In Derek Jeter Real Baseball one of the Iphone’s hottest hitters takes a swing at simulating baseball  on the I device with one of their signature franchises.  Gameloft, in the mist of an MVP season, is no rookie to mobile baseball as they’ve been putting out versions of Derek Jeter in java for years so it’s assumed they know baseball.

  

The atmosphere is excellent as you take the mound in one of two nice looking stadiums.  The pitching mechanics are good but somewhat lengthy as it involves 4 steps.  First you choose the type of pitch from a virtual d-pad.  Second, you choose location by tilting then touching as the ball moves around the strike zone.  Third is the left timing meter for power and fourth is the right meter for accuracy.  The ball movement is very nice with curves and speed variations making it great fun to strike out a hitter with a well-placed slow curve.  In fact, all the pitching and hitting graphics and animations are well done and immersive making DJ the best pitching simulator available.  There are four difficulty levels up to the tough-hitting Legends.  Unfortunately, it’s after the ball is hit that Derek Jeter stumbles out of the batters box.

   
Batting is a simple hit-or-miss touch screen affair with very little control unlike Baseball Slugger Home Run 3D where you can align your bat by tilting.  In DJ all you control is the timing of your swing.  This timing doesn’t feel as good as BS3D but it is a much more complete game.  There were times when the touch didn’t work at all and I’d take a called strike.  You do have the ability to bunt and steal bases.

After the ball is hit the game is simplified as there is no ability to control your players or field the ball.  Since there’s no way to speed up your player, line shots into the outfield become a waiting game as outfielders chase a bulls eye and there’s no positioning of your outfielders beforhand.  You can only choose which base to throw to and since every player has a canon  arm  runners regularly get thrown out at first on singles to right, a rather rare occurrence in “real” baseball.  There’s no tags on close plays around the bags so many plays which aren’t force outs are called out with the throw simply beating the runner.  Overall, the on-field game feels shallow when compared to the pitching.

  

For every positive there seems to be a negative.  As your pitcher gets tired the accuracy meter moves faster making it harder to be accurate but there’s no option to bring in a reliever. The sound is good but the commentary is weak and generic as you can only listen to “The outfield gets set for this hitter” so many times. There are some in-game cinematics but they quickly grow tiresome, although I did enjoy the batter’s reactions to strike outs.  There’s also a replay function but no different camera views so you basically replay what you've just seen.  You can play a quick game, playoff , season or home run derby and adjust the number of innings or games but there is no MLB licensing besides Derek Jeter.

Real Baseball just misses the strike zone.  While the pitching is nice, the on-field play and several other missteps prevents Derek Jeter Real Baseball from throwing a complete game. Accordingly, Gameloft has priced RB $2 less than their premium titles and I give it 3.5 stars.



Reviewed by goyami@comcast.net