Baseball season is here! Can’t you feel it?  It's like that first warm breath of spring that passes through your neighborhood as backyard grills start to fire up and televisions come to life with the sounds of a baseball game in its first inning.  If you’re lucky, you’re sitting in the stands in a stadium with countless fans cheering their team on as the PA announcer’s voice calls your favorite player to the mound.  This also means that our favorite consoles will once again see plenty of baseball titles coming our way.  While this is a really good thing, these games cater to an older crowd.  Well, Backyard Baseball is here to change that so grab the controller, kids, and let’s play some ball.

Backyard Baseball surprisingly offers four playing modes that slightly resemble the baseball games of the bigger boys.  There’s Pick-Up Game for those that want to get straight into the action and Practice mode for those that want to learn about more than just the controls (Mr. Clanky does a great job of teaching the basics in hitting and fielding).  There’s also Mini-Games that offer Home Run Derby (you can play this one with up to eight friends in a take-your-turn styled game using the same controller) and Fielder’s Challenge (score forty points before Mr. Clanky’s team scores three runs).  Yet the heart of the game is Season Play that puts you in an eighteen or thirty-two game season complete with drafts and trades.  The team management features really don’t get too deep but with nine players on your team there’s always room to trade players that don’t perform as well.

The game features the Backyard Kids, a mismatched assortment of kids with their own playing abilities and styles.  As if wide variety of original characters to choose from weren’t enough, the game also added real players such as Sammy Sosa, Alfonso Soriano, Mike Piazza and a few others.  The catch is that these real-life players are seen as kids but that doesn’t stop them from being the game’s most powerful players.  Still, many of the Backyard Kids aren’t slouches either when it comes to pitching, hitting and fielding.  Each character has his or her own strengths and weaknesses but its no doubt you’ll have fun watching them show their stuff out on the field.

Control-wise, the game isn’t difficult to figure out on your own but I recommend that Practice mode is the first place to start since it does a great job of not only teaching you the basic controls but how to use your Power-Ups.  The game follows the practical baseball rules but it also tosses in things like pitching and hitting Power-Ups that do things like turn a single ball into dozens of them in order to confuse the opposing team out in the field or throw a splitball that actually does split in two.  These things make the game fun, although it might infuriate those gamers that have been playing fairly.  It’s also easy to make triple plays in this game so expect to see a lot of unrealistic plays. 

Still, none of this really hinders the game since half the fun is taking your favorite fictional team (like the Grand Salamis) or any of the thirty actual MLB teams (like the St. Louis Cardinals or the New York Mets) through an entire season.  The reason being that the hitting interface is easy to navigate and allows you to choose everything from bunts to a line drive to second base.  Pitching is equally satisfying enough that it kind of reminds me of the pitching style used in World Series Baseball 2K3.  Fielding can be a bit difficult to really master but the more you play the more you come to appreciate its style.  You can even steal bases once you really learn how to play the field.

The cartoon-like quality of the visuals are not what you might call impressive but they do the job in terms of bringing us 3D environments as well as an assortment of great characters.  The fields range from a dusty junkyard, a large farm (complete with cornfields and crop circles) and a swampy area called Gator Flats.  The environments actually do look good but it’s the characters that will bring a smile to your face.  The character models are fun to watch in action and since the animation is smooth, it’s like watching a cartoon in motion.  The game is also filled with some impressive-looking special effects that come with activating a Power-Up.  For example, the Fireball pitching Power-Up sets the ball aflame as it speeds past the batter and burns a hole in the catcher’s glove.  The real-life players look cute as kids and there’s just something funny about having Little Jim Thome from the Philadelphia Phillies on a team called the Humongous MelonHeads.

The game’s characters are surely one of the game’s most enjoyable highlights that go well beyond their visual differences.  Each character has his or her own theme music that somewhat corresponds to their personality.  Yet it’s the voices that really capture their personalities.  For example, Gretchen is clearly a hyperactive child since she talks way too fast and way too loud.  Ricky Johnson, on the other hand, is incredibly shy and we can tell this from his soft-spoken tone and his need to say as little as possible.  Kids do the play-by-play and color commentary and they’re not bad but they don’t really add anything really helpful or call the plays all too often.  One of the reasons the commentary doesn’t really work is the fact that the kids in the field are often yelling out their support to fellow team members or heckling the opposing team.  This is actually better than having a running commentary since it really does sound more like things you‘d find in an actual Little League game.

Backyard Baseball does a great job of sustaining the pure addictive fun that is baseball without sacrificing its humor or little league appeal.  At times I wish the game kept true to the rules of the game or kept some semblance of reality, but then again it’s the fantasy that keeps this one from getting boring.  If you have kids that love the sport, buy this one for them . . . they’ll have a blast. 

Gameplay: 8.0
The controls are thankfully easy to get into and young gamers who haven’t played a baseball game before will quickly learn the basics mighty quickly. 

Graphics: 7.5
The visual quality of the game isn’t bad at all and the colorful backdrops and super cute characters will not fail to bring a smile to your face.  The animation runs smoothly too, but the visual highlight of the game is watching little A-Rod step up to the plate . . . he‘s just so darn adorable.

Sound: 7.0
Each character has his or her own theme music and the game showcase some wonderfully accurate sound effects mixed in with cartoon-like effects.  The play-by-play and color commentary may not be the strongest feature but the voice work is top notch when it comes to the kids.

Difficulty: Medium
The game really offers a nice challenge the deeper into the season you go and that will keep gamers from getting bored pretty quickly.  Just wait until your team takes on the Cheesy Meatballs . . . and I thought the San Francisco Giants were a hard team to beat.

Concept: 7.5
There are some pretty great modes that mimic most of the modes seen in the baseball titles geared at the older crowd so the younger crowd won’t feel left out.  With original fields and characters to choose from there’s enough here to keep everyone happy.

Multiplayer: 8.0
This is a fantastic game to share with friends and while the game offers a simple two player multiplayer game, Home Run Derby can be played with up to eight friends using the same controller.  This is definitely good stuff so play this one with a friend or two.

Overall: 8.0
There’s a lot to like about Backyard Baseball and gamers young and old can appreciate its truly appealing and addictive style of baseball.  Buy this one if your kids love baseball or if you want to spark their interest in the game.