Let’s just get this one over with.
PlayStation 1
Released in 1998 by EA Sports
Grade: D-
This game somehow received positive reviews at the time, but it’s aged terribly. It’s got awful gameplay and disgusting graphics.
Where it falls in the series
This is the third of six installments of EA baseball on PS1. It came out prior to the 1998 season, yet it has 99 in the title. I’m not too surprised that such a lousy game has an outright lie in its title. EA finished their PS1 run with Triple Play Baseball, omitting the year from the title, then started on PS2 with Triple Play 2002 to establish the proper yearly cadence.
Gripes
The pitching mechanic is a nightmare. You control the ball after releasing it and try to steer it to your desired location. This doesn’t sound different from the many baseball games from years past, but it is, because the destination of the pitch can actually begin out of the strike zone.
If you let in a run or two, pitches start to go wild, several feet away from the plate, and you’re frantically trying to steer it during its one second of flight.
Not only does this feel nothing like you’re playing baseball, but it causes pitches to flutter around like a drunk butterfly in the wind. It’s just as frustrating to deal with for the batter as it is for the pitcher.
The graphics, boy are they bad. They look like a programmer’s first draft, before he and ten other guys worked on them for another four months. Maybe they really should have spent an extra year making this game. At least then its title would be accurate.
You’ve got to be a completist collector AND find this game for $0.99 to bother with it.
Published May 23, 2017
Updated August 2, 2022