2003 · Baseball · Sports

Backyard Baseball 2005

Timed Nintendo exclusive

2003 video game for GameCube; 2004 video game for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows (as Backyard Baseball 2005 on latter platform)

Released: 2 April 2003
Platforms: GameCube PlayStation 2 Windows
Genres: Baseball Sports
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Kids
Age ratings: ESRB E

About

Backyard Baseball is a 2003 baseball video game developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Infogrames (later Atari). It was originally developed and released for the GameCube on April 2, 2003. Updated ports for PlayStation 2 and Windows were released in 2004 on March 23 and June 22, respectively, with the Windows version released as Backyard Baseball 2005. All versions are collectively the fourth main entry in the Backyard Baseball sub-series of the Backyard Sports franchise, with the GameCube game being the first Backyard Baseball game released for a home console and the first Backyard Baseball game to use a 3D graphics engine instead of the SCUMM engine.

Keywords

baseball

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Backyard Baseball 2005 is an arcade baseball game featuring a group of 30 children players known as the "Backyard Kids" and 16 real-life Major League Baseball players (ten in the original GameCube release) as kids. As with past Backyard Baseball games, players can play a single game or a season mode, the latter which sees players guides a team though a "Backyard Baseball League" season in hopes of winning enough games to reach the playoffs and ultimately win the "Backyard World Series" like with past MLB-licensed games in the series. A spectator mode is also available like with past games. Additionally, the batting practice mode of previous games is replaced with a Home Run Derby mode, in which up to eight kids compete in hitting home runs from robot pitcher Mr.

Clanky. In the PS2 and Windows versions, a fielding tutorial called "Clanky's Coaching Box" and two new minigames, Fielder's Challenge and Baseball Darts, are also added. Furthermore, the non-GameCube versions give players the option to play at night on most fields for the first time.

Reception

The original GameCube version received an aggregate score of 70/100 on review aggregation platform Metacritic based on four reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". The later versions did not receive enough reviews on Metacritic to receive aggregate scores, with only two reviews verified for PlayStation 2 and none for Windows.

Nintendo Power gave the GameCube version an average score of 3.4 out of five stars from its five reviewers, saying, "The game's intuitive control makes it easy to pick up and play for gamers of any age or skill level."