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MLB Slugfest 20-04 for the consoles is a god-send baseball game. Slugfest 04 for the GBA tries to capture the fun out of its big brother, but fails in the process. From the jump to the handheld many things were lost since the gameplay is extremely lacking.
In an attempt to make the game fun for the handhelds, Midway Sports has removed even the most basic principles of baseball. For instance, you no longer have controls of the fielders. When the computer catches the ball, it’s your turn to shine. You are able to throw the ball to the proper base! Yes, that’s the most exciting part about the defense.
There are several other things wrong with the gameplay. There are sometimes when the computer batters will swing way before the ball comes to them, which makes strikeouts extremely common. The chances for you to earn a double play are almost impossible since the throwing process is very slow. You need to wait for the throwing animation to finish and once that is done there is basically no way you’ll get the second out. The ball moves awkwardly in the outfield which looks more like a glitch than anything else.
What really hurts Slugfest the most though, is the lack of things to do. You are given Quick play, Challenge and Series, but you can’t save, so Series and Challenge are pretty much gone. While Slugfest isn’t a sim baseball game, the ability to store some stats and go through a season would be nice. Sadly, you can’t do that here since it doesn’t have a save feature. Well, at least I can play with a buddy? No, you can’t since Slugfest doesn’t have a multiplayer feature. It’s up to you to get through the game.
The sound is pretty standard. The background music is standard house techno but the tunes are still pretty good. The sound effects are decent and there are plenty of samples included. The game’s best selling point is the graphics. The character models look good and the animations hold their own. The pitching interface is very good and mirrors the console versions. When you hit a fly ball, the action switches to an overhead view which can get a little slow at times. Midway Sports did a good job at keeping the look and interface of the console versions in this game.
Slugfest tried to make a handheld clone of its console brothers. There was way too many things cut (most notably saving), which diminishes the fun factor greatly. Slugfest could be a good game easily, and maybe next year’s handheld version will improve on this one’s weak points.
-- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Mar 30, 2003
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