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MLB SlugFest: Loaded

Does anyone remember the classic SNES game Basewars? You got to design a bunch of robots with weapons that played baseball and could get into fights over disputed calls. You would be able to throw the ball from any distance and make plays that were completely impossible in real life. Ken Griffey Baseball was the same. Well Midway is at it again adding to the arcade style and incredulous MLB Slugfest: Loaded.

The real story with this game is not what it is, but what isn’t out with it. Midway has thrown away the great Blitz, Hitz and even Ballerz for this year, with few plans to bring them back as anything resembling their last offering – if at all. As far as Blitz and Hitz go, this is probably a good thing, but the original NHL Hitz is a personal favorite game of both myself and a couple of other reviewers here at DigNews. The lack of commercial success, combined with the continued dominance of the EA titles meant that Midway is forced to rethink their entire sports department. Surprisingly it was the Slugfest title that survived the chopping block, despite the fact that it was not as originally popular as Hitz.

The biggest reason that Slugfest was able to survive was that Midway bought the rights to use the Baseball Mogul system, and even hired the original designer of that baseball sim to program it for them. Baseball Mogul has long been the top fantasy simulator on the market, especially for hard core baseball aficionados. The inclusion means that the weakest part of the offering, the Dynasty Mode, has been completely redone. The system is based off of a point system, where you have both a payroll, a bank and an income. As your payroll increases, if your income does not match, your bank goes down. This gives you the flexibility to overspend and go for the title, or not. Lots of extras, from newspaper reports to contract negotiations give the franchise a measurable amount of depth.

The real problem is in the lacking AI of the other teams, as they will not negotiate with the same free agents as you do, so you can wait and negotiate for any player at way below market price. Way too easy for the Franchise Mode to get out of hand.

Other than the Franchise Mode, the other biggest part of the game is the online mode. Loaded supports the new features in Xbox LIVE 3.0 – players can set up full tournaments and playoffs without the need for XSN Sports. Send invites to your friends and see who the real world champs are this year! And of course you’ll have roster downloads and all the trimmings there as well. And while Loaded is one of many online Playstation 2 Baseball games, it’s only one of three for the Xbox., there is plenty of replay value.

Getting back to the crazier side of things, Slugfest has a pretty decent selection of unlockable stadiums and teams. Each object is unlocked differently. So to unlock Midway Stadium, you’ll have to hit a homer in Wrigley. Hitting a homer in Midway Stadium unlocks a team full of Sub-Zero models from Mortal Kombat, and so on. The only hitch is that the unlockable teams aren’t as fleshed-out as they could have been. Though the models look differently, the team you’re playing is actually one of the major-league ballclubs. As a result, the announcers still refer to your team full of Scorpions as players from other pro rosters.

Also returning of course are the standard exhibition games modes and the Home-Run Derby. Up to 8 batters in a round robin best of Derby. You get 10 outs to hit as many HR’s as you can. But in this game, a HR doesn’t take up one of your outs, so you can hit 50 homers if you’ve got the swing for it.

Of course, the real meat of the game is the actual game, which has always been about the over the top baseball action of the past. The references to Basewars are due to the combat which you can take part of, as you can punch or kick the guy with the ball, sometimes making them keel over and drop the ball, allowing for easy advancement to the next level. There is on an “on fire” mode for consecutive base hits or consecutive strikeouts. There is even special pitches new this year, including the ability to throw a completely unhittable special after throwing 5 strikes.

Graphically, MLB Slugfest: Loaded looks a bit more polished than its predecessor. There are some new animations here and there, and the game looks pretty solid. Some of the player models look a little weird at times, though, and the crowds in each stadium are pretty awful-looking 2D cutouts. Additionally, the game’s player animation is pretty good. The game is available on both the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. The Xbox version is a bit cleaner, but both versions of the game share the same strengths and weaknesses. The game’s control is roughly identical on both platforms, so the only real difference is the slight graphical improvement on the Xbox.

The game’s music is appropriate, although nothing memorable. The various sound effects do their job, as well, which is nice. The commentary is funny, as expected from Midway Sports. You’ll hear Jim Shorts and Tim Kitzrow call the shots, although they are quite vague and repetitive in actual game calling. It doesn’t matter too much because their various jokes, usually before the game, are excellent.

Loaded’s weakness are its sloppy mechanics, particularly the fielding and base-running, which have been issues for three years in a row now. Simply switching to the right guy is awkward and often doesn’t work correctly. The base throwing system is outdated; all the other new games map bases to face buttons, while in Loaded you must press a direction on the left analog stick plus the throw button to throw to a specific base. On the other side, the base-running is atrocious. Runners don’t run on their own – even with two outs and the bases loaded – unless you specifically tell them to.

It seems like Midway went out of its way to listen to its fans this year. They managed to slightly modify all of the things that fans liked, while completely revamping all of the things, such as Franchise Mode, the true baseball sim, and of course the online play, they gave their fans what they had been clamoring for. Overall, a definite improvement in a niche sports market. Maybe they can build on this success to remake their other failed arcade style sports games.

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Tags: MLB SlugFest: Loaded

Posted by Andrew on Aug 6th, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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