HARDBALL REVIEW - August 1993
| Blimey, this takes me back a year or two. I remember playing Hardball not
long after I got my ST, back in 1988 or thereabouts, and it hasn't changed a bit in the
intervening years. (Obviously.) Unfortunately, that means it's still a baseball game, that
dullest and most pointless of sports simulations. Basically, it's a game of Stone, Paper,
Scissors - the computer (or human opponent) chooses a type of pitch, you choose a type of
swing, and, if you're lucky, bat connects with ball and sends the latter flying off on a
suspiciously arbitrary-looking flightpath, where another helping of luck will see it NOT
flying straight into the waiting palms of a fielder. At this point the single screen that
you see for most of the game switches to a rudimentary fielding screen where robotic
characters twitch their way around while you try unsuccessfully to decipher the control
contortions that'll let you throw the ball to the pitcher or try to steal second base, and
then it all starts all over again. God, this is dull. I don't like baseball much, I have to admit, but then I hate fighting and I quite like Street Fighter 2. I hate American Football, but I enjoy a game of John Madden's as much as the next man. Nope, there's no excuse for a game as dull as this selling for ten quid in late 1993 - it's a stupid idea in the first place, but it's been executed ineptly, it looks naff (I mean, six of the eight screenshots on the box are of the same screen...), the only sound consists of a horrible burst of white noise when you finally manage to hit the ball, the presentation is cheap, nasty and confusing and there's practically nothing to do. But then, it was written six years ago - what did you expect? |
By The Hit Squad
HIGHS Um... quite nice animation on the pitcher? LOWS Almost no sound |