Backyard Sports: Baseball 2007 (TimeMage)
Format: Advance
Genre: Sports
Developer: GameBrains
Publisher: Atari

Review
Honestly, I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. It's a baseball game, but a good one. This could very well be the best baseball game on the GBA. It's fun, easy to play, and has great music. There are 2 modes to this game, pick-up game and season play. Actually that's not true, there are also 2 minigames that I didn't check out. The reason I didn't check them out? Just look how long this game took me to beat season play! 17 hours!!! This game is a lunker to play through, but it's fairly easy to play through. It's a basic baseball style with a full cast of choosable teammates. This game also has several unlockable characters and 2 unlockable fields as well. The unlockables are very easy to get as well, as I managed to unlock all of them during a single season series.

The season play goes through 18 rounds until the playoffs which are 3/5 for division and 4/7 for the semi and finals. Basically a total of 29 games!!! Now you'll understand why it took me 17 long hours. The gameplay itself is fast and atypical to baseball but has a few curve balls thrown in. There are 3 additional systems in the game (2 of which I turned off) that change up the gameplay... Powerups, Stamina, and Errors. Naturally I turned off stamina and errors. Powerups change the game from a standard action, to a party game environment. I never figured out what unlocked the powerups when they are given to you, but they add a ridiculous amount of power to your arsenal. The batters get things like 'Aluminum Bat', 'Popcorn Bat', 'Butter Fingers' and more. The pitchers get stuff like 'Zigzag', 'Slowball', 'The Fang' and many more. Learning where to best hit the ball with each of your players can make games very one-sided, and even more one sided when you get aluminum or lightning powerups. David Ortiz and Pablo Sanchez hard carried me through the game, but big shoutouts to Joey Macadoo and his can-do music. The best stat in this game is the running stat, since even bad hitters can make bases if they are fast enough. #ShoeBrain

Hot Tips: Throw high and inside.

All in All, This game definitely gets a high score for it's great gameplay, music, and altogether gameplay and style. The downsides of this one aren't all that big, but rather, small little things here and there, like not being able to see player milestones for some reason.. the intro to the game taking 30 seconds... and custom player characters literally having next to no stats. They can't compete at all and don't have faces!! The game also takes a pretty large amount of time to finish.

TimeMage's verdict: