Backyard Baseball is a series of baseballvideo games for children which was developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Atari. It was first released in October 1997 for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. Later games were featured on Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Wii, and iOS. It is part of the Backyard Sports series. There have been eleven different versions of the game since 1997. Some of the game titles that were created include Backyard Baseball, Backyard Baseball 2001-2010, and Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers.

This is a FAQ for Backyard Baseball. If you have any questions, or if I miss something or make a mistake, email me at peachfreak90@hotmail.com. All questions will go into the Asked Questions section. Backyard Baseball 2003 Cheat Codes: - Submitted by: conner54 Big City Stadium and Super Colossal Dome: - Win the Backyard World Series in season mode to unlock the Big City Stadium and Super Colossal Dome. Easy hits: - After the ball is pitched, press Space to.

The original game consisted of 30 neighborhood kids from which the gamer could choose to play.^[1] Over the years, the idea of 'Pro players as kids' became popular, and the original statistics and looks of the players changed. Some of the professional players that were available included Chipper Jones, Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, Ichiro Suzuki, Sammy Sosa, Jim Thome, Albert Pujols, Nomar Garciaparra, Ken Griffey Jr., and Barry Bonds. As the game progresses, there are some professionals that become available or 'unlockable' including Randy Johnson, Derek Jeter, and Mike Piazza.

In Backyard Baseball, players take a managerial role by creating a team of different players to compete against opponents. In the different installments, a player could play an exhibition game or a 14, 16 or 32 game season (different versions vary) followed by the 'Backyard Baseball League' playoffs, which contains the American League and National League divisional series, the AL and NL championship series and finally the 'Backyard Baseball World Series'. Series games will vary per game.

This game has various playable modes, they include: Single Game, Batting Practice, Spectator, and Season Game.

In 2013, The Evergreen Group acquired the intellectual property from Atari.

Legacy[edit]

Pablo Sanchez, one of the fictional playable characters in the game, has been regarded as the strongest character in video game history.^[2][3][4]

The game has also been noted for its diversity (gender, race) of characters, both in ratio of white to non-white and male to female, as well as skill level and the distribution of the best characters.^[5]

Players[edit]

In Backyard Baseball 2001, the Backyard kids are joined by 31 MLB pro players, many of which were all-stars during the 1999 Major League Baseball All Star Game. Eventual Hall of Fame players featured include Barry Larkin, Vladimir Guerrero, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Walker, Chipper Jones, Derek Jeter, Mike Piazza, Tony Gwynn, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr., Ivan Rodriguez, and Randy Johnson, who are all playable characters to choose from.

Several of these players would be featured in multiple releases including Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez.

Power-Ups[edit]

Sometimes accompanying the four standard batting modes (Power, Line Drive, Grounder and Bunt), some beneficial power-ups appear. In the original Backyard Baseball, these batting power-ups appeared when the player got a hit when the computer used a 'crazy pitch' (see below). Starting from Backyard Baseball 2001, the power ups were awarded after a hit off a 'crazy pitch' and when the player turned a double play or triple play on defense. In addition to these batting power-ups, pitching power-ups, or 'crazy pitches,' also progressively appear, though they are much more frequent and in number, occurring whenever the player strikes an opponent out. These pitches consume much more energy and causes the strike zone to expand, so most of the pitches given are never used consecutively. In addition to the 'crazy pitches,' a strikeout may also award the player 'More Juice,' a full energy recharge for the pitcher that can be used when the player sees fit to use it.

Backyard Baseball 2001

Batting Power-Ups

• Aluminum Power: This power-up is the most valued and can disappear after one or no tries when in use. Players use an aluminum bat to increase the chances to hit a home run.
• Screaming Line Drive: The power-up last about two uses and appears more frequently. Players hit a fast line drive to the wall and allows the batter to run more or all bases.
• Under Grounder: This move lasts at least two uses. Players hit a ground ball that goes into the ground, causing the ball to reappear in any random area of the outfield.
• Crazy Bunt: The move disappears after one or no tries when in use, but if the power-up is used sparingly, the move can last up to four uses. When the ball is hit, the ball rolls around the field erratically as fielders just barely miss catching it.

Pitching Power-Ups

• Big Freeze: The ball is thrown like normal but suddenly stops just before it enters the strike zone, often faking the hitter into swinging at the pitch.
• Elevator: The ball is thrown low along the ground and then the ball suddenly jumps into the air at the last moment.
• Crazyball: the ball 'laughs' when thrown, and it moves in random directions in the air. Easier to hit if swingspot is enabled
• Corkskrew: The ball makes a spiral motion through the air. Easier to hit if swingspot is enabled
• Zigzag: The ball makes a zig-zag motion through the air. Easier to hit if swingspot is enabled
• Slomo: The ball travels very slowly through the air, requiring precise timing to be hit.
• Spitball: The ball is covered with saliva and jerks in the air.
• Fireball: One of the most powerful pitches, the ball blazes past the batter in a ball of fire at an incredibly high speed. When used by a player, this pitch is the most draining of the pitcher's stamina.

Backyard Baseball 2005

Batting Power-Ups

• Sonic Boom: The player knocks down opposing fielders with a super-powerful shockwave.
• Rubber Bat: The batter bounce a grounder really high into the air — the player will have a chance to reach base before any fielder catches the ball.
• Butter Fingers: The player will splatter the opposing fielders with butter. They'll have a slippery time trying to field your hit.
• Jumping Bean Bunt: This tricky power-up makes the ball jump all over the place!
• Lightning Bat: Produce tremendous power when you connect with the ball.
• Geyser Hit: The batter makes the ball burrow deep underground before it suddenly surfaces somewhere in the outfield.
• Piñata Bat: The batter drives fielders crazy when the ball is hit, the ball multiplies into dozens of bouncing baseballs.
• Aluminum Bat: Automatic home runs of insane distance.

Pitching Power-Ups

• The Fang: The Fang looks like a normal curve-ball, but it bites hard at the last second and goes straight into the dirt.
• Freezer: The Freezer stops just before reaching the strike zone, pauses briefly, and then continues.
• Slomo: This ball starts moving at ultra-slow speed just before reaching the strike zone.
• Juice Box: The Juice Box will refill your pitcher's Pitch Juice Box.
• Rainbow Pop-up: When it's hit, the ball goes straight into the air for an easy out.
• Crazy Pitch: The Crazy Pitch is so wild that even the pitcher doesn't know where it will go.
• Splitball: This pitch splits into two separate curve-balls, one of which is a fake, unhittable baseball.
• Fireball: The Fireball is so fast it can burn a hole in your catcher's glove.

Installments[edit]

References[edit]

Backyard Baseball Gamecube Controls

1. ^Kram, Zach (2017-10-10). 'How 'Backyard Baseball' Became a Cult Classic'. The Ringer. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
2. ^'Pablo Sanchez: The Origin Of A Video Game Legend'. www.wbur.org. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
3. ^'The 25 Best Virtual Athletes In Video Games'. Complex. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
4. ^Carson, Dan. 'The 15 Most Unfair and Terrifying Video Game Athletes to Play Against'. Bleacher Report. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
5. ^Delayo, Mike. 'The Inclusive Legacy of Backyard Baseball'. Fangraphs.

Backyard Baseball Ps2 Controls

External links[edit]

Backyard Basketball is a series of entries into the Backyard Sports franchise of video games. The first game was developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Infogrames Entertainment SA and released for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms in 2001. Additional games have been released on a variety of consoles, each sporting different characters and slightly altered gameplay mechanics.

As with the other entries into the Backyard Sports franchise, Backyard Basketball has received notoriety for its inclusion of pro basketball players as playable characters. The first incarnation included Kevin Garnett and Lisa Leslie. The most recent release includes Stephen Curry as its mascot.^[1]

Gameplay[edit]

Backyard Basketball offers two primary modes of gameplay: Single Game, which allows the player to select a team to compete against a computer-controlled team, and Season Play, which allows the player to select a team to compete against a series of computer-controlled teams over an 18-game season, including two best-of-three playoff series and a best-of-five championship series should the player achieve a large number of victories. The Single Game mode also allows the player to compete against a second player or to practice using a single character.

Before games can occur, the player has the option to modify a variety of settings. These include court selection, A.I. difficulty (easy, medium, or hard), the presence of certain rules (fouls, fatigue, violations, shot control, and power-ups), sound options (game music, background sounds, and in-game dialogue), controls, and team names. Team modification also involves the customization of jerseys.

The game's controls are set to mouse usage by default, capitalizing on a point & click style of gameplay to move characters around. The game is also compatible with keyboards and game pads.

The selection of team members follows one of two settings: First Five Picks, which allows each player to select their team members freely, or Full Draft, which forces each player to select their team members one at a time in an alternating fashion. Each potential team member, including younger versions of Kevin Garnett and Lisa Leslie, is ranked according to five statistics operating on a 1 to 10 scale. These include Inside Shooting (the relative accuracy of the character's shot from inside the three-point line), Outside Shooting (the relative accuracy of the character's shot from beyond the three-point line), Ballhandling (the relative likelihood that the character will not have the ball stolen or blocked on offense), Defense (the relative likelihood that the character will be able to steal or block the ball on defense), and Quickness (the relative speed at which the character moves along the court). Players also have the option to customize rookie characters with either manually chosen or randomly allocated statistics, as well as heights, skin tones, shooting hands, birthdays, and names. Although rookie characters generally have lower overall statistics compared to pre-rendered players, they have the additional ability to increase all of their statistics by three levels should the player's team make the playoffs in Season Play.

Gameplay in Backyard Basketball is set to a point & click control scheme by default. With three characters on the court at one time, the player clicks at various locations on the court to guide the character with the ball to that location. Clicking on a teammate causes the character to pass the ball to that teammate while clicking the basket (indicated by a basketball icon) causes the character to attempt a shot. If shot control is on, then players have the option to make the shooting character pump fake by clicking rapidly, finally shooting the ball when the click is held down. If shot control is off, then the character will automatically release the shot once the basketball icon is clicked.On defense, the player can switch between characters to control by clicking on them as they run about, guiding the chosen character by clicking the location on the court where he or she should go. If an opposing character is clicked when an 'X' symbol hovers by them, the character nearest him or her will attempt to steal the ball. If a pair of hands appears near the basket when an opposing character goes to shoot the ball, the nearest character will attempt to block the shot or rebound the ball.

Each quarter of a game lasts approximately three minutes while each overtime period (if necessary) lasts approximately one minute. The longer characters play without rest, the more tired and prone to mistakes (poor shooting and ball-handling) they will be; as such, substitutions can be made after any completed play or during a time-out. Characters will recover their energy while on the bench (only two players can stay on the bench at a time). Granted, a character's energy will never decrease if the fatigue option is turned off.

Over the course of a game, power-ups may occasionally be rewarded to teams. The majority of these power-ups are useful, such as the flaming ball (which guarantees that the next attempted shot will go in), the tornado (which increases the speed of all characters on the court), the doughnut (which causes the next character who attempts a shot to automatically attempt a slam dunk), and 110% Juice (which provides energy to otherwise tired players if the fatigue option is turned on). However, some power-ups provide detrimental effects, such as the icy ball (which makes shots more likely to miss), the stick of butter (which reduces the team's ball-handling abilities), and the ice cream truck (which prevents the entire team from moving for a brief period of time).

Releases[edit]

Backyard Basketball games have been released numerous times to a variety of platforms. In 2001, the first game of the series was released for Windows and Macintosh featuring Kevin Garnett as the game's primary mascot, and Lisa Leslie.^[2] In 2004, a game was released for the Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, and PC, featuring Tim Duncan as its primary mascot.^[3] The game was released once more in 2007, this time for the Nintendo Gamecube and Nintendo DS as well as the aforementioned systems, featuring Paul Pierce as its primary mascot.^[4] The game has most recently been released as a mobile app featuring Stephen Curry as its primary mascot.

2007[edit]

Backyard Basketball 2007 is a sports game released late 2006. This is the fifth iteration of the Backyard the game is Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. A planned release for the Nintendo GameCube was cancelled.^[5]

Reception[edit]

In the United States, the debut version of Backyard Basketball sold 780,000 copies and earned $13.2 million by August 2006, after its release in October 2001. It was the country's 15th best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. Combined sales of all Backyard Sports games released between January 2000 and August 2006, including Backyard Basketball, had reached 5.3 million units in the United States by the latter date.^[6]

Backyard Basketball has received low to mixed reviews throughout its multiple releases. Ivan Sulic of IGN awarded the original version a score of 6.5 out of 10, complimenting the simplistic gameplay and colorful graphics while lamenting the amount of crashes that the game is susceptible to encountering.^[7] Chris Adams of IGN awarded the 2007 Nintendo DS version the same score, commenting that the addition of new gameplay modes offered more variety.^[8]

References[edit]

Backyard Baseball Gamecube Controls

1. ^Backyard Sports. Web. <https://www.backyardsports.com/Archived 2015-04-11 at the Wayback Machine>.
2. ^https://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Basketball-Pc/dp/B00005ME4W
3. ^https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009EG4K/ref=s9_simh_gw_p63_d1_i5?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=1RZJWCAY0G3429TPN3H1&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=1970559082&pf_rd_i=desktop
4. ^https://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Basketball-2007-PC/dp/B000FIS7YI/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1429209581&sr=1-1&keywords=backyard+basketball+2007
5. ^http://www.ign.com/games/backyard-basketball-887839/gcn-848551
6. ^Edge Staff (August 25, 2006). 'The Top 100 PC Games of the 21st Century'. Edge. Archived from the original on October 17, 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
7. ^Sulic, Ivan. 'Backyard Basketball.' IGN. IGN, 10 Jan. 2002. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ign.com/articles/2002/01/11/backyard-basketball-2>
8. ^Adams, Chris. 'Backyard Basketball 2007 Review - IGN.' IGN. IGN, 18 Oct. 2007. Web. 16 Apr. 2015. <http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/10/18/backyard-basketball-2007-review>.

External links[edit]

• Backyard Basketball (PC/Mac) at MobyGames
• Backyard Basketball (PS2) at MobyGames
• Backyard Basketball (GBA) at MobyGames