Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest

"Well, it sure is a nice game to look at..."

Play Ball!
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The Ken Griffey Jr. baseball series has been around for over three years providing sports game fans arcade-oriented baseball games for the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 console systems. The most recent of those games, Nintendo 64's Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest, has been ported onto the GameBoy Color. How does Ken Griffey stack up on the small screen? Well, it isn't exactly a home run...

Gameplay
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There are three different modes that you can choose from. The first is a simple exhibition game in which you can pit any one team against another. The second mode is season mode. In this mode you get to play an entire season (26, 78, or 162 games) with a team of your choice. And lastly, there is Home Run Derby mode; a mode in which you and a couple of friends (using the same GameBoy, not with the link cable)can see which major league powerhouse can hit the most balls out of the park.

The season mode features full game schedules for every team and gives you the ability to trade players, manage your bullpen, and manimpulate your team's lineup. Everytime you play and complete a game, Slugfest automatically saves the players stats so you can see how they stack up with the other players in the league. You can also view some of the records which are held by some of the all-time greats like Babe Ruth, Roger Marin, and McGuire.

The games themselves have a definate arcade feel to it. The action is fast-paced, some innings lasting for only a minute or two. Pitching, hitting, and running have very simple controls. Unfortunately, fielding is a nightmare. It is extremely difficult to position your outfielders correctly and will be the main cause of you losing a game. Fortunately, there is an auto-fielding option available.

Graphics and Sound
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There's only one word to describe Slugfest's graphics: gorgeous. Using some programming tricks, Nintendo has found a way to make the GameBoy Color display over 100 colors at the same time. What you get are photo-realistic backdrops and wonderfully shaded fields, and nice little clips that show up when a someone makes a great play.

The animation for the characters are decent for GameBoy standards, as the players' running animation only consists of three frames. The batter animations, on the other hand, are pretty fluid.

Another treat are those little boxes which pop out after every pitch which show the current score and even a close up of the umpire's head. All in all, Slugfest is a beautiful game to look at.

Sound is one of the lowpoints of the game. The music is repetitve and the sound effects are cheesy to say the least. Exercise your right to use that volume control dial on your GameBoy! :)

Replayability
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To tell you the truth, the game gets pretty boring after awhile. It wouldn't be too bad if Nintendo included a two-player option, but since it doesn't don't expect to keep on playing this game for more than a week.

Botton Line
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Nintendo provides us GameBoy Color owners a great looking game, but in the long run Slugfest get too boring too fast. Simulation fans might also scoff at the game's arcade nature.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99