MLB Power Pros for Wii Reviews by Gamers

In Japan the Power Pro series is synonymous with videogame baseball. Having the same impact and gameplay style as the US's RBI Baseball series, Power Pro got its start on the Super Famicom, and has since spawned nearly 70 titles spanning over ten portable and home consoles. Despite its raging success in Japan, most English-speaking gamers have never had a chance to play a single inning of Power Pro baseball, as the series never made the jump to the USA. Now nearly 15 years since the series debut America is finally getting the Power Pro series, thanks to a collaboration between 2K Sports and Konami, and it's well worth the wait. Power Pro isn't a normal game of baseball. While other franchises have evolved from year to year, now almost realistic in nature, Power Pro has - and continues to - embrace an extreme style with a very specific core design. Rather than striving for realism the Power Pro players instead are made up of anime-inspired chibi characters lacking a mouth, nose, ears, and any connecting extensions of the body including neck, arms, and legs. Comparable to modern-day Miis, Power Pro is all about nailing a caricature-like style of the intended player, focusing only on the eyes and simplistic - but still intricate - animations of the pro they represent. As for the general gameplay, it's almost entirely two-button, literally taking the swing, throw, and running control of classic NES games here in America and putting the basic - but polished - control into an overwhelmingly deep design. Imagine RBI Baseball for NES if it never died out, and never evolved beyond its core design, and you've got the Power Pro feel in a nutshell. For our first Power Pro experience here in America 2K managed to tie in the MLB license into the already well-established Power Pro design, so it was literally a matter of taking the characters, gameplay, and depth of Power Pro and adapting it for a USA release. The game is available on both PS2 and Wii, so while you aren't getting a ton of Wii-specific actions in the game - there's no IR at all, and what little motion control there is stays confined to the "Wii Remote" mode of the game - you are getting a first-year effort that feels like it's already worked out the kinks of a new series. Since the game is entirely classic in its design, you'll need to use the Wii-mote/nunchuk, classic controller, or GCN controller, but the options within those modes are pretty deep. You can switch between using analog stick or d-pad, or flip buttons around as you see fit, but there's no way to use any Wii motion for about 85% of the game, and there's no Wii-mote only NES-style control method either. It's annoying that no motion made it into the core modes of the game, but Power Pros should more than win gamers back with the sheer amount of depth and options included.

And when it comes to depth, Power Pro significantly raises the bar not only for Wii sports games, but most MLB games out there overall. Practice mode alone is large enough for someone to get lost in for hours, as you can tweak every little option possible. When running fielding practice you'll have slider-bar control over hit power, height angle, and positioning, allowing you to run play after play of literally any possible hit that would come up in an actual game. With the press of a button the screen snaps back and you begin again. When it comes to player data any and every aspect of a given player or position can be tweaked, changing the numbers in any attribute (strength, agility, general batting, morale, and the like) on the fly. Want Bonds to hit at a higher angle consistently? Switch his angle bar and he'll crack higher long-balls. Have a preferred player on a team that you want to improve with superstar abilities? Assign over 50 powers to any player, including things like improved speed from home plate, larger hit zones when swinging, or the ability to affect the entire team's morale based on his performance. Add in pitching abilities and you've got an estimated 75+ skills to work with. It's simply staggering. Break that down even farther into your overall player data and things get ridiculous. From the moment you create a file the game records the data for every pitch thrown, every swing taken, or every contact with the ball, laying it all out in massive grids of info. Will you ever care to know that you only hit 33.2% of circle change-ups thrown on the bottom left corner of the strike zone while using a lefty batter? Probably not, but if you do the info is there for your consideration. Of course that data can be put to good use as well, showing which teams you play better against or your own general hot/cold read-out as a player, but it's just as fun watching the insane amount of stat-tracking occur as it is to actually use it. This insane attention to detail is carried throughout the bulk of the game, and it soon becomes apparent that the Power Pro franchise may look sweet and innocent, but that it's a game build for literally any age. No matter which mode of play you're working within you can change any aspect of the game, allowing for auto-pitching, fielding, batting, base-running, or management, each with five modes of AI to use. If your little brother wants to play, simply turn everything to auto minus the swinging or pitching. When you come back, flip it all back on and rock a more traditional game. Whenever these options are selected - as with any controller switches or profile changes - the game recognizes and saves on the fly; it's a remarkable mix of intuitive gameplay and depth. As for the game modes, Power Pro again fails to disappoint. In Success Mode - our favorite of the game - you'll work within a semi-RPG story mode, creating a player and then following him from his first year in college to the MLB. Along the way you'll need to manage your time and vitality via a HUB screen, deciding to use your time to either practice certain aspects of your game - used for level-ups - get a job to pay for stat-increasing items or special abilities, juggle a girlfriend that will help your popularity rating which can sway potential scouts, or study for your classes so you don't fail out of school. Success Mode doesn't joke around either, as you can actually fail due to a lack of studying or making bad decisions. A fate system is included, which deals you answer cards for life's choices, forcing you to turn down certain situations in order save up for your priorities. As an example, I worked to keep a girlfriend by constantly going out on dates and doing what she wanted. Come baseball season the coach asked me if I wanted to be captain, and I'd used all my "Yes" cards to please my virtual lover-girl; I had to decline. Success Mode won't be for everyone, but for those that get into it you'll have dozens of hours of gameplay.

Even season mode, which blends the story and feel of Success Mode with a full team, is incredibly in-depth, allowing you to trade players, train each member of your club on certain attributes, level up the entire team via in-game achievements that add to your budget, buy new powers for your team through equipment and items, and level up your club, gaining access to more difficult challenges for even higher rewards. The season mode goes on for ten years overall, which could last hundreds of hours if you actually play each game, train your players manually, and spend adequate time powering up your team through every option. Success Mode also works as your create-a-player system, so like it or love it created players need to go through the steps to actually make it to the major leagues. You can always grab any random player on your favorite team and simply change his identity step by step (name, attributes, positions, skills, and the like), but if you want to take part in code trading with other friends to swap your MLB pro from system to system you'll need to bring the player up the right way; through Success Mode. Unfortunately the game has no online options this year, so all code swapping must be done outside of the game. Still, create a code, send it to a friend or message board user, and you can instantly draft him in season mode or the like. It'd take far too long to detail every aspect of the game we're digging, as it's simply huge. Instead, we'll look into the main Wii-specific mode of MLB Power Pros, which is the "Wii Remote" mode. With just the Wii-mote in hand players can participate in either exhibition games or home run derby challenges. Actions are simple, including Wii Sports-like waggle for pitches and swings, and shaking for added base-running speed. You can also hold the Wii-mote sideways to bunt, adjusting the angle by tilting the controller. Bunting works, but direction can be difficult to use, as the remote seems to jitter too much for a solid directional input via only tilt. Still, the options are again there, as you can use any user-created team, MLB team, a Mii team off a controller, or a Mii All Star team taken off the console you're playing on. Only the head is taken from the system, plopped onto the Power Pro character design, and random stats are determined for each player. The experience is deeper than Wii Sports Baseball though, as you can pick which base you throw to, you'll need to base-run and pitch with a variety of pitches, and can - to a certain extent - manipulate the ball position with use of the - and + keys and d-pad. It isn't amazing, but as a Wii-specific aspect of Power Pro it's a good start, and we look forward to this section being deepened in later versions. We'd play this mode over Wii Sports Baseball any day. As for the presentation elements of the game, Power Pros has the look and feel of a PS2 or GCN game, but still manages to hold its own as a first-generation Wii title. The graphical style is simple in nature, but should be enough for both kids and niche gamers alike, and the audio presentation is great, including a ton of commentary throughout the games that rarely becomes repetitive. Little aspects of the presentation, such as the "hall of fame" banners in the Twins' Metrodome stadium are made to fit Power Pro, actually showing Power Pro characters instead of real-life MLB players on all the posters. When in season mode, the stadium of your choice can barely be seen outside of the windows of your clubhouse. The little things add up, and MLB Power Pros has a seemingly never-ending slew of little things.

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