Batted balls are reasonably realistic, and when a ball was hit down either foul line, I was happy to see it hook accordingly.įielding is out of the player’s hands. As such, I found myself striking out at an almost Adam Dunn-like rate. It falls under the old adage of being simple to learn but hard to master. Do not, however, misinterpret this to mean that hitting is easy. You will be very comfortable with this system in no time. The mouse moves the reticule to the point of contact, and the left mouse button swings the bat. The mechanics of hitting the baseball could not be easier. It is ever so tempting to swing for the downs on every pitch, but I ultimately had more success when I stuck with the contact swing. The reticule is obviously much smaller if you are going to choose to swing for the fences. The user may choose to take a power swing or a contact swing. The batter has a reticule that must be somewhat centered on the pitch in order to make contact. The hitting experience in MLB Dugout Heroes is very reminiscent of the MLB Power Pros series. Never too proud to accept advice, I jumped right into the batting cage.īatting practice is key to get the cursor hitting down. After the initial setup stages, I was asked if I would like to proceed to the tutorials. I was very pleased to see every Major League Baseball team represented by their actual players. After doing that, I selected my hometown Blue Jays as my club of choice. When the game initially boots up, the player is prompted to create a user name and password. MLB Dugout Heroes is an online experience. So how does a "free to play" baseball game fit itself into the landscape of modern and glitzy gaming? Well, it fits in by not trying to be more than it has to be. We are quite simply in a golden age of baseball gaming.
#MLB DUGOUT HEROES GAMESCAMPUS SERIES#
The Out of The Park Baseball series continues to evolve in ways that would have fried the microprocessor in my old Commodore 64. MLB 09: The Show is unparalleled in authenticity and drama. We are blessed with fantastic representations of America’s pastime. Things have changed significantly in the interim. When Earl Weaver Baseball made its way to my PC, I was relatively certain that sports gaming, and perhaps my life, had reached its pinnacle. Well, in fact I did accumulate my own players’ statistics, which was nothing more than a damning indictment of the geek in me. I would delight in playing single game after single game with no accumulated statistics or updated standings. I can clearly remember being as happy as a pig in muck while playing Hardball Baseball on my Commodore 64. I began to expect more from a baseball game.