The Bigs Review: Arcade Baseball That Knows What It Is

The Bigs came to North America in June 2007 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Wii and PlayStation Portable. A Wii-only release followed in the PAL region that October. The arcade baseball game put Albert Pujols on the cover.

Albert Pujols and the Turbo Button

The St. Louis Cardinals first baseman fronts the box. Minnesota Twins first baseman and former MVP Justin Morneau got his own cover on a limited Canadian edition sold only through Future Shop and Best Buy. Radio host Damon Bruce calls the play-by-play.

That cover lineup tells you the pitch: real players, unreal baseball. The game’s described gameplay leans on “outrageous visuals and intuitive gameplay mechanics,” favoring stylistic design over realistic play. Power-ups and turbo are the core, and the game carries a “street” feel.

Online play supports up to four players on most seventh-generation consoles. The Wii version does not support it.

Dan Brady on the Slugfest Comparison

When the first trailer landed, the game looked a lot like Midway’s MLB Slugfest series. Producer Dan Brady addressed it in an IGN interview.

“the Slugfest design team made a lot of choices that really made it difficult for a fan of baseball to take the game seriously,” Brady said. “Punching on the base path was just one of many of those decisions. The Bigs is authentic baseball taken to arcade proportions.”

That is the right defense, and it mostly holds. The arcade excess stays.

Here is what matters most about The Bigs, ranked:

1. The turbo and power-up system, which gives every at-bat a burst of tension.
2. The four-player online play, which the Wii release cannot host at all.
3. The Pujols cover and Damon Bruce’s commentary, which sell the broadcast fantasy.

Where The Bigs Lands

The Bigs is a good arcade baseball game that knows exactly what it is. The Brady quote is the whole design brief: take the sport seriously, take the rules less so. It works because the turbo system rewards timing rather than patience, and because four-player online gives the arcade chaos somewhere to go.

The Wii version is the weak link, and not because of motion controls — because it cuts online play entirely. A game built on four-player mayhem should not ship a version that cannot host it.

A sequel, The Bigs 2, followed on July 7, 2009. The original still holds up as the cleaner statement of the idea.

The score is 7.3/10, an IGDB critic aggregate drawing on 5 outlets.

Albert Pujols · arcade baseball · MLB Slugfest · The Bigs · The Bigs 2 · Wii