Wiffle Ball – NDS – Review

I grew up more familiar with Wiffle
Ball more than baseball or softball. For those that don’t know exactly what it
is – a wiffle ball is a hollow, hole-riddled white plastic ball that you hit
with a hollow plastic bat. It’s much safer and easier for youngsters to pick up
and play, as you don’t need gloves or other equipment to get a game started. A
ball and the bat– makes a afternoon of fun without risk of head trauma or other
such damage. If you’re used to throwing a softball or baseball, it’s a weird
thing to go to the light swiss-cheese of a ball,  but once you get the hang of
it, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Never wanting to miss a chance at
offering something to appeal to a built-in audience, it makes sense that someone
would bring the classic recess game to your home where you can play it with even
less effort than the real thing. As if we need more reasons to be
lazy! DSI Games brings
you the clever-titled "Wiffle Ball" for the NDS. As previous
related reviews reveal, I am not a fan of real-live baseball (or golf), but
absolutely love to play them in a virtual environment. Having been a player and
fan of wiffle ball, I looked forward to playing something different on the
fabulous Nintendo DS system. I like such games because there are frequent breaks
in action, and you can develop your skills into goals such as championships and
various tournament settings. Wiffle Ball, however, falls flat and as
hollow as the ball itself in this awkward game.

The pitching and batting is
(terribly) controlled by use of the stylus and buttons. This is an annoying and
precise action. I get the feeling that they needed to incorporate the stylus to
maximize the available resources, as using it feels like a awkward exercise. As
if, halfway through the development process, someone yelled from the back of the
room: "Hey! We haven’t incorporated the stick-thingy, yet!" It takes a lot of
practice to get the hang of using the stylus, yet it never did feel that
comfortable even after that training. Otherwise, the game plays like any other
little league style of baseball. Simple rules and some fun when things go right.
Wiffle ball has its own special type of fun that makes it unique, and that magic
tries its best to reveal itself in this version. It just misses the marks for a
game with the potential of fun.

The audio is completely annoying,
and there are no choices for the player to make. So, I made my own choice: no
music! I didn’t care for what was offered, and why would there be music during a
game, anyway? It was a distraction. The sound of the mighty plastic bat making
contact with the hollow ball is as exciting as it… sounds. It’s a
unexciting splat that not even headphones could enhance.

The visuals stand out as some of the
better features. There are options for playing fields such as grass, a sandlot
and other realistic places that would encourage a real game a wiffle ball to
break out. Those locations look nice, with distinctive features and the
characters playing the game look nice in their limited perspective. Everything
looked as good as I imagine it could with it being a budget title.

This is a basic game without a lot
of complex rules and something that anyone can pick up and play quickly— in
real life. In the digital world, however, it’s a curve ball that misses the
plate.

Gameplay: 5.0
The learning curve for using the stylus in combination of the buttons causes
some ugly contortions. The stylus has no purpose; it just complicates a game
that, in real life, is cherished for its simplicity and ease to play. Even after
you learn how to use the stylus with the offense and defense, it never feels
comfortable or justified.  

Graphics: 6.5
The visuals are limited in scope. There are no long, panning views of grand
stadiums or emulations of real-life baseball parks. It’s just players in various
environments playing a simple game. The players look fine with no real
shortcuts, nor do they take shortcuts with the simple playgrounds where the
games take place. For a low cost title, you expect to see some blur and
ambiguous dioramas. It’s nice in the simplicity, and does not distract you from
the game play.

Sound: 4.0
The music is bad. 

Difficulty: Medium
Considering how long it took me to learn to not completely hate the
stylus, I could rank it as much harder. However, it is, at the core, a kid’s
game in real life and also the audience for the game. It becomes much easier to
play when the basics are learned, so somewhere in the middle is where you find
the level of difficulty. Tough to learn, not so bad to continue once you get
swinging. 

Concept: 5.0
It’s a great game to play in real life. I know that I personally played
wiffle ball long before I got my hands on a softball or baseball. They’re easier
and cheaper to come by, and do much less (potential) damage. Thus, it’s
school-yard friendly sports equipment. Heck – at full speed, I can’t imagine
taking a wiffle ball to the head would cause long-term damage, though I don’t
want to test that theory. With the basics and fun involved with the real deal,
I’d hope the game would step up to the plate and be a winner. Such things like
street basketball and sandlot baseball have come to the videogame world with
success, so why couldn’t this game hit the mark? 

Overall: 5.6
I wish this game had delivered at much fun as the real life inspiration. The
potential and real world model was there for the emulation, but something along
the transition didn’t make it out of the batter’s box. The complexity of having
that annoyance stylus maneuvering just added frustration to a game that was
already missing "pep." It’s a budget title, but you always like it when someone
goes beyond the limits and adds that little extra to make it feel more like the
bigger titles in the sports genre. A recent example would be the $5 Burger King
titles that gave much more fun than the price would lead you to believe. Though
not sports titles (does a cart race count?), they were much more fun than the
player might assume. Wiffle Ball strikes out.