The Slugfest series appearing on a Nintendo console? You better believe it! Midway is delivering the goods with adrenaline-style gameplay packed into MLB Slugfest 20-03. With lots of features and outrageous plays, does Slugfest live up to its name?
Slugfest rules!

Whether you’d rather smack your friends in grand slamming action or assume the role of a manager, MLB Slugfest has got you covered! Several gameplay modes include Quick Play, Challenge, Season and Tournament Mode. But before getting started, it’s always a wise decision to adjust your options. You can choose from 5 difficulty levels including Trainee, Rookie, Pro, Veteran or All-Star. Along with that you can set how long you would like your game(s) to be by selecting 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 innings. Although every pitch is hittable, MLB Slugfest allows you to play the game without any balls called. You may select the off option to have only strikes called. For the better gaming experience turn the rumble feature on to feel the power when crushing the ball outfield. Audio options are also available for your comfort. MLB Slugfest 20-03 requires at least 11 free blocks on your memory card in order to save statistics, seasons and records.

Getting started is quite unusual and you may seem lost at first. Not to worry, MLB Slugfest has all your appetites for the baseball elites with game modes including Quick Play, Challenge, Season and Tournament.


Can’t spare any extra time for a regular season? No problem, Midway has added the Quick Play feature for you to jump right into the baseball season by simply choosing your team and your opponent and you’re ready! Quick Play Mode is basically an Exhibition Mode. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to save personal records in Quick Play Mode. To save personal records and more you’ll need to start in Challenge Mode.

Can you shatter Barry Bonds homerun record? Challenge Mode allows you to enter a name and pin number, challenge a human player or challenge all 30 MLB Slugfest teams with complete stat tracking and full gameplay customization. All stats are automatically saved onto your Memory Card. It’s nearly identical to Quick Play Mode but this time you get to track your records and attempt to shatter either you or your friend’s records.


Do you have what it takes to be a champion? In Season Mode, you are the Head Manager and are in charge for leading your team straight to the World Series through a 52 game season. With stats such as League Leaders, Team Stats, League Standings, Team Schedule and League Schedule available, you can track down every parameter of your team attributes.

Forget the regular Season! Jump right into the October action with your friends in Tournament Mode. You can play a tournament of 4 to 8 teams to determine who is the best in a series of best out of 1 game.

Along with all these goodies, you get the best action possible packed into one game. From spectacular catches to In-Game fights, MLB Slugfest 20-03 showcases some of the prettiest catches in any game such as the “bow catch” or the “Between your legs catch” or the “mid-air dive”. Other features include the ability to catch fire after you start the game 2 for 2 or better. Turbo is also a great option to hit “the pill” with more authority or throw faster pitches. And what’s a baseball game without a good fight? Players can throw punches or actually begin a major fight! Simply press the X button to throw punches to your opponents and on occasion he may lose the ball giving you the opportunity to steal base. If you’d rather watch a cinematic FMV fight, simply throw a pitch knocking out your opponent more than 3 times and you got yourself one hell of a fight! The extra in game scenarios are virtually unlimited. You never know what players can pull up their sleeves, which is a real beauty.

No game is perfect”. And certainly MLB Slugfest 20-03 is not one of those games to question that statement. Although MLB Slugfest 20-03 offers a lot of specialties it also does not contain many other features. These other features include homerun derby, create-a-player, create a team and career mode. In my opinion, I believe that MLB Slugfest 20-03 would have been in competition for one of the best baseball games around if they had simply put these options included. Another problem with MLB Slugfest 20-03 are loading times. This game must probably have the longest load time for any game on the Nintendo Gamecube! It takes approximately 20-30 seconds to load. Although Midway attempted to underlie this issue by covering up the load times with pictures of cheerleaders, this is probably the most annoying part of the entire game. (although the pictures are tasteful).


When it comes to most sports games, controls play a major role in over gameplay value. It looks as if Midway has worked hard in this area, but there are some areas, which can instantly piss you off due to the style of the Gamecube controller.

In my opinion, the fielding is perhaps the most difficult controls to correlate. I specifically had trouble with the C-Stick passing. Although the C-Stick Passing offers a much more efficient passing system it is fairly difficult seeing as how sometimes the game reads the wrong direction and may throw to 2nd base even though you attempted to throw to 1st base.

Many gamers tend to look at games from a graphical stanza. MLB Slugfest 20-03 delivers a good amount of visuals from true to life faces to fully developed arenas. Each MLB player is designed with realistic looking faces and bodies along with batting positions. Each player shows emotions in every possible play, even while in motion! Now that’s detail! All MLB Arenas look magnificent and are well designed like the pros. Although it would have been nice if Midway would have added distractions within the stadium such as the moving #7 train over Shea Stadium to give it more of a realistic experience. Overall, the visuals within MLB Slugfest 20-03 are fairly impressive, but not the best in a sports game.


Does MLB Slugfest 20-03 bore you with repetitive commentary? Not at all! In my opinion, MLB Slugfest 20-03 probably has one of the best commentary in a sports game. The commentators will become repetitive after about 6-7 innings of a full MLB game, but probably the commentator’s spotlight shines when they talk about nothing and just talk about their lives. The sound effects in the arena are well developed also with roaring fans and arena baseball music such as “Take me out to the ball game”. And when you rip that baseball wide open you can definitely hear the sensational slam. It looks as if Midway has developed a fairly well range of sounds.

Is MLB Slugfest worth spending $49.99? If your looking for a game that will last you until next season then MLB Slugfest 20-03 is not your game. Basically, once you’re done with your regular season the game begins to get boring and defeating your records gets boring after a while. This game would surely make a good game rental but not worth your cash. A career mode would have made this game longer lasting, but it looks as if Midway put no effort to make this happen.

MLB Slugfest is quite a fun and a useful multi-player game, but the 1- player options are not long lasting and will get you bored once you win your regular season. I wouldn’t necessarily buy this game, but it makes a really fun rental.