WorthPlaying writes: "One of the more popular sports titles in the early '90s was a little game called NBA Jam. Developed by Midway, it was best known for being a less serious take on the sports genre. You had all of the famous teams and a good number of the famous players, but the gameplay was more fast-paced and less serious than other official titles of the generation. It featured arcade-style gimmicks, such as an almost complete lack of rules and the ability to cause players to enter a sort of "super mode" when they performed well. As popular as NBA Jam was, the popularity quickly faded, and realistic sports games remained the norm. The Bigs is sort of a modern-day take on the ideas behind NBA Jam, featuring exaggerated arcade-style gameplay and real players, although with baseball instead of basketball. The Bigs was met with a fairly positive reception, although fans couldn't help but notice a few flaws and missing features. Fortunately, the developers listened, and The Bigs 2 is shaping up to fix all of the problems with the first game and add a few neat new features to boot."
A fan of The Bigs 2, Flynn from Leviathyn.com talks about how much he'd love to see the return of an arcade-style sports game in The Bigs 3.
Justin Lacey offers up some historical video game examples of how to improve the sport of baseball.
The only worthwhile addition to the game is "Become a Legend" where you take a slugger from obscurity to the Hall of Fame. This is great for a while, but after the 26th time your potential home run is caught by yet another 30ft diving catch you'll be left in controller-throwing frustration. It's then you realise The Bigs 2 is excellent against mates or for a blast online, but its arcade style means it's not best suited to longer game modes.
