Backyard Sports is BACK: The Official Backyard Sports Trailer Dropped This Morning, Games to Be Released Within The Coming Months
SI - Grab your glove, hop on your bike and race to Steele Stadium—because the iconic Backyard Sports franchise is officially coming back to a neighborhood near you.
Playground Productions, a production company dedicated to creating family-friendly content, announced Tuesday that the beloved video game series is returning "in the coming months" with the same aesthetic of the games released in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“We're incredibly excited to reintroduce Backyard Sports to a new generation of players,” Chris Waters, chief product officer at Playground Productions, said in a statement. “We're taking great care to preserve the look and feel that made the original games so special while updating them with modern features and gameplay that today's audience expects. I can’t wait for fans to see what we’re building on the Playground.”
Hell of a year for nostalgic video games. First we get EA Sports college football back in our lives for the first time in a decade. Now Backyard Sports is making a comeback. I could argue that those two franchises are my two favorite video game franchises of all time. EA Sports' NHL and NFL Street are up there as well, but NCAA Football and Backyard Sports are both top 5 at minimum.
I haven't tried to play a Backyard Sports game in years. If I were to play the original right now, I have no idea if it would hold up. I don't know if I'd get the same amount of joy out of the game that I did as a child, or if the gameplay itself would be so slow and basic that I'd quickly lose interest. But in my head I associate Backyard Sports with the best times of my life. So whatever this Playground Productions ends up putting out on the market I'm willing to give it a shot.
For the sake of this blog, I'm going to stick to talking Backyard Baseball. That was by far the best and most popular. Part of me thinks the best thing they could do with Backyard Baseball is make it a phone game. With the original computer game, the controls were so rudimentary and the gameplay moved slow enough that I think it could translate well to a phone or tablet. I also think people are more likely to play it if it's something you can quickly pick up and put down. Or just stick with the classic computer game. That'd be fantastic as well. But I'm not sure the game can translate well to a system like XBox or PS5. Once Backyard Sports moved to Gamecube back in the day it was over for me. Maybe I had just outgrown it, but the minute they "complicated" the controls even the slightest bit, the magic was gone. If it's too much like a modern day sports video game, it's not going to be the same.
Hopefully Playground Productions can get Backyard Baseball right. They just have to make sure to give us all the original characters. Let me select them one by one from the bleachers. Don't get carried away with modernizing the graphics. Based on the trailer it looks like they're doing a good job in that department. If they want to throw in a few new characters I'm fine with that. That goes for the stadiums as well.
I need them to make season play the same as it was, where your team starts in the lowest level division and gets promoted up the ranks as you win championships. If I remember correctly, as you move your way up divisions, the teams you play get cooler names and logos, as opposed to the original 10 options.
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Unless I'm confusing the new teams & logos in higher divisions thing with Backyard Soccer… But I do know if you make it though all the divisions, you'll eventually make it to the Super Ultra Championship of The Universe Series at the Super Colossal Dome. That's how you know you've made it in the Backyard Baseball world.
And I swear to god if they even think about renaming color commentator Vinnie The Gooch because "Gooch" is inappropriate…
Note: I also just remembered in Backyard Soccer how they have the mid-season Off-The-Wall Indoor Tournament. That also ruled. Damn I really just want to play the classic games now. I'm gonna have to download them on my computer ASAP.
Sorry I'm rambling at this point. But naturally, since we're talking Backyard Baseball, I have to put together a lineup. If I'm being perfectly honest, and I know this is a terrible move/take, I rarely picked Pete Wheeler. I can't really tell you why. Maybe I didn't like the shape of his head as a kid. Maybe I didn't respect the way he swung the bat. Maybe I just thought he was too much of a dumbass. But for some reason I wasn't a Pete Wheeler guy. So this certainly isn't the best roster I could put together, but to the best of my memory it's the one I typically rolled with.
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The Red Fishes:
Stephanie Morgan - SS
Pablo Sanchez - CF
Keisha Phillips - 2B
Mikey Thomas - LF
Achmed Kahn - C
Jocinda Smith - 1B
Amir Kahn - RF
Ricky Johnson - 3B
Kenny Kawaguchi - P
If I was trying to maximize talent I'd get more speed in there. I'd take Pete Wheeler instead of Kenny Kawaguchi and have Amir Kahn pitch. I put Dante Robinson in for Ricky Johnson as well (I just always had a soft spot for Ricky, so I'd pick him every time and let him play third base). I might move Pablo to the infield as well, but the problem is he's short. Line drives would go over his head a lot. I like tall infielders. For example, Keisha Phillips is great at second base because she takes up the entire right side of the infield by just standing there..
In my opinion, Backyard Baseball actually peaked with Backyard Baseball 2001 when they brought in Major League players as kids. Smack dab in the middle of the steroid era. On one team you could have Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds (although that was pre-steroids Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds when they were still skinny and fast). Curt Schilling was in the mix as well (not a steroids guy just a crazy person). And shoutout Jeff Bagwell.
That's the Backyard Sports game I played more than anything else. I wouldn't hate another version of the game with modern day MLB players as kids. But for this first one, I want Backyard kids only. Also, I wouldn't hate if they gave a little more character & personality to the generic computer players who all had one of 3 different skin colors and head shapes.
Don't fuck this up Playground Productions. I've never heard of you before, but you have a big responsibility on your hands. Just keep things simple. People loved the Backyard Sports games as they were back when they were on PC only. As long as they don't stray too far away from that, they can't fuck it up too much.
And for the record, if I were Playground Productions, I'd release the games in this order:
1. Backyard Baseball (most important game to get right)
2. Backyard Soccer (clear second best Backyard Sports game for me)
3. Backyard Football (clear third best, but still a great game)
4. Backyard Basketball or Hockey (fell off huge when they got to making basketball and hockey)