Backyard Baseball

This game falls so short of the bar they set themselves that it's not even funny. What could have been a fun nostalgia trip down memory lane with new graphics and tighter gameplay instead is a predatory nightmare preying on our nostalgia to sell us low effort slop. I won't be buying even the old school games I no longer have now, as I don't want to support continuing this nonsense. If this is the efforts to bring this game and the Backyard Sports franchise back, this is a damn good way to lose people like me who consider the old originals beloved parts of childhood. Harsh? Maybe. But I feel like it's harshness warranted by very clearly crunching out a low-effort game preying on, not rewarding, our fond memories with these games. Grew up playing Baseball 2001? The pros ARE there...as unlockables. You're also down from the 31 (28 on Steam) to 7 here. This isn't the kind of game that I'm gonna sit here and grind through just so I can have the honor of drafting Chipper Jones, Jason Giambi, Jeff Bagwell, Kenny Lofton, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, or Vladimir Guerrero Sr. to my team when Baseball 2001 is also available on Steam and not only gives me those 7 but 21 more as well for a fourth of the price and is a game where I can just draft them out of the box to my team. To the best of my knowledge, this was never stated by Playground anywhere, just that they were coming. Long story short? This is a predatory title that only exists to prey on nostalgia, gatekeeps some of it behind artificial means to create replayability, and fails to deliver on any of it at almost every corner. It has no real reason to exist, ESPECIALLY at $40, if they also brought us Baseball '99 AND Baseball 2001 for $10. You can get BOTH games right here on Steam, AND also get them on your phone or tablet too for on the go playing, for the cost of this game on PC. Think i'd prefer the 4 games for 1 plan.

THE NOSTALGIA so good butttt... it gets repetitive so quickly, there are far too many games to the league cup. i find myself playing two games of baseball going on to something else and then back to this, not great if you like continuous grinding. BUT i do love this game and i keep coming back to it.

the new byb feels like a love letter to everyone who grew up playing the original games. the updated visuals are fantastic, and it was great seeing all of the classic kids return with new character models that still stay true to their original personalities and designs. i had a lot of fun with the game, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. feedback for the developers - commentary overlap: the commentary lines will occasionally play over one another, which can be distracting and takes me out of the experience. - custom kids customization: i'd love to see more clothing options for custom kids. the default white t-shirt and blue pants feel too generic and don't give them much personality. - custom kid last names: it would also be great if we could assign custom kids a last name so they feel like they belong alongside the rest of the backyard baseball roster. - unlockable kids: i hope the unlockable backyard kids receive updated outfits as well. sharing the same plain white shirt and blue pants makes them feel less exciting to unlock and draft onto a team. - errors frequency: with errors turned on, they seem to occur far less often than in previous backyard baseball games. i've even had several games where no errors happened at all. - cpu batting ai: the cpu batters are too easy to exploit. i often found myself throwing every pitch outside the strike zone because i knew the cpu would chase almost everything. improving the batter ai would make games feel much more balanced and rewarding. - stealing bug: if a runner is caught stealing to end an inning, the next inning begins by skipping the following batter's at-bat. this appears to be a bug. despite these issues, i genuinely had a great time with the game. if you're a longtime fan of the classic backyard baseball series, there's a lot here to enjoy. that said, i have a hard time recommending it at its current $40 price point. thankfully, the devs have been responsive to community feedback and seem committed to improving the game, which gives me confidence that it'll only get better over time.

This game brings me back to Simpler times as a young kid playing this in the local library on a spring/summer afternoon. The biggest con I have with the game is the control interface won’t work on my PC. The game doesn’t know whether or not it want’s to be told what to do by a 3rd Party Console type control, keyboard or the mouse. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling to no avail. However, on Steam deck it works flawlessly minus one or two glitches I didn’t even notice until about 2hrs in. Highly recommend can’t wait to see where this goes. Hopefully adding real MLB teams and players.

This game is awful. Completely wiped out the whimsical feel of the prior games and feels more like a mobile game. I'll describe the issues in detail (I'll provide 10...there are much more), but this game feels rushed and unfinished. The issues I noticed (played 6 games of a season) are as follows: (1) stats mean nothing in this game...Luanne Lui is hitting dingers, Vicki Kawaguchi can't leg out a single, Mikey Thomas is turning triples, and, worst of all, Pablo Sanchez can't get on base (THEY NERFED PABLO); (2) pitching is terrible...the game decides in advance who will swing and miss, but everyone aside from the predetermined kid makes contact in or outside of the zone; (3) even with errors turned on, nobody makes errors or is goofing off; (4) if you manage to hit it in the outfield, it's next to impossible to leg out a double--even with Pete Wheeler's speed; (5) the aluminum power bat doesn't equate to an automatic homerun...it's more like a screaming line drive and will likely be caught; (6) you can't steal because the ball teleports from the catcher to the second baseman; (7) the ball outline disappears in Tin Can Alley when hit into the outfield...making it next to impossible to see the ball; (8) speaking of Tin Can Alley, a player hit the ball off of the truck and, when the ball was caught, was deemed out; (9) they took away features of the old games like comparing stats across the league and seeing stats in game (like the average and if the player hit a home run); and (10) the commentary is horrific...you have Sunny Day welcoming batters to the "mound" and there are only around 10 different prompts continuously used throughout gameplay. DO NOT RECOMMEND...especially not at a $40 price point (as it stands, I'd pay $3 for it).

Just like back in the day. Super fun!

if you like sports games this is one of the best, the online update will make it even better, aside from minor graphical glitches i haven't had any issues, the character customization is nice, you will probably hear repeated voice lines although that is not a new thing for this franchise, but the graphics are a huge upgrade, the game modes are fun and engaging, the controls work really well with controller and with keyboard and mouse although you may want to switch some of the key binds, all in all a good reboot and for 40 bucks at the time of posting this review its not a terrible price for this game. especially with all the unlockable players and team names. Edit: A lot of people are criticizing the $40 price tag, and I understand why. The game isn't perfect and there are definitely things I'd like to see improved. That said, we've seen much larger publishers release games with comparable launch issues while charging $60 or even $70. In that context, I don't think $40 is an unreasonable asking price, especially considering the amount of content already in the game and the planned updates

This game was a big disappointment. I grew up on Backyard Baseball '01 and was super excited about a reboot. Oh foolish, naïve me. The state is has released in is atrocious, more bug filled than a roach-infested apartment. This apartment is missing all it's furniture, simply a beanbag chair and a TV to make you ask "you live like this?" Not only that, this apartment is not up to code, with asbestos leaking out of the walls. In plain English, the game has many game-breaking bugs that makes me wonder how it was released in this state. This game is missing features and content that was baked into a game 25 years older. This game has AI slop images on its playing cards and AI slop writing in the game - yet the developers have not disclosed this to steam. Scummy. Given the stability of the release I'd wager it was likely AI slop vibe-coded as well. Honestly, what a bummer. I'm glad I got my refund and wasn't blinded by nostalgia.

♥♥♥♥ this game/ players just falling over randomly. missing catches at first base for no reason. meanwhile the computer has is getting strikes when its clearly outside the box, catching in the outfield when its not even close, and hitting EVERY SINGLE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ PITCH even when you get a perfect pitch and its even outside the strike zone. like wtf?

Been waiting a couple decades for a new Backyard Baseball game and can tell you that it mixes nostalgia & modern gameplay seamlessly. About to capture my first Ultra-Grand Championship of the Universe in years!