[h1]Casual baseball themed Pachinko/Plinko game, which is fun initially but gets tiresome quite quickly. [/h1]
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Bad Hop Baseball is a casual arcade type experience based around baseball and played on a Galton Board, mimicking the popular games of Pachinko (as it’s called in Japan) or Plinko (as it’s called in the American game shows).
If you watch the game play video it will give you a good idea of how things play out.
[h1]🎬Gameplay Video🎬[/h1]
https://youtu.be/NUHcTVIDxY0
[h1]🤔Overall Impressions🤔[/h1]
[quote][h2][b]Bad Hop Baseball is a rather casual baseball experience, loosely based on the game.
There’s no skill required, apart from choosing the power, but even then, it is purely down to luck where the ball lands, so it is really just a game of hit and hope.
It’s quite fun for the first few games as a solo player, but it soon becomes a little tiresome, as there’s not much variety, and I never felt like I was affecting game play much. If it had online play, I think this would be more fun, but currently the only human interaction you will have is with two player local play.
Unfortunately, most achievements are based around playing this title for a long time, like play 100 games, or hit the ball 762 times, so they’re not that appealing.
If you are going to play this solo then I would only recommend this on a heavy sale, but if you are playing at home with someone then it might be a bit more fun. [/b][/h2][/quote]
[h1]🕹️Gameplay🕹️[/h1]
The game consists of three innings where you play against a CPU or human opponent locally.
Hit the ball onto the board and it will eventually land in one of the twelve segments at the bottom of the grid, after unpredictably bouncing off pins and changing direction. At the bottom of the board are two defenders, in the form of Baseball gloves, that can ricochet the ball further.
As in the real game of baseball, there is a diamond and four bases, and placing the ball in a [b]HIT[/b] segment moves you on to first base, or around the plates. There are also placements for going straight to [b]second base[/b] or [b]third base[/b], and then there is a [b]home run[/b]. If you land in [b]OUT[/b] you lose one of your three batters and once they are all out, your turn for that innings is over. Your opponent continues until they lose all their batters.
There is a [b] Pinch Hit [/b] option, which you can use any time within your three innings, that seems to create more favourable landing zones for your ball. It might add more home runs, rather than outs, for example.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2937487397
When the ball gets down towards the bottom of the board it sometimes slows down and the camera zooms in, much like it does in Peggle, but unlike Peggle, there is no tension created by doing this. If anything, it takes the tension away, and just looks odd.
When the plates were occupied by batters, the scoring got a bit confusing, and a lot of the time I did not know who was getting points and why. I know how scoring works in baseball, but it was just too frantic to keep tabs on what was going on.
Getting your batters around the diamond should be exciting and rewarding, but I never got any satisfaction when striking the ball, or getting batters to new bases. This process needed more bells and whistles and to be slowed down considerably.
The presentation of the diamond is very simple. The batters just represent a light on one of the plates. You don’t get to see them running around or anything, and it all feels underwhelming.
Obviously, the board is designed to be random and there is no way of knowing which way the ball will bounce or where it will land. You can control the power of the ball, and this sometimes determines what area the ball starts in, but it just seemed completely pointless to me. It would have been nice to have some sort of skill factor in the game so that you felt you were contributing in some way.
The computer does provide stiff opposition, but can be beaten, but again it felt hollow because I didn’t do much apart from press a button to shoot the ball, and there’s no bragging to a computer opponent.
If online play is introduced, I would like to see some sort of tournament option perhaps, or make it so that you can have more local human players so that they can set up a knockout tournament.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2937366728
[h1]📺Graphics📺[/h1]
Each time the ball hit a peg, it would spew out a hot dog icon or dollar note, and this was a bit off-putting I thought and cluttered the screen. The board is quite simple looking and the slow-mo action sequences did not work.
[h1]🎵Sound🎵[/h1]
The game is full of sound effects whether they are the crowd cheering or fireworks going off, and it sounds very hectic to go along with the chaotic nature of the game. There is an upbeat jingle continually playing.
[h1]🍳Conclusion🍳[/h1]
[quote][h2][b] [i]Bad Hop Baseball[/i] is not a bad game as such. It has very high energy levels but I am just worried about its longevity considering there is no online play, and as a solo player I got bored within the hour.
Considering its price point I’m on the fence whether to recommend it or not, as it doesn’t feel competitive, and I never got excited playing it, due to its pure random nature and lack of interaction.
If you don’t mind the random nature of the game, and perhaps you have someone to play with, then it might be a different matter, but in its current state, and as a solo player I would probably recommend against it. [/b][/h2][/quote]
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