My review of THE BIGS

[blueovalboy7]

so the fielding isnt too difficult? i was interested for sure, but good descriptions, and i was watching gameplay vids earlier. also i was curious if the batting was fairly straightforward or do you have to be precise? thanks.

 

[Addy]

Do you mean that when you press A for a fastball and it doesnt always respond and you have to do it a few times? then yes, it happends to me too, i think its because the controls need to be almose held like your pitching.

Does this help? Let me know and i can try to explain it better.

Yeah..that’s what I’m talking about but sometimes it seems really particular. My nephew and I both struggled at times for several seconds trying to find where and how to hold the Wii-mote to start the pitch.

i have a question for you, when you play the computer, have you been able to get the computer to swing at a ball? i would throw it right outside the strike zone and they dont ever swing, from what i have seen... I wish players argued when you hit the batters or if the ump threw you out of the game, but nothing!

Not yet but if you can release the pitch in the “sweet spot” (gray area of the bar) and use the nunchuk thumbstick to locate a ball outside the strikezone. The location of your pitch isn’t revealed so maybe they will swing at those sometimes…really hard to do, the better pitchers have bigger sweet spots though.

 

[Wiitime]

so the fielding isnt too difficult? i was interested for sure, but good descriptions, and i was watching gameplay vids earlier. also i was curious if the batting was fairly straightforward or do you have to be precise? thanks.

batting is easy. Little lag but you have to swing maybe 1 second earlier. Fielding can be difficult at times, but you get better as you go on.

 

[zeropants]

My impression after 3 hours of playing:

The Good:
It's baseball, and I'm a baseball fan.
The graphics are decent. The players look pretty good, the parks are true to life, but lots of jagged edges are noticeable.
Great sound.
Accurate players and lineups for the most part.
The rookie mode is pretty entertaining to play through
Normal mode is still pretty hard, so with two more difficulty levels to go, should be plenty of playing time.

The bad:
The controls are pretty awkward at first, and even after 3 hours don't quite seem accurate all the time, especially on throws.
There's a control lag, so the type of fielding plays the game thrives on are difficult to pull off because reaction time isn't very good. Batting suffers too because you have to guess the pitch earlier than you should to compensate.
Throwing different types of pitches can be difficult even on easy mode because they require precise wrist movement, some of which could damage your arm (mainly the elbow)
Lots of jaggies, even for a Wii game.

Overall:
Sadly, the control lag takes alot from the game. From what I've read the problem is not exclusive to the Wii, and was identified months ago during beta testing but never fixed. The game overall seems like it was rushed. Home run derby is pathetic and might as well have been left out. I would really have liked so see some season options. They claim it was left out due to the nature of the game, but previous games with this type of edge had season modes and it worked out just fine.

That being said, once you play for a bit the control lag fades to the back of your mind and just becomes part of the game play. The overall awkwardness of the control fades, and game gets to be more fun. However, when you have a split second to react for a diving play, the lag becomes a glaring poblem and pops back into your head for a moment.

The rookie mode is a blast from the few hours I've played on it so far. That's the bread and butter of the game.

If you're a baseball fan looking for an option on the Wii, this is your only one for the season. I give it about a 7/10. It could have been a great game if they would have put the necessary time in it. Obvious problems were left in the game and outside of rookie mode there's no depth whatsoever. The only reason it's not a 6 or even a 5 is because we don't have another option on this system.

I would seriously recommend renting first, but don't form your opinion about it until you've played for at least 2 hours. It takes that long for the controls to stop feeling forced. The longer I played the more fun I had playing it...it's not so much of a learning curve as it is a break-in period.

 

[ericlewis91]

is it better then the wiisports baseball?

 

[Wiitime]

i havent tried out the rookie challenge, do you play all of the games with the team? if not, how many?
Thanks

 

[zeropants]

Yeah, you become a starter for a team. You unlock more games and drills as you complete tasks. But you play for one team only. I don't know if you can be traded or not...

 

[astros30]

Hey Wiitime, and everyone else,

Sorry It has been sometime since I posted. But, I got the game and it good baseball game. The learning takes time, but once I get it down I know it will be a blast.
I have a question about the pitching though, How do you throw above 70mph? I'm trying to get in the 80 to 90mph, but for some reason I can't throw above 70mph. any tips?

 

[FWELR]

Hey Wiitime, and everyone else,

Sorry It has been sometime since I posted. But, I got the game and it good baseball game. The learning takes time, but once I get it down I know it will be a blast.
I have a question about the pitching though, How do you throw above 70mph? I'm trying to get in the 80 to 90mph, but for some reason I can't throw above 70mph. any tips?

this is one thing i wondered too, but figured out in time:

a: make sure you are throwing a fastball, wiimote straight, if you're not it will probably throw a meatball that goes from 73-78.

b: swing the wiimote harder. if you just coast it in there, it won't go very fast.

c: land it in the gray zone when throwing harder. you can practice this in Learn the Bigs. it should say PERFECT if you did it right.

hope that helps.

 

[jorgelink]

Nice review.

 

[FWELR]

i havent tried out the rookie challenge, do you play all of the games with the team? if not, how many?
Thanks

dude, rookie challenge is really fun. ive been playing for awhile now. you start out creating your guy, name, number, bats, throws, position (can't do pitcher for some reason), height, weight, etc. then you're given 50,000 skill points. you can assign them to the 5 skill levels:
POWER
CONTACT
ARM
GLOVE
SPEED
it costs 10,000 for the first star, 15,000 for the second star, 25,000 for the third, 50,000 for the fourth, and 100,000 for the final star. then you go to spring training. you have to win an exhibition game, then complete 3 drills (fielding, batting, running), these get you more skill points. then you have to win another exhibition game. if you do well in the game, you get more skill points. once you complete all the events in an area, like spring training, you get a large amount of skill points, and it unlocks more areas to go. its a very deep challenge, and will probably take more than an afternoon. still wish there was a season mode, but this is very good.

 

[zeropants]

The rookie mode is supposed to be 15-20 hours of gameplay depending on how successful you are the first time through things.

 

[WiiBad]

Just figured out you started a new thread for this Wiitime, I was still checking the other one for your review. Had to pick the game up myself today, it is alot of fun. And yea, after figuring out how to pitch, my skill level jumped about 75%. Still gotta work on hitting though. There is enough fun here to forget about the glitching around the black in the back of the stadiums, the graphics are quite good. Nice game!

 

[WiiBad]

Finally got it together enough to win some games. This game is a blast! You all must be enjoying it too much to get on here and talk about it anymore.

 

[FWELR]

Finally got it together enough to win some games. This game is a blast! You all must be enjoying it too much to get on here and talk about it anymore.

tell me about it, that's practically all ive been doing. i just finished the all-star game part. im almost a five tool player now:
POWER 4
CONTACT 4
ARM 4
GLOVE 4
SPEED 5