Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest

Slugfest is a perfect name for this game. It is a fun, action packed, any fool can pick up and play, smash the ball around a park, baseball cartridge. Whereas some baseball games get bogged down in management and in dozens of arcane and difficult to learn button combinations, which are harder to remember than a manager's signals, Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest is more like getting your friends together for an evening game of scrub.

Key to the fun of the game is its inclusive simplicity. Since everything is handled with one button inputs (pitch, swing, throw, run), it is easy to learn and you can get right to the fun of playing, without endlessly hitting wrong buttons as happens in other baseball games (dive instead of run faster, throw to the cut-off man instead of to the base, etc., etc.). Another great feature of this game is the speed of play. You can whip in pitch after pitch without waiting for player animations, announcers or anything else. The developers are confident enough of the gameplay of baseball (the pitcher / hitter duel in baseball is among the very best confrontations in sport) and of their simulation of it that they haven't tried to smother it in the sticky syrup of glitz and options.

Atmosphere

All of the atmospherics of Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest contribute to the fast, fun feel of the game. The play by play and public announcing is sparse but light and entertaining. Umpire calls are excellent and the occasional comment from Ken Griffey, Jr., himself, further livens up the game. Graphically, the game is also superb and although there are not a ga-zillion animations as some games promise, those that are in the game are fun. There is lots of climbing the fences and a ton of little underhand flips to nearby bases. Some of the camera work is amazing. There is a brilliant camera that looks up at fly balls from behind the fielder's glove and some of the close plays at the bases are spectacularly captured.

Batting

Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest maintains the basic format of the previous MLB featuring Ken Griffey, Jr., with some slight alterations. It works like this: Pitchers can pinpoint any location and throw to it (each pitcher has four pitches). As the ball approaches the plate, the batter attempts to align his bat shaped target with the pitch, ideally matching the sweet spot with the center of the ball. To aid the batter, there is a square that begins the size of the strike zone and shrinks down to the size and location of the ball as the pitch approaches the plate. If the swing is timed correctly, contact is made. In this game, "Slugfest," the advantage is to the hitters and a high percentage of hits find their way into the gaps.

This batting system has a great feel of trying to match a bat to a ball. The problem with it is that everything happens in a square above the plate. Key to hitting, is the ability to match the batting target with the square. This is easiest to accomplish by watching that square rather than the oncoming pitch. So, although the batting system is a test of reflex, skill and judgement, it ends up being less like hitting an incoming pitch than baseball purists will appreciate. It is actually more difficult to hit wild pitchers who don't hit where they aim than it is to hit the precision control pitchers of the Atlanta Braves.

There is also a Classic, timing only batting mode, much like that of Triple Play 2000. This works well, and is fun if you like games with football size scores (I played five games like this simply because I wanted to see how long it would take before Ken Griffey, Jr. didn't hit a homerun. In four and a half games, Griffey, Jr. hit 1.000 (all home runs) and was beaned twice and walked once before striking out in his second at bat in the first inning of a fifth game).

Freeze Frame

Whether or not one loves the batting system will probably depend on personal level of baseball purism. There is, however, one problem with the game that is universal. Fielding is unnecessarily complicated by some bad camera work. When contact is made and the ball jumps off the bat, the camera holds on the batter for a half second too long to show off the nice swing follow through animation. While this is happening, the ball is screaming towards the outfield. By the time the camera reorients to a fielding perspective, it is too late to make a play on many playable balls. This is especially bothersome in the infield, where a ball that should have been gobbled up squirts through because the camera oriented too late for you to determine if you were controlling the third basement and had to dive left, or the shortstop and ought to have dove right. This also happens with balls hit into the outfield gaps and little squibbed rollers that need to be charged to make a play. Also irritating is the near impossibility of turning a double play. Although Ken Griffey Jr. is a perennial gold glove winner, the game that bears his name is no gold glove fest.

Season Mode

Make no bones about it, this is a game for quick, fun and easy to play games. Even the player creation mode is fast and easy so that players can rapidly drop themselves into games. A season mode is included and it allows for redrafting teams, trades and free agents (with a very nice, on the cartridge, flash memory system), but this is not the game to buy if you are looking for season simulations. Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest is geared for quick, easy and fun to play baseball action, and pulls if off in style. It is a game that is easy to recommend and that all but baseball haters should enjoy. A true game for everyone. Ardent baseball fans, especially stat trackers would probably be happier with Acclaim's superb All-Star Baseball 2000. It is a good year to be a baseball loving Nintendo 64 owner.

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