The very first time I played Hardball 5, it reminded me of playing an old game I used to play on the Nintendo Entertainment System called Major League Grand Slam. This game features rosters of all the teams that were in play in 1997 and has a feature where you can trade players around between the teams and can buy a team. Starting off you can simulate a season of play I assume based on the actual 1997 season. You can also use features such as exhibition games or batting practice and pitching practice and a home run derby where you try to beat your own highscore.
It is fun to try to get the high score, but it is also practical, because you learn how to operate the controls.
Gameplay is fairly simple; during an exhibition game you can sub players or simply stick with the roster they give you if you are not that concerned about it. You start off batting and your guy walks up to the plate. You will then be given a list of batting options such as Power swing or Contact swing, bunt and strategy. If you get a man on base the strategy menu will pop up first and you can choose things like hit and run or steal base. The pitching menu consists of the same type of menu with
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options such as curveball, fastball, sinker and slider. When the ball is thrown to you, there is a yellow box with a moving cursor in it that gives you an idea of where the ball will be pitched to simulate "seeing" the ball and you can decide if you want to swing or not. It is the same with pitching where you get a yellow box with a moving cursor in it where you can decide where to throw the ball. My only complaint about the controls was that the fielding controls were sometimes hard to control. When a ball is hit, there is a circle in the outfield where it is going to land and you have to try to get to that circle before the ball does. The characters move fast from left to right, but then from front to back they are really slow and sometimes hard to control to the desired area but other than that the controls are good. Outside of all of that, the game plays like a regular baseball game. Score more runs than the opposition, field well, hit well and pitch well to win.
Graphics for this game are very good. It is in 2D made to look almost 3D by the way the coloring of the players are and the motions they take throwing the ball or batting. Its almost like they took a video camera filmed a game and made it a little blurry or shaded.
All in all I'd rate this game an 8 out of 10 for great graphics, easy to learn controls and entertaining gameplay.
