I've often wondered what, exactly, it is that baseball needs to attract me. Less downtime? More or longer periods of athletic exertion for the majority of guys on the field? A little more interactivity between the teams? What about less cup adjusting (that's a good one)? Less obsession with statistical wizardry and the min-maxing of old school and newly created categories of performance? Well, whatever it is, apparently The Bigs has it, because this game has greatly amused me for a while. I'm not sure if this is really a good thing if you're a baseball fan, but I suspect if you like video games in general, you'll be fine.
The general concept behind The Bigs is that it is baseball given the "extreme sports" treatment. I don't mean "sponsored by Mountain Dew" — I'm talking about "generically amplified and accelerated." The level of exaggeration is a bit less than one typically finds in these types of games (as fastballs never ACTUALLY get trails of fire behind them and batters don't QUITE hit passing aircraft with their home runs), but it's plenty to make things a little wild and engagingly surreal. Players are bulky and athletic, stadiums are bright and loud, and the gameplay is fast and impressively constant for baseball. To give The Bigs a proper treatment, I'm going to go over the gameplay from a pitching/batting perspective and a fielding/base running perspective as well as addressing the metagame that is turbo and "Big Point" management - and how these affect the game and make it "extreme." The bonus stuff will be here, of course, including audio/video opinions, minigames, game modes, and a few impressive points and gripes that really don't fit in with the big picture stuff.
First up, I want to detail what is, inevitably for me, the meat of any baseball game — the pitching/batting duel over home plate! So, this pitching stuff, it's supposed to be a confidence thing — right? The QB who gets hit, the placekicker that misses a big one, the pitcher that gets rocked for a homer — all of these things are about momentum and mental fortitude, so how do we convey this to the guy sitting in an armchair pressing buttons on a controller? In The Bigs, this is called the "Pitch Loss" mechanic — and I like it a lot. When your pitcher steps on the mound, he has four pitches. Almost certainly, a heater and a changeup, as well as two fancypants pitches that do a variety of funky things. Each pitch is assigned a rating in stars (just like movies!) to indicate its baseline quality. A 5-star pitch is "The Godfather" and will baffle the best of hitters, while a 1-star pitch is "Gigli" — whose only chance to strike out batters is because they're laughing so hard at its lousiness. Each pitch also has a stamina bar that indicates how it is faring in the context of the game. Throw a ball with a particular pitch, and you lose a little of this stamina. Have the pitch smacked for a hit, and lose a bit more. Have your pitch rocked for a three-run homer, and you will lose the vast majority of your stamina bar. Once this bar is gone, you CANNOT throw that pitch anymore (with certain notable exceptions). What does this mean, exactly? Well, if you lose your fastball, a batter can sit back and wait on a pitch — knowing that big heat won't blow right by him. Lose your changeup, and the reverse happens. Lose a breaking ball or slider, and batters get clear reads on strikes and balls because the pitches don't "move" as much. All in all, it's not a good thing to lose a pitch, because you've lost 25 percent of your pitch variety.
Before each pitch, the player pitching aims his throw with the analog stick and presses the appropriate pitch button. This starts the ubiquitous "timer/meter" which represents pitch quality. Releasing the button stops the meter and throws. The more full the meter, the better your pitch in terms of speed variance and quality of location. High quality fastballs are faster, changeups are slower, and so on, while the pitch location is closer and closer to the exact spot that you aimed. Get a 100 percent pitch, and you'll get a "bonus" effect, making your throw truly wicked and ensuring that it perfectly hits the spot you were aiming. Throw a pitch below 75 percent, and it'll be a lollipop that could potentially be right over the center of the plate, or way outside for an easy ball. Either way, the batter gets a reticule that TELLS him where the pitch is going to go — so expect to be rocked for a hit (or worse).
Speaking of batters! Hitting was very intuitive for me. I never really paid attention to it until I started thinking about how to write it up/describe it to other people. Even having considered it, I still feel that it essentially boils down to "what you'd expect." Hitting is based on a "swing window" that must take place during the span of time that the ball is within your batter's reach. Additionally, swings are "aimed" with the analog stick — so aiming left tries to hit left and aiming down tries to hit a ground ball, with the expected opposites holding true. Combine the relative earliness or tardiness of the swing, the aim of the batter and the location of the pitch (inside/outside, high/low) — and contact is generated, resulting in a play. Better batting stats will improve your contact, but it seems like putting wood against leather is mainly up to the player. You can swing for power with one button and contact with another button, and these things alter your hits in, again, a very expected way.
OK, so the ball is now in-flight! What's going on? First off, the batter immediately takes off for first base. That's nice and automated. Additionally, the fielding player is given control of the "prime" fielding target and a targeting circle to indicate the ball's next landing point. Fielders can dive or leap for the ball using the "A" button, and the fielder can switch which player he controls with a simple trigger pull — should the situation dictate. Other runners, in the meantime, are individually controllable — so you can direct one or more runners to advance with single button presses. There are two contextual mini-games that can occur in a fielding play. The first is home-run robbery. Did the batter smack a hit that's going to land anywhere but in the upper deck? Get your butt to the fence, and climb the wall, then leap up and rob him! This requires a button-matching game in which success means an out and a whole slew of "Big Game" points (more on that later), while failure means missing the catch and seeing Big Game points stack up for our opponent. It's also possible to knock the ball over the fence when it wouldn't have made it! The second mini-game happens when there's a home-plate collision. Some rudimentary physics based on "speed of runner" and "size, temperament and black-belts of catcher" are thrown together, and then it's time for the button-mashing! Yay! Simple, effective and kind of humiliating if you lose. Additionally, if you lose as the catcher, the ball goes flying, and you'd better hope that someone is around to pick it up while your catcher finds his eyeballs and puts them back to rights. I'd actually have liked to see something similar to these extended to the double play/spiking the fielder scenario, but I can see how that would have broken up the flow of the play, so I forgive them for leaving it out!
So far, all of this sound like regular baseball. Sure sure, some of it could be jacked up — but what makes it The Bigs? OK, first off is the baseline level of crazy plays. In regular baseball, you don't often see a line-drive crash into the pitcher and up in the air to be subsequently caught by an infielder. In The Bigs, similar things happen on a semi-regular basis, along with the aforementioned wall catches, home-plate collisions and leaping/diving catches. The main contributions, however, take place in the jacked-up moments where turbo enters the game, or when Big Play points are activated. That's a getting a bit ahead, though, because first, I need to explain how we EARN turbo and Big Play points!
Turbo is earned at the plate. Pitchers gain turbo by throwing strikes past a hitter, and batters earn turbo by holding off on balls. Chain either of these things together (two or three strikes/balls in a row), and the amount of turbo awarded increases accordingly. Your turbo bar generally fills up in small chunks, but you can only burn it in discrete units of 20 percent — so you'll never get more than five uses without earning some in the middle. So what's turbo good for? EVERYTHING! Batting, fielding, running, catching, cheering, ordering pizza — everything! Burn a turbo pack at the plate, and your contact swings will rocket into the outfield faster, while power swings go farther and faster. Not to mention, the pitcher is forced to throw strikes — so you know you're going to GET your turbo swing.
On the mound, turbo increases the size of your pitch meter — making timing easier for perfect pitches. It also jacks up the effectiveness and location of all your pitches and allows you a one-time chance to throw any pitches you may have lost. Turbo makes your fielders run to the ball faster, as well as rifling the ball on a rail to any base you choose. Baserunners, obviously, run a lot faster and turn on a dime if you happen to change your mind. The effect on the game is dramatic enough that managing your turbo expenditure becomes a whole separate mini-game. Using turbo when it's really important pays huge dividends, and burning some to no effect really stings — though not so much as to disgust the player.
Big Play points are a form of "super turbo" that can only be used at the plate. Throughout the standard game, fantastic plays are rewarded with Big Play points in varying amounts, and when you rack up 100,000, you can trigger a gamebreaker-style at bat. If the hitter is the one with the points, a Power Blast goes active — and ANY contact with the ball for the entire at bat will result in a surefire home run. If the pitcher is the one with points, Big Heat comes into play — and every strike that the pitcher throws with his mega-boosted pitches bleeds Big Play points away from the batting team. If BOTH players use their points, Duel Mode is activated. Duel Mode is good, clean fun when playing with humans — as HUGE pitches roll in, but the batter only needs a tiny piece to rock a homer. It's a little pointless with the artificial intelligence, but I'll address that later. As you can see, Power Blast and Big Heat have the potential to be very game-changing, so choosing your time to activate these abilities is every bit as important as choosing when to spend turbo.
This, then, is the essence of what The Bigs has done to create a fast and enjoyable baseball game. What about the extras?
There are two basic game modes and two mini-game modes. The simplest of all is the baseball game, which is called "Exhibition." Choose your teams, set up your options, and play a game of baseball Bigs style. The simpler of the two mini-games is Home Run Derby. It is exactly what you expect: two dudes, an AI pitcher, and a race to 10 homers. It really didn't hold my interest long. Far more interesting, to me, was Home Run Pinball. In this fanciful setup, your slugger is placed in the middle of Times Square and aims to do damage with his big swings. Just like in pinball, hitting targets in sequence, or multiple times, will result in power-ups that appear. If you hit said power-ups, you can do MORE damage — potentially stacking power-ups for massed destruction that will get the CIA running intelligence on you. The limiting factor is the pitcher, who adds more and more pitches to his arsenal as the game progresses, and throws more "stuff" as time goes on. Oh, if you happen to bean the pitcher with a liner, he'll get up and throw a "Revenge Pitch" that equates to a turbo pitch in the regular game — so leave the poor guy alone!
The game is fun (you're smashing up windows and cars in Times Square!) and surprisingly deep once you get the hang of knocking out sequential targets. Don't get me wrong, it's not chess or anything — but I've gotten more out of it than I really thought I would, and I think it has really improved my hitting in the standard game, too!
The last game mode is the Rookie Challenge. In this mode, you get to create a player with decidedly average to subpar skills and "level up" through a variety of skills challenges and game situations. Examples include "come back from 2 down in the 9th," "get 3 hits with your rookie," "beat a team in a best of three series with three inning games" ... things like that. You'll also face mini-games that require you to hit for certain total footages in 10 pitches (power hitting) or catching a certain number of grounders without letting them get to the outfield (fielding), and all of these mini-challenges gain you player points to jack up your skills. While improving your player, you'll also win challenges that let you steal players from other teams to build up your own. Eventually, you'll launch into the playoffs and get the chance to win a World Series with your rookie. Along the way, you'll earn the right to choose nicknames, wear outrageous equipment and other nice touches of flair that ensure that when you DO make it, the Series will be newsworthy!
Audio in The Bigs is very good. So many games fall into the commentator loop in which they constantly say the same thing and you just ... want them ... to SHUT UP! I've not run into that, yet. The soundtrack is nice, if limited in its use. You mainly get to hear it when you're playing Home Run Derby and Home Run Pinball. Beyond that, the crack of the bat and the cheering of the crowd is very crisp and parrots a real game rather well. Visting team socks a homer? Dead silence. Home team? Roaring cheers. The only issue I had was related to comment "stitching," and I'll cover that below.
Video is impressively suited to the theme of the game. It's big and bright with lots of fun detail. The ballparks are especially impressive, and even I recognize some of the places from the baseball that I DO watch (on SportsCenter). Players look big and athletic, but not so much so that they're caricatures. I especially appreciated the fact that player size is closely modeled on real life. Richie Sexson IS way taller than other players (6'8" in real life), and his strike zone is HUUUUGE. Batting stances are varied, as are pitching motions — and again they follow reality to a high degree. Baltimore is one of the first teams you can face in Rookie Mode, and one of the team's relievers has an underhanded/sidearm style delivery. It amused me that I noticed this on ESPN next time an Orioles clip came up talking about their latest horrific beating — I mean, I know enough baseball to know that the Orioles are bad! All in all, I'd say that the art director for The Bigs should get a pat on the back and a raise. I approve!
Let me touch on a few points that don't really fit in with other sections but are worth noting. First off, I'd like to see a strikeout restore a bit of a pitch's stamina. If hits and homers and such will wreck a pitcher's confidence in a pitch, shouldn't whiffing a batter for a K restore a bit of that confidence? Next up is a controls issue. The fielder's dive button is "A," which also happens to be the "throw home" button. More than once, I have attempted a dive with my shortstop (or some such) only to find out that he didn't QUITE have to dive. This results in him throwing home rather than to the base I may want. Since it doesn't appear that any other buttons are used while the ball is in flight, they should have made ANY button cause a fielder to dive. As such, I could use "B" to try a dive — and if the fielder didn't dive, he'd throw to first (B's normal function) if that's what I wanted. It's no big deal, as it doesn't happen often — but it sucks to field a ball that you thought was going to be tough and lose the out to an errant throw that was related to your fielding efforts.
The AI isn't BAD, but it changes the game completely. Playing a human is very different than playing an AI, and in The Bigs, the difference is more startling than in most games. As an example, the AI just doesn't seem to swing at balls. Ever. It'll watch a strike here and there — but when I throw a ball to try and get him swinging, he never does. Additionally, the AI is FAR better at fielding than I suspect human players will ever be. It switches players far faster and controls them well enough that it gains a distinct advantage on the infield line-drives. Big catches abound for the AI, and it always makes plays when infielders get pegged with liners; you'll see several a game in my experience. Lastly is the turbo/Big Point war at the plate. Against humans, it can be fun to have turbo on turbo battles with the pitcher and the hitter jacked up.
With the AI, though, it seems like it has an advantage while batting. I recommend not wasting turbo against AI hitters, because they seem exactly as effective against turbo pitching as against the normal stuff. As far as Duel Mode goes, I have never beaten an AI batter, whilst I am pretty decent against humans. I don't engage in duel mode with the computer if I'm fielding — it just doesn't matter. Menu confusion was a small issue in The Bigs. It's not that I didn't understand the menus, it's just that it warns you about everything. Try to load your rookie, and up pops a box asking if you're sure. Try to go back to the main menu, and it asks if you really want to do that. Try to do just about anything, and there's an ominous-sounding confirmation dialogue that really, really makes you paranoid about what you're doing as well as just slowing things down. Next time, please limit the double-checking to the odd warning about data deletion and such!
Lastly, I experienced slowdown in the game at certain times, most specifically in certain ballparks, like Texas. I suspect it's the lighting effects, but in the cut scenes introducing batters and such, I'd get some slowdown and video stutter that also affected the commentators. What was previously smooth dialogue suddenly showed its seams, as I could hear the edits between phrases like "Next up" and the batter's name. It's not bad, but it happened enough that I noted and figured I'd mention it.
All in all, The Bigs got me INTERESTED in baseball. I have fun with my rookie. I enjoy watching the big plays. I like the turbo functions and strategy involved with Big Play points, especially in rookie development challenges — where you have to win AND certain things must happen. I really dig the Pitch Loss mechanic and enjoy the variety I see at the plate. I feel like just about any sports or video-game fan could get this game and spend a few days feeling like they were watching a nonstop highlight reel from the week's MLB games, and that's good fun! Multiplayer action was also good fun and well-balanced, and even if you're playing multiple players on the same machine, you can turn off targeting reticules and the like — making this a great party game. I recommend that fans of fast, extreme sports games like NBA/NFL Street give this a whirl, as well as anyone that is peripherally interested in baseball. If you like it enough, grab it so you can win a Series or smash up Times Square at will! In the meantime, I've got players to steal in the AL.
I'm a volleyball playing nomad who's been blowing up aliens, scoring touchdowns/goals, dogfighting, slaying dragons, mowing down hordes of enemy tanks, headshotting, and saving damsels in distress since my dad brought home the very first Atari system. My game-tastes are very diverse, as I enjoy street racers, sports games (especially "hyper" sports games like, say, NFL Street), shooters, RPGs, a good MMO here and there, and pretty much anything else that doesn't involve a Pokemon!
