Keeping with the pathetic theme, we move on to the Gameplay section. Being a huge baseball fan, I found
Triple Play Baseball was not the simulation counterpart I was hoping for, but more of an arcade feel. For instance, the handling of the infielders and outfielders was completely horrible. When the ball was hit, the AI would more than likely give control to an outfielder instead of an infielder that could make the play. Speaking of crappy AI, I also found it incredibly difficult to keep my runners on base since they were too busy jumping off base on their own while getting picked off. In addition, if they slid back underneath the tag, there was still a good chance they'd be called out. It reminded me of the original
R.B.I. Baseball on Nintendo, where you needed to be standing up to be safe.
TPB's batting and pitching also led me to believe this was more of an arcade game, since the ball was tremendously juiced. Put it this way, if the pros got pitches this easy, we'd see Big Mac's record broken by a number of players. Frankly, the pitches were slow, so timing your swing won't be a problem. If that's not enough, 2-Player match-ups won't be any fun because you can't hide your pitches, thanks to the cursor interface showing where it will be. The only way to conceal the location is Aftertouch, though you can't tell how far you're redirecting it.
There are four modes to play around with in Triple Play Baseball: Single Game, Season, Playoffs and Big League Challenge. Single game is like an exhibition game, whereas Season and Playoffs just lead up to the World Series, only Playoffs skip the regular season. You can shorten the Season mode from 162 games down to 15. The Big League Challenge is like a Homerun Derby, where you select twelve different sluggers, which stadium to play, in an old-fashioned slugfest. Triple Play's other options include selecting how many innings to play, Creating Players, and drafting fantasy rosters.
