was when you are pitching and when one of your opponents hits a home run you will actually see the pitcher in a like of discomfort and showing that he shouldn't of gave up the home run.

The physics in this game are realistic more than any other baseball game on the Game Boy I have played and have since played. The field consisted of 9 players not like some other baseball games for the Game Boy. They were perfectly fitted in the right position so that the physics would blend together to make it fell like playing a regular baseball game. You do not always hit a home run like some other games and win 20 to 3 and beat the game easy. You will hit at maximum two home runs a game and even though I have been playing the game for over ten years I go on streaks that I don’t hit a home run in 3 straight games. Also When you hit a pop up fly the ball won’t stay up there forever and the ball would not go down in a matter of seconds either. It will just glide into the outfield like a regular baseball in a baseball game. You will try to make a routine play or a spectacular play and ones that you can’t even catch that you have play on a bounce or hop. One thing that I have realized when playing other baseball games no matter how hard I tried is that I could not ever in a million years turn a basic double play. Double plays happen very often in regular baseball games about five times a game and in other baseball games for the Game Boy you don’t see one when you play it. Overall the physics and reality in this game if very good and is the best I have ever seen in any handheld to date.

Another Feature I was very happy to found they added in was one of the most basic things that some of the other baseball or sport games for the matter did not even think of including. What I am talking about is a thing we take for granted in the next - generation gaming years and that's of course is SOUND . Without sound the game gets dull like other games but since this game has it , it makes this game even more enjoyable. The sound in the game is not revolutionary for certain games on the Game Boy. It was however ground breaking in the aspect of baseball games and other sports games. For insistence you can hear the crowd cheering and going up and down when you hit a home run or a clutch base hit down the middle to tie or win the game. When the game increases into the innings around the 7th inning you can actually hear and see a difference in them. They seem to be very more enthused about the game and want to see some action so give it to them good.. Overall Bases Loaded provides the basic sound you want to hear to keep you excited and pumped up to get in the game and get a winning or tieing base hit. While you may hear a thousand times better sound on a system like X - Box or Game Cube this was one of the first baseball games that actually used it and used it actually good. Believe it or not when you hear the roar of the crowd in a game like All -Star Baseball Or World Series Baseball just remember Bases Loaded for the Game Boy was one if not the first game to use this feature.

Other feature that I was surprised about when I first tuned on the game and started to play was Stats. Yes stats you see all baseball players have them like batting average , home runs , Earned Runs Average , and other things. This was the first baseball game that I have ever seen include this. When the batter was coming up you would see how many home runs they have and there batting average. This was important because you can also substitute players that are batting to players who are on the bench. If you know that your batter will not fair well against the pitcher you should pinch hit that batter for better luck and hopefully get a hit. When your pitcher or your opponents pitcher was on the mound it would show the pitchers earned run average per nine innings. The higher the earned run average per nine innings the less effective the pitcher is.

There are two different games that you can play. You can either choose from an Unofficial game which is just like a exhibition game that you just play for fun an this is the option you should practice under when you first start the game. Or there is an Official game that you can play different rounds until you beat all the teams. Let me explain how the Official game works. You first get to choose form two different teams the East Team (My favorite) or The West Team. They both have about the same stats as the other. They both have four pitchers and four bench player. They also both have 9 people in the field. There are 6 rounds of play you have to go through to beat the game. The first match up is against a rookie team that is not very good that you could beat any time it is very easy. After you face the rookie team you face 1A, 2A , 3A in that order getting harder each time. Finally when you beat the rookie team 1A team , 2A team , 3A and team you will move up to the big boys. That’s right you will face one VERY HARD team that it will take you a while to beat. This adds to the fun factor and the replay value. You also get to choose how many innings you want to play in a game either the traditional nine inning games to the very short one inning game.

Well I hope you enjoyed this review I am glad that you read it ( I hope you did ) if you want you can give me a rating of this review if you liked it or not. My final paragraph is asking you to buy it or not so read that if you did not read the whole review.

To Buy It Or Not?
If you can buy this game I highly recommend to get this game. The price tag will not be much either probably about a dollar at most stores that sell old games like this. It has some of the features the handheld baseball games now days do not even have. If you are constantly busy waiting for something or just bored all the time this game will have tons and I mean tons of fun factor. I got this game over ten year ago when I hardly knew how to play video games and still had and still have a great time playing it. I wish you will enjoy it to if you pick up this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/02, Updated 09/01/02