R.B.I. Baseball 2

Not only is RBI Baseball 2 an enormous improvement over its predecessor, it's one of the best baseball games I've ever played! The players look fairly realistic this time around, and the pitchers look exceptionally good during their windups. The controls are superb. Players can dive for grounders and jump for line drives, and runners even slide head-first! You can select between two skills levels, turn off the music (thank you!), and the homerun frequency is reasonable. You get all the real major league teams and players. Bonus features include voice synthesis for umpires and - get this - instant replays! If there's one thing that annoyed me, it would be the excessive number of foul balls. Otherwise, RBI 2 is outstanding.

Every aspect is easy to understand and easy to play. It doesn't matter whether it's batting, pitching or fielding.

Conversions are often sad and sordid affairs with little effort, skill or original thought brought to bare on the new game. As with many licences of popular coin-ops or films, conversions of bestselling console games are sometimes seen as easy money and often churned out for a quick buck. Fortunately, RBI Baseball 2 on the Amiga is one of the best conversions I've seen. Domark's creative development house, The Kremlin, have kept the basics of the best-selling Nintendo game, but have also totally revamped the graphics and greatly enhanced the gameplay. A refreshing and original game. The best since Hardball hit the C64 all those years ago.

RBI is a good simulation of a great sport. Oddly, it seems to suit computerisation, bringing the gunfight pressures to bear on every ball. It is the score after nine innings that matters, but every ball counts. Each has to be played for. This is what makes RBI exciting. The stop, start, nature of baseball works against the game’s claim to classic status. It cannot have the rolling free form energy of Kick Off simply because baseball is a slower, stop, start, sort of sport. It is excellent fun though, especially after some of the more confusing elements and ideas have been mastered. As a simulation of a strange sport in a strange land, it scores high in the major league.

What's all this 'baseball' malarkey about then, eh? I mean, people wear 'baseball' boots, and put 'baseball' caps on their heads - but everybody knows the game they're really talking about is rounders. Of course, that doesn't sound half as street-cool and hip - which is probably why the Americans changed the name. Anyway, whatever you call it, it's a damn simple game to understand so without further ado let's get out there and have a bit of a bat, shall we?

Much as I like idea of playing out sports on a computer, there seem to be precious few which not only capture the flavour and underlying concepts behind a sport, but which are also very playable. Sure, RBI Two is slick, and it has that baseball 'feel' to it, but as a game in itself it just didn't quite click with me, particularly in one player mode. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. and that's not to say that it doesn't really excell in some areas. But it comes across as more of one of those luxury games than one on which you'd be ecstatic about forking out £29.99. I freely admit that it could well be down to me rather than RBI Two (I know several people who think that it achieves what it sets out to do perfectly), but for £29.99 I expect to get a game which will not only be fun to play for an hour or two, but one which I'll come back to for weeks, maybe months to come. One which I'll run around telling my friends about. You know the kind I mean.

R.B.I. Baseball 2 is great because it has all of the rosters from 1989. The gameplay however is only middle of the pack on the NES. If you are a diehard RBI gamer or a diehard baseball fan this game is a must-have. Otherwise, just stick with Baseball Stars and the original R.B.I. Baseball.

Initially a bit limited for arcade fans, the sports sim element soon takes over and rewards perseverance with an engrossing tactical action game.

När jag började spela RBI fick jag snabbt en känsla av att spelet var utgivet under stor tidspress. För det första slår spelarna i tid och otid. Sedan är det eländet med resultattavlan. I inledning av spelet kan man välja om man vill se denna eller ej. Jag lärde mig snabbt att välja bort den. Trots detta dyker den upp med sina löjliga små trudelutter. Om jag väljer att inte se eländet vill jag heller inte se det! Ljudet har en del övrigt att önska. Men jag tycker att man kan köpa det här spelet trots allt. Om man har en kompis att spela mot och gillar baseball kommer man att få kul.

Von den größen Hintergrunden abgesehen sind Grafik un Animationen recht ordentlich, der Sound ist durchwachsen und die Joysticksteuerung prima (sobald man das Timing im Griff hat!). Fans des Ami-Sports werden also zufrieden sein, den Rest interessiert's ohnehin nicht.