Jun 23, 2017  The Origin Of Backyard Baseball Pablo’s roots can be traced all the way back to a makeshift field in Olympia, Washington. 'First base is the chimney,' Nick Mirkovich recalls. Free unblocked games at school for kids, Play games that are not blocked by school, Addicting games online cool fun from unblocked games.com.

I am a big fan of the Backyard Baseball series and Backyard Baseball 2003 is one of the more fun entries in the series. Many people do not realize just what a big deal this series was. It lasted for around a decade and showed up on a ton of different systems over the years.

Batter Up!

The point of Backyard Baseball 2003 is to give players the chance to play baseball like they did when they were kids. It is such a clever idea as when it comes to kid sports there is just something so very wholesome, fun and adorable about baseball. While the game is all about kids, it features kid versions of some of the players of the day and that is pretty awesome if you ask me.

Like A Cartoon

One of my favorite aspects of the series is the presentation. I know that you could easily make the argument that Backyard Baseball 2003 does not look a whole lot different from the previous game and that is fair. However, there is so much charm here and I do think that things look that little bit sharper and the kids look awesome and just like the kids you would play with at recess when you were at school.

Speaking of recess that is what the graphics actually remind me of, Recess the TV show. That along with other late 90s early 00s kids shows like All Grown Up.

Step Up To The Mound

While it has a cutesy kind of art style and a look like it is a game for kids. Backyard Baseball 2003 actually plays a really great game of baseball. This is the perfect blend of realistic baseball action and arcade fun and as a result, it is very addictive. No matter if you are pitching or batting, the gameplay is nice and tight and you have plenty of different moves that you can do so you can play the game just the way you want.

Plenty To Do

The main game mode is your season. Here you make up your team and then try to take them to backyard baseball glory. It is awesome how they managed to use actual teams in the game and it does make it that little bit more fun if you ask me. The season is very addictive, but if you want to just jump in and have a quick game you can do that. What is neat about that is you can pick all kinds of options ranging from the park you play in, the difficulty, how long the game lasts and so on.Backyard Baseball 2003 also puts a lot of effort into the actual players. You can customize them if you want and that is cool, but what I really like is the way the game will track stats and it even has a hall of fame which for a stats nerd like me was a lot of fun.

In all, I feel that Backyard Baseball 2003 is another solid entry into the series. It is a fun baseball game and the kid style it has really does have a lot of charm. This is a game that can be found on many old game sites, but even tracking down a physical copy is easy and cheap to do. If you like older baseball games, you know before they got all serious. Backyard Baseball 2003 is one that you will have a lot of fun with.

8/10

Pros:

• I really do love the presentation
• Kid versions of the pros are adorable
• The season mode is very addictive
• The actual baseball is a lot of fun
• Getting players into the hall of fame

Cons:

• Not a whole lot different to the last game
• Despite the kiddie look, it can be tough

Backyard Baseball Game For Free

Available Platform: Windows

Backyard Baseball is a baseball game created by Humongous Entertainment and released for Windows and Macintosh in 1997.

Game Review

Backyard Baseball Years Ideas

Backyard Baseball is a baseball game created by Humongous Entertainment and released for Windows and Macintosh in 1997.

It's the first of a long series of successful titles, the last one of which was released in 2015.

The idea of a videogame about kids playing baseball was developed by Nick Mirkovich, illustrator and animator. He presented the concept to the legendary Ron Gilbert (not only the creator of Maniac Mansion but also the founder of Humongous), and after a while, he approved. The design team was made of Mirkovich, Richard Moe (a programmer), and Mark Peyser (a graphic designer).

The game created by the trio was brilliant and totally unique. High-quality hand-drawn cartoon graphics, fluid animations, excellent gameplay, and, most importantly, a fantastic character design. The baseball players, 30 kids, were designed with their own look&feel and personality. Vaguely inspired to the Peanuts, they are also a great example of diversity: 15 boys, 15 girls, all in different sizes, colors, and races.

Somehow the kids remind me of movies such as The Bad News Bears (an amazing 1976 movie with Walter Matthau), and 'The sandlot', except that in the game, there are many more girls :)

Anyway, the kids in Backyard Baseball are so cute it's impossible not to fall in love with them. For each one of them, composer Rhett Mathis created a specific theme song. This was probably one of the most memorable elements of this game.

As you could expect from a sports sim, there are also top players. In this case, the real star is a short kid called Pablo Sanchez. Even if he looks like the worst player, he is the greatest one, and everybody loved him. Believe it or not, Pablo Sanchez is one of the most beloved videogames characters ever created.

Curiously, Backyard Baseball was developed using the SCUMM game engine, the same used in many graphics adventure. It's a great example of the flexibility of the engine invented by Ron Gilbert. Apparently, creating a sports sim was totally possible. The basic mechanic is indeed quite simple. Still, the game supports different fields, tournaments, different stats for the players, and even a sort of Mario Kart-style power-ups.

Backyard Baseball is simply one of the most popular videogames ever created. So what are you waiting for? Download and play it!

Backyard Baseball Game

Review by: Manu
Published: 3 November 2019, 5:13 pm