Baseball Heroes

"A good attempt at creating a sports genre..."

As an attempt to recreate the American past time of baseball, the Atari Lynx devised a different sort of sports games in an attempt to create a good fan base for future titles. With Baseball Heroes, the game is created in a rather decent fashion, with some of the more impressive visuals that a baseball game could possibly get at the time. You can link up with a friend and play through the game in a one on one battle of sorts with the use of one of four fictional baseball teams, all of which have twenty players covering all of the positions. Through the use of rather detailed menus, you can go through and change your line up accordingly and put your best players up first at bat, or switch out your positions as you need to!

The basis of the game itself really doesn’t compare with home systems, and in all honesty, it shouldn’t. Most of the games that you find here are nothing more than an attempt to help you learn the different positions and play through the game like a professional! You’ll find that the exhibition mode is where you’ll spend most of your time, and if you’re looking for some sort of extensive season mode, then you are in the wrong time frame. The multiplayer capabilities that Baseball Heroes gives you is just enough to keep you and a friend through the link up ability in the game until you grow bored with the limited number of teams.

Moving onward into the game play, you’ll find that you can select from four different teams, all of which seem to have their own sets of abilities and otherwise that can increase or decrease game play. Through the game, the computer really doesn’t put up much of a challenge and the most challenge that you’ll find is actually with the fielding. Through the use of some innovative camera angles that seem to scroll a little too fast, you may have to hone your skills at the hand held sports games in such a way that it seems completely foreign when compared to the console based titles! This isn’t to say that the game isn’t unplayable, but it does increase the challenge by quite a bit when you think you have a good handle on the game and you end up screwing up because of the camera.

Control in Baseball Heroes is nothing special either, with most of your movement being done with the directional pad in a trial and error sort of way. What I mean by this is that the game doesn’t take on much of a control function until you get into the pitching portions of the game, and you have a couple of pitches at your disposal that allows you to use the directional pad and the action button. The computer usually controls the fielding in the game for the most part, and you may have some control over it if there is a high outfield shot that is directed at you. Aside from all of that, you have nothing more than just switching between the bases and pressing the action button to fire the ball that way in an attempt to make an out!

Visually, the game has plenty of appeal that will keep your interests throughout the nine innings of play. Most of the camera work is done with the outfielding that you have to deal with in which a ball is hit high and the camera follows it, only to come up from behind the player it is going to and you have to catch it! This may disorient some people, and it can be a little confusing to watch unless you’re used to it. The teams themselves and even the places that you play are all represented in bright colors, but lack the down to life detailing that you may be looking for. However, this is a hand held game, and a color one at that when such things were virtually unheard of and it is all presented in a more than sufficient way.

Audio wise, there is nothing here that you’ll really remember after you’ve shut the game off and all of it is done in a rather simple way. Most of the game consists of some pretty basic sound effects that you would expect to hear out of a baseball game, and even though this game is not in stereo, they do mesh well together. However, you won’t hear the usual baseball theme of “Take me out to the Ball Game” and even the umpires voice is done in a poor way that it isn’t recognizable. All in all, it’s pretty basic and standard, and it doesn’t have the flare for a console game, but fits the mark on a hand held system without the stereo capabilities!

Baseball Heroes isn’t a bad sports game, but you’ll find that it probably isn’t the best baseball game on a hand held system. Created as an attempt to put some life into the sport genre on the Lynx, it’s your basic game with a few selectable teams and a multiplayer option. For the most part, if you’re playing this game, you are probably doing so because you can’t find another for your Lynx and the multiplayer has you roped in! Some of the options that could have been improved throughout the game probably start with the weird camera switching and possibly the availability of some more teams.

To say that this is a bad title would be wrong, simply because it does what it intends to do and it is based on a hand held system that was a first of its kind. I would recommend it to those who have a long trip ahead of them and they really aren’t looking to play anything too extensive with their Lynx during one of these trips. However, if you’re into games that have depth, more options and possibly trading features, then you really need to look towards other hand held systems and possibly the PSOne portable system for that. Baseball Heroes is for Lynx sports fans and not really for those who need the depth and strategy that other baseball games at a later date have come up with!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/17/02, Updated 01/17/02