''Mike Piazza's StrikeZone'' is a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

game licensed by

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

and was released for the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

. It was developed by Devil's Thumb Entertainment and released on June 18, 1998, by

GT Interactive Atari, Inc. is an American video gaming company based in New York City, and a subsidiary of the Atari SA holding company. It is the main entity serving the commercial Atari brand globally since 2003. The company currently publishes games based o ...

. While being endorsed by

Mike Piazza Michael Joseph Piazza ( ; born September 4, 1968) is an American former professional baseball catcher who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1992 to 2007, and is a member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. He intended ...

, ''Strike Zone'' represents all of the MLB players in the 1997–98 season including those in the National League and American League.

Gameplay

The game offers standard baseball game play with all 30 official stadiums, and a choice of leagues to play for, but also offers the player the option to design their own team and league, from the logo, and uniforms all the way up to player abilities and appearance. The player can play a single game or a season of 15, 81, or 162 games, the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

game,

All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game that showcases the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or division, bu ...

, or compete in a batting challenge known as the

Home Run Derby The Home Run Derby is an annual home run hitting competition in Major League Baseball (MLB) customarily held the day before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, MLB All-Star Game, which places the contest on a Monday in July. In the context ...

. The official players in ''Mike Piazza's StrikeZone'' have different batting and pitching styles as well as stamina that causes them to perform with less precision after being used continuously. When batting, the ball has a flame-like trail behind it that tells the hitter whether it is in the Strike Zone (red) or in the Ball Zone (blue), allowing the player to better choose which balls to hit. Saving the season, and saving a player-created team, require separate Controller Paks. While playing with a

Rumble Pak The is a removable device from Nintendo that provides force feedback while playing video games. Games that support the Rumble Pak cause it to vibrate in select situations, such as when firing a weapon or receiving damage, to immerse the player i ...

it cannot be replaced with the Controller Pak, and a separate controller is needed to save.

Development

The game was developed by Devil's Thumb Entertainment, a company founded in November 1996 in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...

. Some of the development team had previously worked on the

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania a ...

game '' Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball''.

Reception

With a long list of customizable features and early test previews, the game received good previews from gaming sites such as ''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

''. When finally released, however, it received unfavorable reviews according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

. It was criticized for its graphics, few voice clips, continuous sound elements repeating themselves over and over, simple challenges and unrealistic home run hitting. It was compared to contemporary games such as '' All-Star Baseball '99'' and '' Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.'', both released for N64 that same year. ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' said, "There are really only two baseball choices for Nintendo 64 this year – and ''Strike Zone'' isn't one of them." ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

''s Kraig Kujawa described the presentation as "so amateurish that it could almost be mistaken as a bad 16-bit game". Of common note by ''

'' critics the poor detail and animation in the visuals, particularly with the players. Wrote Kujawa, "pitchers throw the ball with what seems to be about three frames of animation and the bat swings aren't much better." Another one of the magazine's reviewers, Shawn Smith, panned the audio's low fidelity.

Notes

References

External links