Hardball!
I have to admit that I’ve never really been into sports games, true occasionally there have been some that were fun to play most of which were multiplayer ones though. Hardball is a baseball game/simulator which incorperates a number of things from the actual game. There are plenty of stats to see but given that my baseball knowledge isn’t exactly great I’ll try to explain the best I can.
There are no options for a career game so you are stuck with single games which you can play with either two players or one computer player. Right after you select the type of game you are presented with the player roster each has a stat showing weather he is left or right handed, his position on the field and his average score. You can go back to this screen any time during play by pressing space. The main screen is shown with the thrower (excuse the language) and the batter, here you can select which type of throw you want to do like a fastball or curveball. When playing the batter you have to hit the ball and take care not swing when the ball is curving but when you do it’s time to run around the field and score a goal. I could tell you more but it’d be boring and I’m no good at the game so.
First off I have to excuse myself for the lack of knowledge about the game and the terms used. I’ve never really been into baseball at all so I can’t really say if the game is an accurate simulation, what I can tell you is that this game is easy to play and get into. The options presented to you are not all needed and the only thing you have to worry about is throwing the ball, swinging the bat and running like hell. For purist there proably aren’t enough options for a full fledged simulation but for a simple game os baseball the game is fun enough to play for at least a while.
Overal rating: 7/10
This game was released for many different systems here are some notes:
| Amiga | Released in 1987. Of the old versions this is the best, it uses a higher resolution on the stats screen to show more info and a normal one ingame. |
| Amstrad CPC | Released in 1986. This is basically a port of the ZX version and is almost the same. |
| Atari ST | Released in 1987. Similar to the amiga version. It only works in medium resolution mode which can be set in the main screen of the Atari OS. |
| C64 | Released in 1985. |
| Megadrive/ Genesis |
Released in 1991. Released much later than the other versions and it has better graphics and more different and scrolling views when on the field. |
| ZX Spectrum | Released in 1986. Graphics are not bad because most of them are static, the field view isn’t much to look at though. |
| Others | These versions are not available. Apple released in 1985. Atari 8-bit released in 1985. MS-DOS released in 1987. MSX released in 1987. |
| Date added | Jun-30-2006 22:55 |
| Name | Hardball! |
| Developer | Accolade |
| Publisher | Accolade |
| First released | 1985 |
| Genre | Sport |
