0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bottom of the 9th 99

       

Bottom of the 9^th  99, also known as Jikkyou American Baseball 2 in Japan, is a baseball simulation sports game. The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Chicago and published by Konami of America, the game is the last in the rebooted Bottom of the 9^th franchise

The game released exclusively on the Playstation in North America and Japan, with the game initially releasing in North America on the 31^st of August 1998. The game released in Japan a couple of months later on the 8^th of October 1998. The game as well as having licensed players in the game, the game also features Baltimore Orioles centre fielder Brady Anderson on the cover, he also appears on the Japanese versions cover as well.

Notable people who worked on the game, Norio Takemoto who worked as a Designer and Producer on the game. roles he also held for the previous two games up Bottom of the 9^th  and Bottom of the 9th 97. Most recently he has worked as a Production Project Manager on the Pro Evolution Soccer series.

Jun Funahashi who worked as a Sound Designer on the game has had a long career in the video games industry and a long career with Konami, his career dates all the way back to 1986 and the NES game Crackout. He worked on the Sound for the 1989 released Castlevania III Dracula's Curse, as well as the 1992 released Contra Force. Like Masahiro Ueno he worked on the Frogger series as either and Audio Director or Audio Manager from 2001 to 2006. His final credit is for the 2007 released Midway title Stranglehold, where he provided Additional Audio Support

Masahiro Ueno who worked as a Production Supervisor for Bottom of the 9^th  99, the same role he held for the previous Bottom of the 9^th games. He was the Producer for the Konami Collector's Series in 2002, the first being a collection of Castlevania & Contra games released on Windows, the second was the Konami Collector's Series Arcade Advanced which was released for the Game Boy Advance.

Following those releases in 2002, Ueno worked mostly on the Frogger series, working as a Producer on five Frogger titles from 2002 up until 2005. Following this Ueno moved to MySims and the 2007 Wii release as part of the Production Team, he would go on to be a Senior Producer on MySims SkyHeroes which was released in 2010.

Caiphus Moore who worked as an Art/Graphics designer on the game, has recently worked on the Sims 4, starting with work as a Character Modeller, holding the same role for the various expansions as well as working on the games Art and Animations.

Bottom of the 9^th 99 the follow up to Bottom of the 9^th 97 and the last of the rebooted Bottom of the 9^th franchise offers several new features to set itself apart from the previous game. Now features include and increased number of stadiums on offer now up to a total of 30, sadly like previous games the stadiums are not licensed and named after the cities where the teams play.

The game features new motion captured animations for the players, the scenario mode that first debuted in Bottom of the 9^th 97 returns with another 20 scenarios for the player to pull off. Another 700 plus roster of real life players also return with signature player styles and ratings based on the 1997 MLB season as well.

Bottom of the 9^th 99 features a total of six games modes for the player to choose from, the first in exhibition mode where the player can play against either the computer or another human player in a one off match. The season mode returns, this mode allows the player to adjust the length of the season from a minimum of 15 games up to the full season of 162 games.

The aforementioned scenario mode, training mode also returns to help new players hone their skills and allow veterans of the series to shake off any cobwebs, if you are not wanting to play through an entire season you can of course always opt for the Playoff mode or go straight to the World Championship.

Additional changes to this years release include one for one trades, four difficulty levels to choose from to test your baseball talents, defensive shifts, errors, substitutions, day and night games return as well as wind having an effect on the game as well as the choice of choosing your starting roster.

Gameplay and controls wise the game is pretty much unchanged from the 97 release. The only real major change is the increased number of camera angles on offer for when batting, these include behind the plate, from behind the pitcher, as well as angled views to the right and left of home plate.

The cursor system that is used for pitching and hitting return, this system when pitching uses a rectangle that can be positioned anywhere over the plate. When batting the hitter will have an X in the centre of the their cursor, the size of the cursor depends on the hitters skill level. The pitcher will place their cursor somewhere over the place, once done the batter will need to align their X cursor with the O cursor. If you are a beginner this can be switched to a locked on mode to make things easier.

Basic controls for Batting, the D-Pad is used to move your batting cursor, to swing at the ball the X button is used, you have additional shot types to choose from as well. You can do a bunt with the Circle button, a hit and run can be done with either the R1 or R2 shoulder buttons. You can also change the swing type from either a contact swing or a power swing, this is done with either the L1 or L2 shoulder buttons. The select button is used to centre the batting cursor while the Start button calls time.

When running the D-Pad is used to select a base, you can advance all runners if you have multiple runners on the bases, to advance all runners one base the Triangle button is used. You can return all runners by one base by pressing the Circle button, you can command all runners to stop, this is done by pressing either the Triangle, Circle or Square button + the X button.

You can also advance a single runner by pressing the Square button, in order to get your runners to move faster to make it to base before the ball is fielded or to sneak that extra run in you can press together either L1 and L2 or R1 and R2. When Pitching the D-Pad is used to select the type of pitch available, the number of pitch types will depend on the skill of your player.

To throw the pitch the X button is used, to catch out any runners that are trying to steal a base, you can throw the ball to any of the three bases, with the Circle button throwing the ball to first, the Triangle button to second and the Square button to third. You can hide your catchers mitt by pressing the R1 shoulder button, you also have some tactical control with the ability to push your defence in or out as well as bring your corners in.

When fielding again the D-Pad is used to move your players, when fielding you can make the player you are controlling jump or dive, this is done by pressing any of the face buttons plus the D-Pad for which direction you want to jump or dive in.

Once you have fielded the ball you can throw the ball to any of the bases using the face buttons. The X button will have your fielder throw the ball straight to home place, Circle will throw to first, Triangle to second and Square to third base. You can also throw the ball to the cutoff man by pressing any of the shoulder buttons.

Critically while the game did receive a few more reviews than the previous entry in the series there were still small in number and just as average if not a little worse. The game received four reviews at an average as you can get 50, while this 99 edition sunk to a low of a below average 42.

As usual we will start with the best of them which is a 50 rated review from German publication Video Games. The reviewer finding that the game can be appealing to collectors who don’t want to miss a baseball game in their collection, with this kind of challenge can be appealing. But for everyone who values fast paced and above all good sports games, it’s a clear hands off.

All Game Guide were next up with the second 50 rated review, the reviewer finding the games interface great, they continued by saying. Now Konami has to step up to the place and deliver the complete package to satisfy fans who want a worthy alternative to other Playstation baseball games.

IGN are next up with their 50 rated review, the reviewer has always had a place in their games library for Baseball games, with it always being great to play a new one and see what innovations game designers have come up with.

The review continued by saying. But in Konami’s case there’s just nothing terribly exciting here, with the reviewer critical of the lack of licensed fields and teams, along with the game being generally slower than other baseball games.

In addition to this the reviewer had issues with the game offensive AI, with the reviewer calling it terrible to add to the overall slow and dull games, to conclude the reviewer said the following. There really hasn't been an end-all baseball title on the PlayStation this season, unfortunately. Bottom of the Ninth '99 isn't terrible, but it could have been much better.

GameSpot are next up and are the last of the 50 rated reviews, the reviewer overall finding Bottom of the 9^th 99 to be a fair baseball game, but continued by saying, but when it comes to sports games fair is not what you are looking for. They continued by saying, You want to know that you have spent your money on the best baseball game out there. And Bottom of the 9^th, to put it simply, isn’t.

The final review which comes from The Video Game Critic who rated Bottom of the 9^th 99 at a below average 42, had the following to say on the game. I wouldn't call Bottom of the 9th '99 bottom of the barrel, but you can find better baseball games for the Playstation.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of the game at Gamedude you will be looking at just $1 for your copy of the game. If on the other hand you are in the market for a copy of Bottom of the 9^th 99 from Gamedude, you will be looking at an outlay of $5.

Retrogames.co.uk are next up, unsurprisingly this Japanese and North American game is not available or even listed on the site. So we will quickly move on to eStarland.com where we find the game listed, however at the time of writing the game is currently out of stock.

When in stock the game has a usual price of between $2.48 and $4.50. Also on offer at eStarland.com is a trade in for the game, with up to just $1.25 cents being paid for a complete copy of the game. This price will decrease to just 44 cents if the copy is a disc only copy of the game.

Lastly we have Amazon.com where we find a limited supply of the game available. With the cheapest complete copy of the game on offer coming in at good condition copy for $10.99. This copy does however ship with Amazon so the free shipping only applies to Prime Users, and those spending at least $25.

The next copy on offer is another complete copy, this copy comes in very good condition as well as coming with free shipping (Not by Amazon), this copy will set you back $11.62. Another complete copy follows this, it comes in good condition and is the Black Label version of the game, this copy is priced up at $11.94.

The penultimate reasonably priced used copy on offer is another good condition Black Label copy, this copy will set you back $11.99 once shipping has been factored in. The final used and complete copy is another Black Label version, this copy comes in very good condition and is priced at $13.96.

In addition to these used copies of the game there is one new copy that is currently on the market, this copy is priced up at $29.99 with a $3.99 shipping fee bringing the total cost of this new copy to $33.98. Priced above this we have the usual overprice couple of copies, in this instance two used copies priced at $48.84 and $56.60.

Written by

P J Gibbon