Anyway, Super Mega Baseball is very much a pick up and play title, where players of all skill levels are encouraged to play, and having almost no hope of hitting a ball in real life, I took to this like a duck in water, and started sluggin away until I got good enough to try a season, and…wait, it’s probably better if I hold off for just a second, let’s start from the top, eh? Super Mega Baseball is exactly that; a baseball game. It doesn’t feature real life sports athletes like erm…erm…you know, baseball guys, it does feature some cartoon styled athletes that come in all sizes, shapes, gender and colour. You can create your own team of misfits, or pick one of the default teams and go on to improve their stats by winning games in the season mode, earning better backroom staff for coaching and whatnot, so that your players perform better during games, but most sports games come down to numbers, and while Super Mega Baseball throws a lot of numbers at you, such as fielding, speed, contact, power, etc; it does a good job of coaching the player which of these stats will have a direct impact on gameplay, and which ones are good to have, but may only really help more experienced players. I boosted a lot of training points into speed, to keep my team scoring points whenever I hit the ball (if I hit the ball).
I was surprised because I expected to get my ass kicked pretty hard by the AI, but with the innovative difficulty control, I was able to set my handicap to my own level, and this made the learning curve that much less steep. Once I’d grasped fully how all of the rules and the fundamentals of the game worked, then I was able to up the ante slightly and earn more star points, which are used to level up. I like the fact that you are rewarded for challenging yourself, unlike another sports game I know all too well (you know who you are), and you can adjust the difficulty at any time, if you are struggling to keep up with the pace. It made it so that both myself and my kids could play this game, even my girlfriend, who hates sports as a rule of thumb picked up the controller and had a go, and we were all having fun, which is the key word here: FUN.
Honestly, not having a clue what I was getting myself in for, I found myself really enjoying the whole experience, and with complete control over the difficulty, this would please the most hardened of baseball fans out there, as well as give a fair chance to those who have never played or seen the sport. The game is definitely more fun when playing with other people, but the AI can really make a wonderful opponent at times, and you find yourself playing against an AI opponent who plays like a person. They mess up pitches, they can bat late, hit foul balls, drop the ball on occasion – just like anyone else would…until you ramp up that ego meter.
One of the key elements to the gameplay is the mojo bar. The higher the players mojo is, the better they generally perform, and the lower it is, the worse they perform. Mojo is gained or lost through the course of a game, and a substitution made at the right time can keep your team in the right shape, or can even turn your luck around.
Honestly, there isn’t much else to say, this game should appeal to a much wider audience than the regular sports nuts out there, although it would still appeal to hardcore sports fans too. It’s a rare type of game that can potentially bring players to a genre they’ve never tried before simply because the learning curve or stereotypes that linger around certain genres of games; but for me – this one is worth a look, even if you’re not into sports.
Super Mega Baseball is available to buy currently for PS3 & PS4.
For more information, visit: https://supermegabaseball.com/
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