wii Baseball Issues

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wii Baseball

One thing I do that bugs friends (and myself, quite frankly) is point out programming deficiencies and inconsistencies while playing videogames. I can't help it -- it's what I do! My current obsession is wii Sports Baseball. I got my wii about a month after its initial launch and like everyone else I was obsessed with bowling for a long time. I've since moved on to baseball and in my time playing the game I've noticed a few things that seem like glaring mistakes to me.

The Crowd Goes Wild

The most obvious of the issues in wii Sports Baseball is its use of the "crowd goes wild" roar. When an infield player dives to grab a ball, the crowd roars as it should. When a player dives and misses the ball, however, the crowd still roars. Why? No special play happened. Essentially the player failed -- that crowd sound should not be triggered.

No, You Only Watch Home Runs!

The most annoying issue is the foul ball watching issue. When a player hits a ball foul, the mii watches the spot where the ball went out right up until the pitcher releases the next pitch. The problem with this is that two objects move when the ball is pitched: the ball and the player's head. Shouldn't the player be looking at the pitcher before the next pitch? Maybe I have concentration issues but I find this incredibly annoying.

Ball-Through-Player

Every once in a while I'll put a ball right back up the middle and it will go right through the pitcher. Other times the pitcher puts a ball right through me. I realize this is the steroid era but come on! I realize this is targeted toward all ages so you can't show a pitcher or batter getting decapitated but you've gotta do better than this. Make the ball appear to go to the side of the player.

Does anyone else suffer from this same syndrome of analyzing games like I do?

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Discussion

  1. I totally find this stuff annoying, too. I know that my game programmer friends basically work like slaves to get games finished on time because they’re given insane deadlines. I guess I don’t blame game programmers anymore.

  2. Ryan

    When the player ‘dives and misses the ball’ it’s exciting for the audience. I think they gasp though.

    But otherwise, yeah, I do criticize game’s programming. There are some games where I’m like ‘wow, that must be amazing to code’ or, usually because of the special effects on the Nintendo and Wii Speak channels: ‘hey, I can do that with javascript!’.

  3. I’m ready to sell my Wii because there are no freaking good games for it. Just a bunch of shovelware CRAP.

  4. Kinda. But more often, I’m defending games from ignorant friends.

    Oh what the heck, Blizzard. Can’t you guys freaking keep these stupid bugs out of the game! That’s so obviously a bug!

    And then I slap them, pointing out that programming is complicated, and that a programmer who doesn’t create bugs is a programmer who doesn’t write code.

  5. @Ryan: I then, believe, that the “crowd roar” sound should happen right after the ball skates by the defensive player, not seconds later when the outfielder has gotten to the ball.

  6. Ethan

    Well, I think Golf is more buggy than baseball. I mean, I swing all the way in front of me and the club on the screen goes backwards… drives me insane!

  7. JoJo

    I ‘ve become addicted to Wii Baseball, but there are things that annoy me. Like when the pitcher hits me with a pitch and it’s ruled a ball and goes right through me. And the announcer is so annoying. “Strike!” “Ball!” “It’s out of the park!!” “Foul Ball” and especially the “BATTER OUT!!” It drives me insane. And I hate the mercy rule setting. I once scored 24 runs in the first inning, led 24-1 after 1 inning, and it called the game. I get so annoyed at that. I must have like a 3500 skill level and I’m STILL annoyed.

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