MLB Slugfest 2003

We Call it Slugfest for a Reason!

NA release: 4th September 2002
EU release: N/A
JP release: N/A
Developer: Gratuitous Games
Publisher: Midway
NGC Magazine Score: N/A
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

With an interface very similar to Red Card, this is Midway’s attempt to make a sillier version of baseball. The core mechanics aren’t as solid as Red Card, though, as aiming the bat is much more difficult without a cursor – luckily, hitting is much more lenient as this tends to go for higher than usual scores, and full of some fancy over the top effects – well, as over the top as you can get while still keeping it close to baseball.

One thing I did notice while pitching was the bean button (appropriately mapped to one of the GameCube’s bean-shaped buttons). I know from blernsball what this means: throwing the ball at the batter directly. It’s amusing to do it the odd time, but just letting your opponents move forward a base, it’s not as advantageous as kicking someone in football.

Which makes Slugfest not much more than a novelty. It’s fun for a bit, but there’s not all that much to it. I think you’d have to twist baseball more to make a silly arcade version work better.

Fun

That’s why MLB Slugfest 20-03 is such a great game. Instead of making the hits harder than they were before, Slugfest adds hits that were never there. Suddenly, baseball isn’t the four-hour bore that more and more people today are suggesting it is. The tie doesn’t go to the runner, it goes to whoever can beat the tar out of the other guy. You know this game means business when you discover that one entire button is dedicated solely to pitching nothing but bean balls.
Jessie Eubanks, Thunderbolt

Remake or remaster?

Silly baseball could work, but it needs to be different.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get MLB Slugfest 2003