I’m usually the sports person tasked with taking on everything sports for the site. I’m always interested in seeing exactly what sports game devs have come up with to make a sports title more engaging and fresher. Believe me, after about 15 years of reviewing sports titles, I can tell you that developers usually get super creative when it comes to keeping sports games fresh. Madden NFL did it in a bevy of ways by implementing new things like 3v3 football. MLB The Show went the story route and created an entire minor league system option, which was fun as heck. As the years have rolled on, I’m always fascinated by why someone should buy the new title for the yearly sports game. I mean, eventually, the devs will run out of ideas and they will finally turn to charging for roster updates every year. It’s coming. I’m almost sure of it.
Anyway, until that moment happens, to shake the baseball world up a bit, EA and developer Metalhead Software have brought in an old-new twist on baseball with Super Mega Baseball 4. I say old because it has been around for nearly 10 years now. I say new because I’m new to this series. The game has the underbelly of a good baseball simulator, with its outside shell showing off how goofy baseball players can look when they have big heads.
Let’s swing away at this, folks.
Wacky and wild, but competently corked
There are two pieces to this puzzle when it comes to completing an entire picture of Super Mega Baseball 4. The first piece is the underbelly where the meat and bones of the development make it work. There are lots of stats to back up actions on the field, plenty of teams to make the game interesting, and there is an incredibly deep customization mode that allows you to adjust teams, create a new league, or do whatever you want. The second piece of the puzzle is the looks, feel, and the players. You can’t have fun baseball without good players involved.
Starting with the most obvious, the system of play underneath is quite brilliant. Super Mega Baseball 4 in all its wackiness, is a complicated game. It has thoroughly vetted all the made-up (and sometimes not made-up) stats for players that result in on-field action or inaction. For example, when you have a player come up to bat, the game tells you what the best situation is for that player to bat. Sometimes you’ll have a high fastball hitter, which can belt that pitch as far as the field goes when they make correct contact. Other times, you’ll have someone who handles curve balls or is a fast runner. However it may go with player abilities, the game has it built in pretty well to accommodate what they’re most good at when they’re at the plate. That’s impressive considering it could have just been an old NBA 2K stat reader where you have a percentage to do about anything on the court that you would like.
Pulling back into the baseball world, the same goes for pitching, where you have batters that can handle certain pitches and not others. This is a true MLB simulator in that respect. For example, there was a moment in an elimination tournament mode where I was facing ex-Reds star, Tony Perez. While he couldn’t handle the curveball well, if I threw him a fastball he would belt that into the moon. He did this multiple times to me, so I know what that big-headed Boomer (the name of his team) was looking for during the game. Having that type of complication at the backend of this baseball game tells me that Super Mega Baseball 4 has a big-boy mentality.
I honestly didn’t expect this sort of complication with a game that looks the way Super Mega Baseball 4 looks. It’s so oddball and humorous that I didn’t expect a complicated backend to make the game a bit more than what was assumed. I like it. It made this more than a one-dimensional experience.
In addition to players having accurate stats that result in on-field action, there is also a buff system during games that helps push those stats up and down. You can gain and lose mojo during a game depending on how you’re doing on the field. From what I could tell, the mojo dictates how the rest of the action is going to go and provides a better chance of success as you continue hitting or pitching well. Mojo is also paired with other buffs (and de-buffs) with a category called Fitness (how a person is physically doing as the game continues) and one called Pressure (how the team is doing and how that translates to the player’s performance). These three things are simple on paper, but they complicate and make good with the action on the field of play. Having a backend scale dictate the difficulty of the game makes for a wonderful challenge. Again, when you see this game for the first time, you won’t assume that much thought was put into the gameplay, but it was, and it pays off.
Now, it should be noted that this game isn’t as big as an MLB The Show. San Diego puts a lot of time into making sure everything is balanced and all things are considered microscopically. It should also be noted that Super Mega Baseball 4 isn’t trying to compete with MLB The Show. Rather it’s a small-scale baseball game that is more about simplicity in its execution and a hefty amount of humor to go along with that experience. The intentions are clear, and the game certainly respects and pays those intentions off quite well, but still complicates itself with well-thought-through backend functionality.
On the customization side of the field, it goes deep into its outfield to bring you something to own in the game. You can create and customize your own league in Super Mega Baseball 4. You can call it what you would like, you can reorganize the teams that exist within the league, and you can pretty much do what you want to do with it. You can customize team names, logos, players, and even a player’s swagger and intro song if you want. For those folks who enjoy a deep dive into customization and creation, you’ll be in heaven, especially if you’re a baseball fan. I couldn’t help myself to create a league called “Dude Time for Men” (throwback to Regular Show) and insert Digitalchumps in as a team. Have I changed players or anything of the sort? Lord, no, but I could if I wanted to do so.
The backend hops and customization are impressive in Super Mega Baseball 4. Metalhead Software did a helluva job making the gameplay worthwhile and the customization very personal.
Players and such
The second piece to this puzzle is the players and leagues of Super Mega Baseball 4. Initially, the game introduces three different leagues to you with a bevy of different players that make the gameplay interesting. Each league features its own set of players, stats, and how teams work. They are as follows:
Super Mega League – Because I didn’t play previous games in the series, I’m going to take the word of the game on this one. This league features reoccurring baseball players from previous Super Mega Baseball titles. Mostly consisting of punny names, you get a good variety of players with special talents and skills. Seriously, their names are hilarious. Anyway, there are 20 teams in this league and each one is balanced and ready to go head-to-head with the others. Unlike a licensed MLB game, where the bigger markets have the better money and thus better players (except how it’s explained in the movie Moneyball – which is brilliant and explains the Yankees for the past 20 years), this league is balanced and fun to play.
Legends League – This is a cool league that features baseball players from the past, including their physical movements and such (looking at you, Babe Ruth, and your pointing bat). There are a total of eight teams in this league and each features a familiar name. Early on when I discussed getting smoked by the vicious hitting of Tony Perez, it was nostalgic to see him in a game, as well as Johnny Bench. If you couldn’t tell, I’m a Reds fan. Anyway, this mode reaches back through the ages of MLB and pulls out old names and more familiar 80s-90s-2000s players. I was highly impressed with this league. I might have played this the most, if not just for the familiarity and included stats. There were some amazing players back in the MLB past. It was fun seeing them in action.
Creators Classic – This is a fun and oddball league when compared to the other two. This league consists of media personalities, like Joez McFly, who I didn’t know was a real person, and legends on the field. The whole concept of bringing in actual folks like McFly into the baseball gaming fold is cool. It gives vloggers more of a presence out there. McFly seems cool, and I’m glad he is in the game. Anyway, it’s a cool league.
Beyond the above leagues, you also have a bevy of modes to choose from, including franchise, exhibition, season, elimination tournament, and online modes. They’re all exactly what you would expect from them, and the customization previously mentioned is included.
Now, with all of this considered, the game still does feel a bit small and limited when compared to its bigger brethren. This means you have a limited number of ways to play the game and that shortens its lifespan, especially when you can’t update the roster of players with new stats for an ongoing season. That’s not a huge knock, as you will probably want to come and go from this baseball experience, but it is something that you will feel as you continue the game. It’s still a fun game and there are still plenty of different items of interest to stop and go with, but it is limited. The online component does help it, though.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Super Mega Baseball 4 from Metalhead Studio is a riot to play, but it is a smaller experience when compared to its bigger MLB The Show brethren. What it lacks in the longevity of a forever MLB season, it makes up with in moxie, personality, and a bevy of ways to play. The customization and chance to play legends and vloggers will be enough reason to give this a go.
