RBI 2 Baseball is the game that first taught me about baseball in any meaningful way. As a Briton I am automatically predisposed, if not conditioned from childhood, to think of baseball as a bastardised form of rounders. Thanks to RBI 2 baseball I was able to begin to appreciate sports not played in my own country, which lead me on the path to becoming a fanatical fan of the Patriots, Athletics and Canucks.
The game itself has some nice features that had been absent from earlier baseball efforts - different types of hit for example depend on swing and pitch type so there are sacrifice bunts, pop flys, soft grounders and an array of foul-tips that may or may not be caught.
Pitchers have varying speed and break. All of the Major League Baseball franchises in existence at the time are available to select, with four man pitching rotations and bench players to substitute into your line-up. The National and American All-Star teams are also in the mix.
You can play vs the computer or against a pal, but disappointly there is no league option - exhibitions are the only option. If you fancy it, you can also watch the computer play against itself.
The graphics are workmanlike considering the age of the game, with all the players looking the same. There are a few nice touches to presentation - The Star Spangled Banner and Oh Canada play before the game as appropriate and in the event that you slug
one out of the park there is a mini-fireworks display to celebrate the achievement.
There are some obvious flaws. The fielding of pitchers is far too effective, as they regularly field hard ground ball and make diving stops for hits that would in reality have troubled the second-baseman and short-stop. All the fielders are very slow to cover ground and as they are all slaved to a single control push running the short stop across to make a diving stop and missing can often pull the left fielder out of position to back him up leading to extra bases.
Overall this is a cracking little retro piece that is well worth an arcade blast, particularly with a mate because then both of you have to live with the problems in the field. If it's not quite a perfect game, then maybe it manages to be a 1 run complete game.
