One team throws the ball, the other team hits it with a bat. I'd recommend the 2001 version.Īs far as sports games go, they don't get much more simple than the original Backyard Baseball. However, from a gameplay perspective, all three are essentially the same, so it doesn't entirely matter which version you pick up for yourself. Except there's one problem: Every voice and sound in the third game was re-recorded, and I don't like it! It sounds like a cheap knockoff of itself, leading me to prefer the 2nd game over the first and third ones. Because of this, you'd expect the third game to be the best version of the three. The big difference is the graphical upgrade to a higher resolution.

The third game, Backyard Baseball 2003, is almost identical to the second one. However, it also includes bug fixes, custom character creation, an updated baseball animation, and a selection of real life players to choose from. The second game, Backyard Baseball 2001, uses the same graphics as the first. The selection of characters are all original. The first one, released in 1997, is the one everybody knows and loves. The original 2D Backyard Baseball on the PC is actually split up into three different games.

Backyard baseball 2003 settings