PixlBit

The pitch. Swing and a miss.

Konami always tried really hard with their sports games, but they generally ended up as mediocre efforts. Bottom of the 9th is no different. Not only does it have little to offer, but the basic gameplay isn't solid; the interface is a tad confusing; and the presentation is a mess of bland graphics and incessant commentary. Quite a few baseball games were released onto the Nintendo 64 over the years, and this one is no doubt the bottom of the barrel.

Before starting up a game, I poked around the menus to see what was on offer. The staple of modes were available, including Exhibition, Season, Training, and Trading, though there was one interesting mode called Scenario. In this mode, you join a game already in progress, and much achieve a victory or perform a certain feat. These tasks range from mounting a comeback, or preventing the opposing team from scoring, to hitting a home run, or finishing up a pitcher's perfect game. It's a neat feature for an otherwise dull game.

Since I don't much care for any particular team, I decided to choose the two All-Star teams, with the Nationals as my controlled team. As the home team, I was up to pitch first, starting with a warm-up session. Testing out the control, I quickly found that "A" throws a pitch, which was a changeup. Trying other buttons, I pressed "B," which ended the warm-up and started the game.

I continued testing other buttons, but none seemed to throw a pitch; the C-buttons threw to the basemen, and the others did nothing. I couldn't figure out how to toss anything other than a changeup, so that would have to do. The control stick moves the pitch cursor, but letting go of the stick results in the cursor moving back to the center. It's difficult to hold the cursor steady, since it is sensitive to any slight movement of the stick.

Once up to bat, I discovered the batting cursor works the same way. With how loose it felt, it was amazing I was able to get any hits, let alone actually score a run. There were several times when the computer made a pinch hitter or pinch runner, and each time, I had to watch the pause screen come up, see it cycle through the players, select one, then back out of the menus. Computer actions are generally done automatically, so I don't know why the developers felt it necessary to show the process.

Before each pitch, the announcer says something along the lines of "And here's the pitch." The pitch. Here comes the pitch. The windup. Here it comes. The pitch. Each and every pitch, the commentator feels the need to mention it. The pitch. Since much of it is so redundant, the constant commentary gets old real fast. Pitch. I noticed the commentator didn't say "The swing!" every time I swung, nor did he say "The throw!" when the fielders throw the ball. Needless to say, I was disappointed in this inconsistency.

With no shortage of baseball games released today, with all their features, realism, and recent stats, there's no reason to spend time with a poor one created over a decade ago.