This was a tough one, but I played the top three games back to back to back, and back again, and I hereby proclaim the best baseball game on PS1 to be …
MLB Pennant Race!
Released in 1996, MLB Pennant Race was Sony’s first installment in a long-running series that would later become “The Show.” This game combines early-gen simplicity with baseball savvy. It’s playable, it’s consistent, and it doesn’t try too hard to wow you. Sony’s later PS1 baseball games all jumped the gun with ugly 3D graphics and souped up the gameplay in irritating ways, never matching the cozy vibes of the first one.
In second place …
Grand Slam!
Grand Slam, released in 1997 by Virgin Interactive, is an oddly ambitious simulation-style game, with a timing-based pitching meter, tactical at-bats, and cool-looking digitized sprites. Unfortunately its action in the field is messy, and it’s a bit of a grind to play, sort of a “for baseball purists only” choice.
And in third …
Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001!
Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001, released in 2000 by 3DO, is a more dumbed-down sim-arcade hybrid. It does a nice job of moving along swiftly through games without screwing anything up too poorly. Well, except the graphics, which are tough to stomach generations later.
Unfortunately, none of these games are great. I gave all three of them a C+ grade, which is one notch down from “What the hell, pick it up if you can find it cheap.” You ought to be a pretty dedicated baseball gamer to want to fuss around with any of these games today.
The PS1 never had good enough graphics to render a ball hurling to the plate at 90 mph like a real big-league pitch, nor did it have the graphics to recreate the beloved aesthetics of America’s pastime well enough that you could appreciate them through a 45-minute game.
If you could somehow combine those top three games — the pitching/batting logic and the snappy fielding from Pennant Race, the pitching meter and nice graphics from Grand Slam, and the up-tempo pacing from High Heat — well then you’d really have something.
Published December 1, 2024